How is YOUR Self Care?

The idea of self care is something that we hear a lot about in many different ways - it's a rather broad concept & encompasses lots of different things. Most often, we hear about the topic in terms of exercise, sleeping enough & eating well. The self care that I'd like to talk about has a different focus. It's all about listening, looking within, exploring & BEING with YOUR self.

Self care looks different for all of us. Some of us do great in some areas and completely miss others. What's important is that we see where we can develop our own self care & nurture that part self in some way.

One of the parts of self care that I notice many people miss is compassion--not for others but for ourselves. This is one that can be quite challenging. Many of us have a lot of compassion for others, for our friends & loved ones, but not necessarily for ourselves. We often have a lot of judgment & resistance to those parts of ourselves that aren't quite 'good' enough. There can be a lot of beating ourselves up. 'Why did I DO that?, I knew it wasn't right and I did it anyway!' we can ask ourselves and sometimes in a voice we would most likely not use for others (what does YOUR voice sound like?).

When you offer yourself compassion, you stop using that voice. And the compassion isn't self indulgent; it's just...compassionate. When you offer yourself compassion, you're saying 'Let's look at this...Why is this showing up right now? What's it here to teach me?'

This is something that can take some practice (that's why having a coach to help you in the beginning works well :) ). When we offer ourselves compassion, we can step back a bit. We can let go of the judgment. Stepping into the compassion allows you  to accept that quality of yourself and with that acceptance, whatever you were judging, whatever wasn't 'perfect' often gets much weaker; sometimes it disappears.

 
There are plenty of other parts of self care  to discuss, but that's enough for now. How are you doing with the compassion you offer yourself? Do you use that critical, judgmental voice when you do something that is less than perfect? What would it be like to be curious instead - to use the voice of curiosity & discovery? Why don't you give it a try this week and see what happens...

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