I enjoy reading literature, and social media feeds about self-care. It's a total win as a subject and a beautiful positive new subject in the media. I want to learn a lot more about self-care and self-love!
It is the new barometer of how balanced we are currently in our lives. How well we look after our body and ourselves. Few of us are conscious of our physical and spiritual needs and how to meet them.
Self-care is Self-love. Just imagine the immense love you feel for your partner, your favourite relative or your child and calibrate that for a few seconds in your body. Add a pinch of gratitude to it. And think of your ideal location. It feels nice, right?
Now imagine you give yourself that exact love, gift it to you, feel it in your body. Is that an entirely new thought? Yes? Then, please do this more often because you are allowing yourself, love, the most crucial element in your life to contribute to the welfare of others. Period.Self-love is not selfish.
Self-love is how you take your power back.
Depending on your personality, your needs for self-care differ. Utterly and completely.
If you are an introvert, you need alone time. If you are an empath (highly intuitive towards others feelings and likely to take on energy/ feelings from others) you need time away from people and being non-relational, not having to talk to people. Nancy Levin is a prominent figure in the media, and writes, "My system does not recharge when it needs to be relational. Time alone today is medicine for my heart and my soul."
My extrovert friends love to do self-care by taking time out of their business and everyday life and doing action based things like play tennis or going out as a group. They love being in bigger crowds of people, talking, exchanging ideas with others and doing something new. Isn't it funny how different our needs are?
Over the last six months, I have used Doterra essential oils in my daily life, in the diffuser and directly on my skin. I love them and have become a Wellness Advocate for them; my favourite oil blend is "peace", "balance" and "grapefruit." Let me know if you want to try a sample, and I will send you one.
I have a great support team with my VA Janine Henwood from VA Celebrity Virtual Services who helps me in my business which allows me to have time to do other things, and I collaborate weekly with Brigitte van Zaal, the up and coming Love and Wealth coach. Brigitte recommends drinking a cup of tea or coffee entirely undisturbed, no phone, no distractions. It is so therapeutic, I do that quite often. Devouring, savouring the delicious taste.
In my own life, I have learnt to schedule self-care often. I have biweekly massages to care for my shoulders, and I spend a lot of time alone, with my dogs or in nature. I love listening to music and daydreaming.
It is in moments of self-care that I have my most significant aha moments. If I don't schedule self-care in, how on earth could the aha moments even get to me? I would block them.
I am growing my coaching business into one where I don't achieve by hustling or fitting in enormous numbers of coaching sessions or calls. That would exhaust me very quickly. I design my brand for women in midlife around serving thousands of women by doing Facebook Lives, YouTube videos and offering online courses. They are self-automated ways where people can get the resources they need and which serve and inspire them. I keep the number of 1:1 contact not high, so I retain energy to help others and stay healthy. I have learnt from previous exhaustion around looking after my children that I need to meet my needs.
Now, is this a subject that interests you? Louise Hay is probably the number 1 self-care and self-love author who has set the bar high in written literature and videos. What a legacy this fantastic lady has left for us!
Deepak Chopra practices yoga daily to keep his body and mind healthy and Arianna Huffington, co-founder of Huffington Post, describes in her book "Thrive" how we need to honour our health and learn from burn out episodes.
What is your favourite way of making self-care real - going for a walk, listening to music, dancing in the kitchen, having a nap when you need one, having a massage, doing sport, sewing, writing poetry, cooking, travelling or reading? Let us know!
As I write this, I feel immense gratitude for my life today. I am blogging from my snuggly Victorian cottage, and I can hear the birds sing outside on this sunny day. My son returns later from the train station from a six week trip to Africa, and I'm going on a Facebook Live with my fabulous new material before I fetch my daughter from a friend's house. Maybe we will pop by her favourite café to have a hot chocolate, she likes that.
Allow yourself some self-care and plenty of self-love. You have no idea how much you will light up the world around you when you do! Siska x