On What Self Care Is Not

 Last week, I was what one would call a freaking disaster of a human.  That's actually the most polite way to describe my state of being.

It was our first week of summer break and I spent much of that time sitting on the couch, watching The Crown, reading, and sleeping.  I didn't cook much.  I didn't do much.  I had projects I wanted to accomplish and they have been left undone.  I had zero energy, every part of my body ached, and mid-week I developed a weird condition in which I could hear my heartbeat in my ear.  It was the constant "whooshing" sound that was timed with my pulse.  This condition, which google told me was pusatile tinnitus, was distracting, disrupted my sleep, and made me feel kind of nauseous. All of this culminated in a migraine with the halo effect.   On Friday, my vision became blurry and I "saw" flashing lights in my peripheral vision and then a half hour later I had a fairly severe migraine headache.  

Then, Saturday morning, I was surprisingly and thankfully all better (aside for more whooshing off an on).  

I have had no professional endorse this assessment, but I completely believe that all of this was my body FINALLY dealing with the months and months and months of insane stress that I was under this school year.  I finally had a moment to just be and my body was like "Hey, girl.  You are a mess.  You need to do nothing for a bit."  

So, nothing, I did.  

Hazel has been my companion in "doing nothing."

It was what I needed to do and still...  that voice inside my head...the mean, bully voice...said things like: "What a waste of a week!  You are such a loser.  Your life is SO not that bad.  This is because you have abused your body with food and alcohol.  You need to do better.  You need to exercise more.  This is because you haven't used Headspace in a while and you stopped doing yoga."

Guilt. Shame. Remorse. Dry. Rinse. Repeat. 

Then, I read a few chapters in the book "Intuitive Eating" and it talked about self compassion. Huh.  That's right..that's a thing! 

And today, I had supervision with my RPT supervisor who is seriously, the most amazing, patient, kind person in the land.  We were talking about my burn out and goals and all of the things and I told her about my desire to make this the summer of self care.  She asked me what I hoped to get from that and what that would actually look like for this summer.  As I was answering here, I realized that I didn't actually know what that meant for me until I was talking with her.  I had identified all the things I would do, but I had not really put much thought into how I hoped that would make me be. 

All too often, self care becomes One. More. Thing. we need to do...yet another damned checklist.  Then, when we can't do the exercise or meditation or we overindulge, we have failed yet again. We declare ourselves the suckiest of sucky people and eat all the ice cream.  Wait?  Is that just me?  Am I the only one who does that?

Oh my good gracious...  THAT IS NOT SELF CARE!!!!! Punishing and shaming ourselves is just simply not self care.  I apologize to anyone I've ever infected with this idea.

Yes, there are practices that we can incorporate into our lives that can make our lives more pleasant and healthy.  At the same time, I literally can't be a failure at self care.  If I declare myself so, then I am simply just not doing it right.  I'm doing the opposite of caring for and loving myself.  

You might be saying, "But Sara, we know that exercise, eating well, and doing things like meditation ARE super helpful."  Yes.  Yes, they are.  And I DO want to incorporate them into my life.  And, also...

1) I need to give myself permission to gift myself time for those activities even if it means I have to set boundaries with my family, friends, and work colleagues.  

2) If it doesn't happen exactly the way I'd hoped for, that's okay too.  I didn't fail.  I'm not a loser.  I can take the next moment to recalibrate and reconfigure so that I can fit it in next time.  

So, it is my hope to do yoga, meditate, walk, read, write, and eat mindfully as often as possible this summer.  But, if I do only some, one, or none of those things on any given summer day, I have not failed.  I've humaned.  

And I plan to human all summer long.  You should too.  

Take care and love you....

Sara