One of the biggest challenges women face is learning how to care for themselves while caring for others. It requires a delicate balance between what often feels like polar opposites. I’ve spent a lifetime studying self-care. And I’ve come to the conclusion that good self-care is the single most important aspect of our health— period.
On the other hand, the programming of self-sacrifice ultimately leads to health-destroying sentiments such as guilt, resentment, anger, and other emotions linked to high levels of stress hormones. Self-sacrifice feels wrong to us on a soul level because our spirit gravitates naturally toward joy and happiness.
That’s why self-sacrifice ultimately makes us sick and keeps us stuck in dead-end situations—and why self-care is so essential to living a happy, healthy life. How well we care for ourselves is determined, in part, by how well our mothers cared for us (and themselves). Ultimately, however, it’s our responsibility to learn how to optimally care for ourselves regardless of what happened (or didn’t) with our mothers. We refine this process throughout our entire lives.
The key is knowing in your heart that the best way you can care for others is by caring for yourself. I know this requires a paradigm shift for many of you!
Despite what you’ve been brought up to believe, caring for oneself is not an example of a zero sum model where your gain is someone else’s loss.
Everyone benefits from a woman who knows how to care for herself. Self-care sustains and enhances the health of all those around you. That’s why flight attendants tell you to secure your own oxygen mask before assisting others.
9 Easy Ways to Enhance Your Health Through Self-Care
When women think of self-care, they often think it will be expensive—like you have to go get a massage or a facial. But really there are many ways to take care of yourself—body, mind, and spirit—using just what you have readily at your disposal.
Here are some of my tips for making self-care a part of your daily health:
1. Tap into healing energy regularly. Your body is connected to a healing stream of energy (also known as chi, prana, light, Source, and God) that you can absorb at will. All you need to do is be aware of it and be open to receive it! This is the basis for the healing power of prayer. One prayer service I like is Silent Unity. Silent Unity has volunteers who will pray with you and then pray continuously for 30 days. You simply tell the volunteer your concerns and they will pray with you.
Another particularly powerful way to absorb this healing energy is through Divine Love Petitions as taught by Robert Fritchie, founder of The World Service Institute. Divine Love is the most powerful energy in the universe. You receive it into your body through your thymus gland, located just below your sternum. To learn how to do a Divine Love petition go to The World Service Institute website. This practice has been associated with many well-documented physical and emotional healings that conventional medicine cannot explain.
2. Become your own best mother. Treat yourself the way your ideal mother would. Talk to yourself in a nurturing way. Provide for yourself that which you wish you had received from your own mother. For example, say to yourself, “Darling, I see that you’re tired. Why don’t you lie down and take a nice nap. When you get up, we’ll have a nice cup of hot tea” or “I see that you need a break. How about a nice hot bath and a good book.” You get the picture.
3. Do something pleasurable every day. Taking time for pleasure and fun decreases the stress hormones cortisol and adrenalin, which over time, are responsible for heart disease, cancer, and most chronic diseases such as arthritis and high blood pressure. Plus when you take time for enjoyment, you’ll be able to approach arduous tasks with more energy and a better outlook.
4. Breathe. Breathing in fully through your nose instantly engages the rest and restore parasympathetic nervous system and helps the body metabolize stress hormones. Put Post-it notes on your phone, your computer, and your bathroom mirror. Write BREATHE in beautiful letters to remind yourself to breathe fully.
5. Get support. Find a self-care buddy and agree that each of you will hold the other accountable for taking care of herself. Start with my suggestions and add your own ideas. Brag to each other about how well you’re doing and especially how well you are caring for yourself. Plan to call your friend whenever you start to slip into over-care of others.
6. Just say “no.” When someone asks you to do something you don’t really want to do, say “no.” Saying “no” to something you don’t want to do is saying “yes” to yourself! If saying “no” makes you feel guilty or unworthy this usually means you’re letting the needs of others overshadow your own. Only you know how much you can handle without over-committing. Over time, you’ll strengthen your “no” muscle and also attract friends who support your need to set healthy boundaries.
7. Don’t ask for permission. No one is going to give you permission to take care of yourself, although we often desperately want someone to do so! I remember being on call in the hospital watching the nurses give each other breaks. I yearned for one of my colleagues to give me permission to take a break after being up all night. But no one did because the culture of medicine (particularly a surgical specialty) is so macho. I ended up with a huge breast abscess that dissected into my chest wall while I was trying to nurse my first daughter and work full-time. I learned a huge lesson about self-care because I destroyed my ability to nurse my second child from both breasts!
8. Prepare to be called “selfish.” When you start taking better care of yourself, people may accuse you of being selfish. If this happens, celebrate! Then call your self-care buddy to brag about it! After all, taking care of yourself is prevention at the most fundamental level. If you find yourself constantly saying you don’t have time to care for yourself, then ask yourself whether you time to be sick, or if dying prematurely is the best way to take care of your loved ones.
9. Treat your body as a temple. Your body houses your soul. It’s your job to take care of your body until you leave it—the same way you take care of your house or your car. This is your responsibility. It doesn’t belong to your doctor, your spouse, or your mother. It’s that simple. We are beings of light. Our bodies are the densest, darkest matter. When you see your body as a temple for your soul and treat it with love, and kindness and respect, you are bringing light into the darkest area.
5 More Ways to Improve Your Level of Self-Care
1. Change your beliefs. Optimal care of your body begins with your beliefs. Every thought you think is accompanied by biochemical signals that move throughout your body. Serotonin, dopamine, and epinephrine are neurotransmitters that affect all areas of your body, and their production is based on what you think and feel. Stressful thoughts filled with anger, fear, or sadness increase stress-hormone levels in your body, which ultimately leads to cellular inflammation—the root cause of osteoporosis, depression, diabetes, heart disease, arthritis, and cancer. But this isn’t the only way your thoughts affect your health. They can literally determine which genes get expressed! It’s important to know and believe that your body was designed for health, vitality, and well-being for your entire life. Cultivate a healthy belief system about what’s possible physically—especially as you move through time. And engage in the physical activities necessary to maintain your physical self.
2. Treat yourself like a precious child. Self-care is something that our society does not reward us for. In fact, it is often looked down on when someone, especially a woman, takes care of herself. I was reminded of once when I was watching my granddaughter, Penelope. I was cleaning up the living room and realized that she was hungry. Of course I stopped to take care of her. I would never starve my granddaughter. Yet, I have certainly done this to myself! Learning to treat ourselves the way we would a precious child connects us with our Divinity. You can practice this by doing simple things such as using the rest room when you have the urge, or eating when you are hungry and stopping when you are full. It also helps to set out a meal for yourself on a plate and actually sit down and enjoy it instead eating on the run or standing at the kitchen counter.
3. Make gravity work for you. Sitting for more than 6 hours a day increases your risk of disease including heart attack, stroke, diabetes, obesity, and cancer. In fact, even if you exercise regularly, prolonged sitting cancels out a lot of the good effects. Standing all day is not the answer. The answer is moving your body through the gravitational field of the earth. Every time you move your body through gravity your body goes through thousands of minute physiologic changes in blood pressure, fluid exchange, hormone secretion, and stresses on bones and joints that help ensure health. So, if you sit at a desk, get up at least 6 times per hour. But if you can, it’s always best to add in something more such as stretching, knee bends or even squats. And remember, since the soul knows no timeline, it’s never too late to try some activity you have always wanted to do—dance, ride horses, ski, hike— whatever will keep you moving.
4. Take Care of Your Fascia. Fascia is the connective tissue that runs throughout your body. It connects skin to muscle and muscle to bone and every organ in the body. Our fascial network is a secondary nervous system. It can become dense, scarred, and thickened as a result of physical, emotional, or mental stress. Working your fascia regularly through body work, resistance flexibility, yoga, and other exercises can help you release old patterns that are stored there.
5. Feel Your Human Emotions. Being a spiritual being on a human journey requires that we feel human emotions. But with spiritual practices becoming very popular, so too is the practice of taking a “spiritual bypass” to avoid dealing with painful feelings, unresolved wounds and developmental needs. A spiritual bypass looks something like this: “It’s all good.” “Everything happens for a reason.” “Spiritual people don’t cry or have negative feelings.” “If you feel sad, you’re not spiritual enough.” While this may seem better than using alcohol or drugs, it has the same effect. Being a human being on a spiritual path requires that you are present in each moment for all of your feelings without letting those feelings define you. Now, this does not mean that you want to stay in a perpetual state of anger, victimhood, grief or sadness. These emotions lower your vibration. It simply means you allow your emotions to surface and embrace them fully without judgment, and then allow full expression of those emotions safely. That is the only way to deal with them successfully. Your soul actually learns from this process of deep awareness and release.
Doctor’s Orders: Prescription for Self-Care
When all else fails and you are having difficulty taking time to care for yourself, imagine that you have a prescription in front of you with your name, a doctor’s signature, and the following words on it:
• Rest when you are tired.
• Go the bathroom when you have to go.
• Do something that is fun and pleasurable every day.
• Breathe deeply and fully.
• Enjoy your life.
• Absorb the healing stream that comes from God.
• Remember that you are meant to live your life fully and joyfully.
• Mother yourself well.
Taking care of yourself regularly takes courage in our society. Far too many women get sick because it’s the only socially acceptable way to get the self-care they require.
What are you doing to take care of yourself regularly?
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