The Importance of Self Care

by Gail Allen

“Self-care” is the buzz phrase that we seem to all be hearing a lot of these days! What does it mean to you? What feelings does it bring up when you hear it? For many of us, especially women, I know we scoff. Our grandmothers and mothers didn’t need “self-care”, why should we??  And how selfish does it make us if we’re focused on ourselves instead of our children and/or significant others? ​

I want to challenge all of us, starting with myself, to heed the advice of airlines everywhere to adjust our own oxygen masks before trying to secure someone else’s.  Because, of course, if we run out of oxygen, nobody survives.

We live in a faster paced world than ever before, and every day, we seem to add more tasks to our lives. Gone is the forty-hour work week (do you really know anyone who ONLY works forty hours?? Especially from home!).  And while there certainly are still people who choose to remain solely stay-at-home partners, the number is smaller than before. Add to that house work, volunteer work, child care, play dates, and caring for loved ones—just to name a few—and we hardly have time to breathe! It’s hard to prioritize ourselves enough to carve out time to do self-care and then harder still to plan for it in our budgets.

I get it.  I really do.  But I need it.  You need it.  We ALL. NEED. IT!

So whatever makes you feel loved and cared for—by YOU for YOU! - I hope we will all try to make the last half of 2021 a better year by doing at least one self-care activity per week. How can we hope to accomplish everything we’re supposed to accomplish if we’re always exhausted? How else can we expect to live our best lives now if we aren’t taking the best care of ourselves that we can?  Will 2022 you be grateful for the 2021 you?  Let’s make that a reality!

+  Take a Nap

+  Give yourself a 10 minute Time Out

+  Go for a walk around the block

+  Shut off your phone for the afternoon

+  Listen to a guided meditation

+  Call a friend you haven't spoken to in a long time

+  Open a book and read a chapter

+  Do some stretching

+  Grad some crayons and draw

+  Take a warm bath with epsom salts

+  Look through an old photo album

+  Write a loved one a letter
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+  Practice a short yoga class