The common definition of Self Care is: Any necessary human regulatory function which is under individual control, deliberate and self-initiated.
In my career as a natural health professional and holistic lifestyle coach, I have had the privilege of working with a significant number of people and came to the conclusion that self care typically falls into the following 4 categories:
- Physical Self-Care
- Emotional Self-Care
- Intellectual Self-Care
- Spiritual Self-Care
As we go through the 7 Pillars of Holistic Self-Care in this upcoming blog series, we will be touching on each of these areas and getting clear on how we can improve our self-care skills in ways that allow us to be happy, healthy and well.
The first Pillar of Holistic Self-Care is Self-Awareness.
Self awareness represents us being in touch with how we feel about ourselves, others and our life and getting clear on what we need to be happy, healthy and generally well.
This pillar also invites us to expand our awareness to include our noticing and recognizing the greatest possibilities that exist for our lives and our world.
I’d like to share a bit about this from my own experience.
In my life I had both really good times and really bad times and although I never had the experience of being consistently happy, I managed to find ways to cover up my unhappiness with experiences that would pull me out of the unhappiness and give me the sense that I am truly enjoying my life.
I used to love any and every activity that gave me an adrenaline rush. I loved downhill skiing, snowboarding, bungee jumping, white water rafting, traveling to far away places, emotionally charged relationships, tight and almost impossible to meet deadlines and other activities that had the capacity to pull me out of the experience of fear, anxiety and depression that I was feeling on the inside.
It wasn’t until I had a major health breakdown that I realized how deeply unaware I was of what I truly needed to maintain a consistent state of deep joy and wellbeing. When I no longer could cover up or deny my true inner experience of unhappiness by distracting myself with plenty of activity, I began focusing my attention on discovering what I truly needed.
I realized that although it was pretty popular in my community to work or party into the late hours of the night, I actually needed to get a lot of restful sleep.I also needed to eat food that worked for my unique body chemistry as well as take more time to rest, relax and do something playful and creative each and every day.I needed deeper and more philosophy based conversations with my friends and loved ones and less drama, complaining and discontent based conversations with people in my life. I needed to be less in my mind and experience my life through being fully grounded in my body.
I needed to learn to set boundaries with people who chose to not respect my personal space and learn how to make powerful requests to assure that my needs are met and honoured.
I also needed to learn to express my feelings and needs in a way that would help people make their way into my world and connect with the real me.
Most of all though, I needed to follow my heart and allow myself to reach my full self actualization potential.
We become self aware when we engage in a practice of daily self reflection and the exploration of our inner realms. We might do this though meditation, scanning of our physical body for possible signs of tension and becoming curious about what lies underneath these tensions, having an inner conversation with the different parts of ourselves, doing personal growth work and/or working with a qualified professional who can lead us to discover parts of ourselves that we didn’t even know existed.
This is the act of taking time to go within and getting lovingly in touch with our feelings, our needs, our great life vision and purpose, our unique point of view and our understanding of life. This is where we get to witness who we are and notice if our actions and belief system is in alignment with who we know ourselves to be at our core and who we aspire to become.
Here we also connect with the energy that has never entered the stream of time and where all the answers to our most burning questions reside, the energy of the Greater Field of Life.
We must take time to connect with our body’s sensations and stay open and receptive to the messages that our body is giving us about what it might need to restore itself back to harmony. We might choose to meditate, go for a walk, journal or create an art piece that helps us connect with the deeper levels of our being.
People report that by practicing self reflection on a consistent basis, they develop a deeper, more consistent and more loving relationship with themselves. This in turn leaves them feeling safe and secure in the knowing that by being aware of what they feel and need, they can then act powerfully on their own behalf and support themselves in the way that matters to them most.
What tends to work best for me to stay aware of myself in each moment is asking myself these three questions:
- What am I feeling right now?
- Am I feeling happy? Angry? Sad? Frustrated? Excited? Confused? Scared? Hopeful?Jealous? Confident?
- What is making me feel this way?
- Am I doing what I believe is right for me to do? Is someone stepping over my boundaries? Is something stopping me from accomplishing what I want to accomplish? Is something endangering my safety? Am I telling myself a story about myself, others or what is possible for me in my life that is based on false perceptions?
- What do I need right now?
- Do I need to recognize and celebrate my accomplishments? Do I need reassurance? Do I need to speak up and express my expectations of how I would like to be treated by the people in my life? Do I need more information to be able to make a better decision? Do I need a hug and have someone tell me that everything is going to be ok?
If this process works for you too, please feel free to use it.
Now, I invite you to ask yourself the following questions:
- What do you believe is truly possible for you in your life, relationships, career, calling, spirituality, finances, health and anything else you might value?
- If you had it ALL YOUR WAY, what would your life look and feel like?
- What do you need to be able to have the kind of a life experience that you most deeply desire to have?
Thank you for being here and sharing in this experience with me. In our next blog post we will talk about the second pillar of Holistic Self-Care, which is Healthy Mindset.
Until then, much love and many blessings,
Julia