What is Self-Care?

Happy International Self Care Day! Everyone seems to be under so much more stress these days, or at least they believe they are. This has brought the concept of self-care out into the spotlight and made it a major buzzword. There are entire communities built around it. It is a booming market for many retailers, with whole stores built upon the idea of self-care. There are many voices extolling the virtues of self-care, and a quick scroll through any social media can show you many examples of people doing various things in the name of self-care. But what is it, really? Read on to learn more about it!

Why is Self-Care Important?

Self-care is the concept of taking care of yourself, in order to have the strength, energy, and motivation to take care of others. Any flight attendant could tell you that it's important to take care of yourself first before taking care of those that depend on you. If you burn out, how will you be able to take care of anyone else? As a Mother, it's easy to overlook your own needs while attending to those of your family, but when you have tiny lives depending on you, you have to be sure you keep enough fuel in your tank to keep going. 

What is Self-Care NOT?

It is not finding excuses to avoid responsibility. It is not drinking a bottle of wine for breakfast because you're overwhelmed by constantly being needed in today's shut-in lifestyle world. It is not sleeping halfway through the day because you stayed up all night playing video games or binge-watching a new show. It is not spending everything in your savings account on bath and beauty products. These things are called excuses, rationalizations, laziness, and in some cases even addiction. Indulging yourself a little once in a while is fine. Finding a "reason" to do it every day is not. Engaging in unhealthy, unwise, and at times unsafe behavior is NOT taking care of yourself, and it does NOT fill up your tank.

How Can You Practice REAL Self-Care?

Keep yourself healthy -- inside and out. Eat well. Participate in healthy activities that keep your brain and body moving. Set up a routine that fits your needs and schedule. Take regular, short breaks from anything you do that takes a long time. Have someone to talk to when you need to vent. Don't hold it all in.

Be kind to yourself. Forgive yourself for mistakes while also learning from them and using them to make better plans in the future. Don't wallow in sadness or guilt for things that haven't gone the way you had hoped. 

Hold yourself accountable. If you make a commitment, don't allow yourself to make excuses for skipping out on them. Make plans with friends, family, and/or coworkers and keep them. Set goals for yourself and keep yourself on the path to achieving them. 

Set healthy boundaries. If there is someone in your life that is asking too much of you, it's okay to tell them no. That includes your Partner and your Children. You can't pour from an empty cup, so make sure not to pour all of yours out into someone else's.

Ask for help. If something is too much for you, or you've otherwise found yourself with a heavier metaphorical load than you can safely carry on your own, stop. Set it all down. Take a moment and think about the many things you are carrying. Do YOU need to be the one carrying all of them? Is there something that you can relinquish a little bit of control over in order to allow someone else to help you with it? Find ways that you can stop doing everything yourself and get help from others.

Seek professional advice. If you feel that you are struggling and nothing you've tried seems to be helping, don't hesitate to hire a professional to help you. This could be a life coach, therapist, fitness guru, doctor, yoga instructor, naturopath, or even just a professional cuddler (yes, it's a real thing!). You may even be lucky enough to know someone who could be your mentor without requiring payment. My first mentor was my school librarian in elementary school, whom I lived next door to for a time and spent many afternoons with. My second one was the leader of my local birth network; she took me under her wing and shared all kinds of life wisdom with me until she, sadly, moved across the country and we stopped connecting as often. My third, I hired; she runs a business empire on helping people get motivated to get doing. All of them have had a profound impact on my life and helped to shape who I am today as a person. I would not be where I am today without any of them. There is no shame in admitting you don't know how to help yourself and asking someone else to guide you to find your own answers.

Where Can You Get More Inspiration on Ways to Practice Self-care?

You can search #selfcare on your favorite social media platform or just search the internet for self care ideas. Lately, I've been enjoying posts from Hamilton CAS, Power of Positivity, The Holistic Psychologist, and The Unruly Woman. 

For free resources when you need someone to talk to, you can dial 211 for the United Way (within the US), which can connect you with local free or low-cost mental health resources or even just for someone to listen to you. 

If you or someone you know show signs of suicidal thoughts, please contact the National Suicide Hotline at 1-800-273-TALK (8255) from within the US, or visit their website. Even if you don't feel that you are at immediate risk of suicide, they can also help connect you to local free or low-cost mental health resources. 

Pregnancy is Sacred

Photo by Letícia Pelissari on Unsplash

I'll say it again -- Pregnancy is sacred.

It occurs to me that, even in the community of Birth geeks that I inhabit, we all too often focus solely on the Birth and not enough on the Pregnancy. We focus on the Pregnancy sometimes, sure; we focus on how to get through it. We focus on how to attain it. We focus on how to get it over with. We focus on how big our bellies get. We focus on how many weeks we are. We focus on how much pain we're in. We focus on how hard it is to make our clothes fit.

We should focus on how amazing it is that we are creating an actual life. A tiny Person that someday will be grown. Someone with a future, hopes, and dreams of their own. A new generation that will shape the future of the entire world. And WE are doing that! WE are creating it! Our bodies are so immensely POWERFUL! These human beings we are growing inside of us are the future. And the kind of Mothers we are determine what kind of future that will be. Not entirely, of course. Everything else in their lives will help to shape the kind of People they become, but we are laying the foundation for that!

We should be celebrated! We should be treated as the incredible beings we are. We are in the process of an immensely difficult task. It drains our energy, our nutrients, our bones, even our brains at times. We are strong, capable, independent, fierce! But we also deserve to not have to be all the time. We deserve to be able to lie back and let our walls down and let someone else take care of us for a moment. Because, in the grand scheme of things, Pregnancy is but a moment. We deserve to enjoy it. We deserve to feel loved and valued and even occasionally pampered. Yes, seeing our beautiful Babies' faces at the end is all the reward we could ask for. But just because we don't ask for it doesn't mean we don't deserve it.

Do me a favor. The next time you see a Pregnant Woman, thank her. Just tell her "thank you for giving your body to create another". Thank her for creating the future. Let her know that she is appreciated, and she is gorgeous. And there is nothing more valuable than that.

It's Okay to Not Always Be Happy

Photo by Yuris Alhumaydy on Unsplash

I've always felt born to be a Mom. I mothered all my friends. I mothered my Mother from the age of 3. I mothered my Husband from the moment we moved in together. But becoming an actual Mother, a tiny Life depending on you for every single thing,  24/7, after two and a half decades of only being a Mother to my friends when they needed guidance, not wiping their butts or putting food in their mouths... that was a huge change!

I watched my Husband go to work every day, come home and play video games, eat all the unhealthy crap he wanted, snore his head off and sleep without waking. I watched my friends go about their daily lives, as if nothing had changed. Because for all of them, it hadn't. But for me?

My entire life was completely upside down. I had this tiny thing attached to me. I was responsible for every aspect of its life. I had to focus all of my time and attention on it. I had to respond to its every noise and movement. I couldn't play video games all day. I couldn't go anywhere I wanted anytime I wanted. I couldn't just slip on my shoes and go for a run. I couldn't roll over and go back to sleep until 4 in the afternoon if I still felt tired when I woke up. I couldn't binge on brownies and cake all day if I wanted to. My life was all about this little being that was and always will be a part of me. She was now my entire world. I couldn't do anything without thinking about how it would affect her.

I was happy to do it, it was what I had wanted, longed for, ached for, for so many years. But there were definitely times when I questioned if had made a mistake. If I was crazy for wanting this. If I was good enough. If I could handle it.

I still have those thoughts sometimes, nearly 4 years later and pregnant with our second. They're normal. It doesn't matter what it is, when you make a drastic change in your life, you're going to have moments of doubt, of regret, of despair, especially when it gets hard. And even when it's easy, you can still miss the way things were before at times. But when it comes down to it, I absolutely would not go back and not become a Mother if I had the chance. That doesn't mean I don't have moments I question whether that's true. We all fantasize about things being different than they are at times. And that's okay. It doesn't make you any less of a Mother. It doesn't make you wrong or crazy. It makes you Human.

So go ahead, cry. Cry and scream and make plans to run away. Think out the details, think about the greasy diner you'll work double shifts in, in some tiny,  backwater little town where no one knows you. Think about how you'll go to night school and get a law degree and become a rich, successful lawyer, all on your own. Think about all of that and more.

Then, after you've had your fill of fantasy,  come back to reality. Think about getting through the day without having to change your spit-up covered shirt more than three times. Think about how, tomorrow, Baby might take her first step. Think about next weekend, when your Husband surprises you by changing a diaper without being asked. Think about 10 years from now, when your Child surprises you by doing something you didn't think a 10 year old could do. Think about seeing your Child driving for the first time, getting married, having her own Children. Think about her calling you in the middle of the night, crying because she is having all of the same thoughts that you are having right now. Think about telling her that she's okay. Think about telling her that it's normal.  Think about how you will tell her that you thought and felt it all yourself, and you got through it. Think about how you will tell her how much you love her,  and how you wouldn't change any of it for the world.

Being a Mom is hard, even when it's easy. There is no job in this world that is more difficult or rewarding. So be happy when you can. And let yourself be miserable without feeling guilty about it when you need to. It's okay. I promise.

For free resources when you need someone to talk to, you can dial 211 for the United Way (within the US), which can connect you with local free or low-cost mental health resources or even just for someone to listen to you. 

If you or someone you know show signs of suicidal thoughts, please contact the National Suicide Hotline at 1-800-273-TALK (8255) from within the US, or visit their website. Even if you don't feel that you are at immediate risk of suicide, they can also help connect you to local free or low-cost mental health resources.