At the moment I am not nailing my self-care. This feels vulnerable to share given that I’m an advocate for looking after yourself in order to be of service to others. But for some reason, I’ve fallen off the wagon a little bit.
This morning I sat down to meditate with my HeadSpace app and was completely distracted. I resorted to mentally putting worries into boxes and locking the keys so I could get a bit more clarity in my brain. This worked only temporarily, and after finishing my ‘meditation’ I, in my wisdom, decided to roll up my yoga mat without doing any kind of morning yoga. I haven’t had a morning smoothie in weeks and I’ve been drinking alcohol quite a lot over the past few weeks in the evenings. In response to all the booze, I’ve been waking up in the middle of the night for about an hour feeling anxious. Despite wanting to lose a bit of weight the scales have been creeping up not down, and I’ve been watching faaaar too much sport on TV rather than reading or listening to helpful podcasts or going for evening walks.
To say the least, things have gone a little awry. And I notice I am losing momentum and energy, I’m getting up later (probably because of the time awake in the night) and I feel less able to handle challenges when they come up.
It’s so very easy to forget self-care, it’s easy to slump into a spiral of not-so-self-care, and feel less inspired and energised to look after yourself again. But the wellbeing journey is not a straight road, we veer off, we experience ups and downs. My coach always says to me it isn’t about staying on the right path, it’s about noticing when you’ve fallen off it and kindly, gently, bringing yourself back.
Luckily, I am aware of the many tools that really help me get back on my feet. So I commit right now to setting out a self-care agenda for the next two weeks. What this involves is listing five things a day I know are helpful, and then attempting to achieve them all. If I don’t hit my ‘five a day’ then I am not harsh on myself, I am kind and compassionate (and I know that actually even just doing one will be helpful).
So my five a day for the next two weeks are:
Yoga
Meditation
No alcohol
Gratitude journal
Run, swim or walk
Would you like to join me in two weeks of self-care? I’d love to hear your commitments if so.
Sending love as always, Hannah
Photo by Jared Rice on Unsplash