Self-Help Stop

Self-care can be scary. Dr Sharon Fieldstone (Ted Lasso)

There are many differing views on what self-care is. First and foremost, it is a commitment to your own well-being. It’s like practicing a musical instrument until you play beautifully. You don’t stop there but continue to build skills through practice. A self-care practice is what you do so that you can learn to live your best life.

A solid self-care practice includes multiple levels of support. I call these basic, advanced, and adaptive. Basic includes the things you strive to do every day for maintenance. This includes everything from brushing your teeth to engaging in enjoyable and meaningful activities. Advanced self-care includes things such as enjoying a spa day, going for long hikes or bike rides, and taking vacations – things that require extra time and money and not usually done on a daily basis. Adaptive is for the difficult days when you are sick, grieving, or experiencing a flare up of a chronic condition or mental illness and your basic care is incredibly difficult or impossible. Not only do these types of care look very different from each other, they are different from person to person.

Self-care is not only important to our well-being, it is foundational to managing planned and unplanned change. Whether you are trying to change unsustainable habits, a job, move or dealing with a sudden loss, emotions will arise like a storm and take you off course. Having an established self-care plan will allow you to navigate feelings and shifts with more clarity, calm, and confidence. Change is difficult. It sucks at times. And it requires a lot of energy and perseverance. Self-care makes all of that easier and less messy. Cultivating a strong self-care practice is essential to living and changing.

Following are three tips for starting a self-care routine.

Start Small

When starting a self-care practice, it is best to start small. Pick one thing to work on at a time because any change we make involves a lot of additional changes. When I decided to eat healthier, I quickly realized that this small change would require several steps.

1. I needed to plan meals for the week in advance.
2. I appreciate tasty food, so I would search for recipes and pin them.
3. Making a shopping list would help me purchase everything needed.
4. I wanted to cook easy/quick things on weekdays.
5. It would be helpful to cook extra food on weekends.

I thought it was a nice, straightforward plan. Things I didn’t consider that I had to accommodate because hunger and irritability sometimes led to off-plan eating:

• Some things I can prepare in 30 minutes or less. Other recipes take a couple of hours.
• Fresh produce doesn’t stay fresh so I needed to shop twice a week.
• Scheduling shopping and cooking on the calendar would ensure it got done.

While I was working through these steps, I found that a lot of thoughts and feelings came up that I sometimes allowed to sabotage my progress. A lot of it stemmed from being outside my comfort zone. I wanted to spend time doing other things than grocery shopping or cooking. I wanted to eat chocolate, cheese, and lots of pasta and bread. Other times I was tired or upset about something. This is just life, but I beat myself up for giving in to those feelings which just made it worse. I recalled the negative things some family members said to me when I was growing up. Things that I still sometimes say to myself. So, I had to work on those hurtful beliefs. I had to notice when I thought them and replace them with something more life-affirming (over and over again).

From my story you can see why it is so difficult to change. People often give up once they realize all that is involved in one small shift. It is quite beneficial to know in advance what you are taking on. It takes time to adjust to transformation – both the internal and external – while paying attention to thoughts, emotions and physical sensations in order not to fall back into old habits. There is an acronym used in 12-step programs that may help: HALT. It means not to get too Hungry, Angry, Lonely, or Tired. When you notice upset, you can stop and do something about those feelings rather than falling into old unwanted habits.

This is pretty much what you need to do for any change. Start with a plan, make adjustments, modify thoughts, beliefs, and behaviors. Stay diligent.

Experiment

We’ve all heard the saying (many, many times) that life is a journey. Perhaps it is so overused because it’s perfectly true and we can all use the reminder from time to time. Rather than focusing on where we are going, we should put our attention on the present.

All we have is the present. This is when and where we live and the place where we have power to make changes. As you’re trying to build a self-care practice, it is important to focus on what you can do in this moment. Does it feel good? Does it feel right? Is it getting you closer to your goals? If not, try something else. Be creative. Experiment with new things. Be present to all the opportunities that exist only if you’re paying attention. Have fun with it.

This is your life. It’s too short to waste time on things that don’t make you feel great. It’s too short to waste hoping you’ll feel better one day. Enjoy your life now. Enjoy the journey by embracing change, looking at it as an opportunity, and committing to your well-being.

Manage Your Expectations

Change takes time. It’s messy. It doesn’t always feel good. If you expect the unexpected, it will be easier to manage the emotions of change, to be flexible, and to adjust to what happens. Part of this is not being attached to one particular outcome.

When I started eating healthier, I thought I would feel better immediately. I believed I would lose weight. I imagined that I would love cooking and begin spending a lot more time in the kitchen. I fantasized about cooking delicious healthy meals for friends and family. The reality was quite different. I went through a period of detox where my body was finally able to clear out the unhealthy chemicals and additives that were in the processed food I had been eating. I didn’t lose weight although I did feel better over time. I spent time looking for quick and easy recipes and purchased an instapot and air fryer. And I did not host anymore dinners than before.

Hopefully you won’t get as carried away as I did! I laugh about it now, but it was a rough time. Or, I should say, an opportunity to work on my lack of patience and self-compassion. I realized that life and the universe doesn’t always give us what we work toward. Sometimes it better. Other times it’s a lesson we need (still) to learn. There is no guarantee that we will arrive at the expected destination in the time we allot for it. Life is full of uncertainty and the unexpected can happen even in the midst of intentional change. Try to let go of all that go and enjoy what you are doing and experiencing in the present. The journey will be a lot more pleasant and exciting if you do.

The Bottom Line

Developing a strong self-care practice is the first step to weathering and navigating all of life’s changes. Before we can achieve goals or manage the unexpected, we have to foster well-being on all levels through self-care. It’s also part of cultivating our happiness. Remember to be patient with yourself. If something doesn’t work for you, try something else. Have fun trying new things. Life is about the journey and change is a big part of that. Change, like death and taxes, is a certainty. So learning to enjoy experimenting, being flexible, and adaptable will build resilience and will help you be better at change, no matter what it is.