Self care is not an uncommon subject in today’s times due to overwhelm, burnout and immunity issues. The quickening feels much like chasing the air we breathe for a decent gulp to keep us going. For many, the bed is the only place to get some needed rest, unless of course, you have sleep issues then it’s all the worse. Medications abound to help you speed up, slow down, sleep, regulate moods, and on it goes.

Plenty of advertising for beautiful candles to have in your bath, to soften the atmosphere, along with luxurious bath bombs. You can buy water bottles with a crystal in them, get a lux massage with all the trimmings or go to an eco self-care retreat The marketing of self-care is all about buy, buy, buy.

Women are programmed from an early age to be self-less. To serve and to give. When we resisted we were shamed and called selfish, hence the majority of us became pleasers in one way or another. Taught to sacrifice our own needs.

I feel it’s vitally important to learn to balance what we give out to others along with how we give to ourselves within.

If we could just fill our own inner cup, so we wouldn’t drain ourselves in beings of service to others, maybe we wouldn’t be so drained, grumpy and longing for bed. Very few of us were taught the importance of filling our own inner cup. For men, I cannot say but I suspect the old adage of being tough and being a man didn’t include much quality inner cup filling either.

What I find interesting is that when it comes to self-care, very few people talk about one’s own attitude towards oneself, one’s own inner dialogue. How you see yourself, and talk about yourself from within has a great deal to do with your inner self-care.

You see for me, in the past, I let the inner critic rule my mind and my confidence quite a lot. That combined with my inner pleaser was a pretty difficult combination in regards to being kind to myself. It wasn’t quite the martyr narrative, but not far off.

I have always been pretty damn good at taking time off for myself, creating a wonderful experience, I’m down pat with that. I know I deserve it. What I really needed to learn is INNER SELF CARE and that began with changing the narrative inside my thinking mind.

My self-talk was pretty crap to be honest. If someone were to record the things inside my mind regarding how I thought about myself at any given moment, it would read like a fat book of put-downs. This is what I noticed drained my life force more than any busy day of the week. My attitude towards myself.

‘Well, you didn’t do that yet did you? You said you were going to? They are way ahead of you why aren’t you there yet? What’s wrong with you…you should have.…… yeah, it is your fault because you should have known….’ You get the idea.

On the outside it looked like, yeah I know how to take care of myself. On the inside, it was a slow but deliberate takedown of someone I was supposed to be growing to unconditionally love.

The inner sanctuary was not just my safe space within the depth of my psyche, it was where I started to build my inner self-care.

Each creation within my sanctuary was for my inner child, to show her how much I cared about her. What she gets, I get automatically. It’s a kind of trickster trick in a way. What you give to the inner child, you automatically energetically benefit from. So that’s where I began. FROM THE INSIDE.

Be that spending time hugging her and telling her what I needed to hear, putting my hand on my upper chest and reassuring her that I love her no matter what and there was absolutely nothing wrong with her.… This was the path to changing my attitude towards myself.

Often clients who are parents have a bit of resistance as they are overwhelmed at the thought of caring for another child, but this is very different. It’s giving oneself a dose of self-nourishment. And you can do it in between things. You can tap in and tell your inner child something great about them while you are doing the dishes, peeling the carrots, stirring the pot, or folding the laundry. You can reassure her that she is safe within you, and she is loved as you lie down to sleep, along with softy patting your upper chest a few times (this gentle flat palm patting is akin to when a baby needs soothing).

Self-care can be done in the midst of being of service. I just stopped typing, closed my eyes, pulled my centre of awareness close to myself and down into my heart and just said to my little one, ‘Hey, beautiful, you ok?’ The instant answer is ‘Always, as long as I am with you.’ That was less than 30 seconds. Now that’s today, on other days I may get something very different. I might ask ‘Hey, little one how are you?’ And the response might be ‘Sad’. My response. ‘Oh sweetie, what do you need?’ ‘ I don’t know,’ ‘That’s ok, sometimes we don’t know what we need,’ Then I see her coming straight for me and I imagine merging with her in a hug.’

Breath

One thing I notice when I am stressed or running on adrenaline in some way is that I am out of my body with all the things that I need to do. I am running on chest air, not gut air.

In breastfeeding there is what’s called the entree (the light milk) and then the main meal (where you get the full rich nutrients). If a baby can only access the entree without the main meal the infant does not thrive.

So when we only take in the chest breath we do not feed the nervous system well enough to thrive. In Buyteko breathing, Asthmatics are taught that the breath out is the most important as when one breathes slowly out the body automatically wants to breathe deeply in from the belly. As I was chopping vegetables last night, I noticed my mind running, so I took a long deep (wind-sounding) out breath via my mouth, all the way out till there was no air left, held in the no-breath space for a little and then felt the cool deep incoming breathe again. Doing this a few times, slowed me right down to mindfully chopping the vegetables.

Centre of Awareness.

When we are running a life marathon our attention is often everywhere else except with us. Our eyes are looking outside of us, our ears are hearing noises outside of us, and we are being energetically affected by others outside of us. Our awareness is often out rather than in.

Just take a moment. Stop, close your eyes. Are you in your body? If not where is your attention? With something that happened yesterday? Or something you need to get done? Now imagine opening your arms wide (both in spirit and in form) and pulling your COA towards yourself both with your in breath and your imagination, ending with your palms crossed over your upper heart while breathing out deep into your core. Be still there for as long as you can. Remember who you are beyond the physical. You might want to repeat it a few times. What this can do is land you better within your psyche rather than being out of body all the time.

Inner Dialogue

How you talk to yourself has a lot to do with how you will manage the stresses of life. You can use affirmations if that’s your thing. I personally like Voice Dialogue. I have multiple selves within that have opinions. The inner critic is often the one that in days gone by really messed with my sense of self. Nowadays It flits through as I catch it quite quickly. I listen, write the narrative out (no editing or reading back) say thank you for sharing (not fighting it) and then do something soothing, which for me is telling my inner child, for example, that we don’t need to follow others or compare ourselves, we are on our own path and this is just a lesson for me to be stronger etc….it nips the inner critic in the bud really fast. There are others like CBT (Cognitive behaviour therapy) Narrative Therapy, mindfulness….find what resonates for you. To turn your mind into a friend rather than an enemy that you are battling or trying to keep at bay.

I can put myself into a lovely bath with candles and music etc but it doesn’t stop my mind from running a negative narrative. I can take myself on a lovely seaside break, but it won’t stop my mind from running a negative narrative. The only way I can calm the battle within is by self-caring from the inside. And as I mentioned in the beginning, the sanctuary was where I learned to be kinder to myself. It’s the safe place within my psyche where I grow in unconditional love.

May what I have shared today inspire you to better self-care within, in whatever way works for you.

May the gentle medicine of the deer teach you how to be kinder and more gentle towards yourself.

You are worth it.

Blessings

Odette

(c) O. Nightsky 2003