Caring For Yourself is The Basis For Wellness in All Facets of Yourself And Your Life
You know there’s nothing more devastating than finding out your husband cheated on you. Shock, disbelief, anger and depression take over your life and it feels like you’ll never stop feeling the pain.
So many women have been in your shoes. In fact, 60% of married men cheat! That means although this is a very private matter between you and your husband, you’re definitely not alone in this. So, what do other women do? The ones who, like you, find themselves in the terrible position of being cheated on?
Well for one thing, they don’t punish themselves. Instead, they know that it’s important to nurture yourself… now more than ever.
It’s time to start practicing some serious self-care! Not enough women truly realise the importance of taking care of yourself.
You might think self-care sounds unnecessary and you may even be tempted to brush it off as something you don’t need or can’t do right now. However, the price of ignoring your own needs, wants, and wishes are great.
The toll it takes will not just be physical, but also spiritual, mental, and emotional.
Now more than ever, you need to love yourself and the quickest and most effective way to truly love yourself is by practicing self-care.
So where do you start?
And I’m sure that if you’re seriously considering it and you really should, you might be asking yourself these self-care questions:
1. Why practice self care?
2. What does self care mean?
3. How important is self care?
4. How can you practice self care without guilt?
5. Is self-care selfish?
6. what does self care look like?
7. How to get started with a self-care routine?
And, probably more…
This is the start of an 8 part series where I’ll cover the questions above and more. You will learn everything you need to know about taking care of your own self before your account runs dry.
There will be free tools and resources, too. I’ll be sharing self-care ideas, strategies, checklists and cheatsheets that will help you get in the right mindset of making self-care a top priority in your life, right this second… even during challenging and stressful times.
- Part 1 will cover what is self-care and the high price of not caring for yourself.
- Part 2 will cover overcoming the roadblocks to self-care.
- Part 3 will cover the 12 questions to determine if you are giving yourself enough self-care (Bonus Self-Care Assessment Quiz).
- Part 4 will cover the importance of positive self-talk in self-care (Bonus: Nurturing Self-Talk Phrases Cheatsheet).
- Part 5 will cover how practicing gratitude fits in with self-care (Bonus: Gratitude Guide and Journal).
- Part 6 will cover why you need to set personal boundaries for self-care to work.
- Part 7 will cover why you need to create your very own self-care survival kit and some self care kit ideas
- Part 8 will cover self-care strategies you can implement to make YOU a priority starting right now (Bonus: Self-Care Ideas and Checklist).
Let’s get started…
What Is Self-Care
Self-Care Is…
Taking personal responsibility for one’s own physical, emotional, mental and spiritual health
Good for your mind, body, spirit, life, and soul
NOT selfish
A habit that makes you flourish, not just function
A choice
Preventive
Imperative
A deliberate effort
Making yourself a priority
A lifelong practice
Empowering
A lifestyle
A ritual
The High Price of Not Caring For Yourself
Ignoring your needs and not taking care of your self has serious physical, emotional, spiritual and lifestyle quality ramifications.
Physical
One of the greatest consequences of a lack of self-care is chronic stress, which numerous studies have shown to play a critical role in chronic disease, including heart attacks, stroke, overweight and obesity and others.
As the stress hormone cortisol surges through the body it causes serious complications, including reduced immunity, deteriorating organ function and accelerated aging of both the mind and body.
According to Stress.org, 3 out of 4 doctor office visits are stress related and stress is the basic cause of 60% of all human illness and disease.
Stress increases risk of heart disease by 40%, risk of heart attack by 25% and risk of stroke by 50%.
Hectic lifestyles that lack some type of self-care component also result in unhealthy diets and lack of exercise that further increase risks for chronic health problems, one of which is type 2 diabetes, which is at epidemic levels in the United States.
According to the Mayo Clinic, stressed out women are more likely to suffer from chronic fatigue syndrome and thyroid disorders, both of which are believed by experts to be caused at least in part by hectic health-compromising lifestyle.
Emotional
When we do not take care of our needs, we become exhausted, angry, bitter, and anxious. Often, these feelings can lead to resentment that can spill over into personal relationships, such as marriages. Studies have shown that women who follow a regular self-care routine have happier marriages.
Mental
A lack of self-care can result in depression, anxiety and other mental health problems. In fact, women suffer from depression at a four times higher rate than men do. Burnout, overwhelm and brain fog are some of the disastrous consequences of a hectic lifestyle that does not address self-care.
One study (Life Event, Stress and Illness, Mohd. Razali Salleh) states, “The correlation between stressful life events and psychiatric illness is stronger than the correlation with medical or physical illness. The relationship of stress with psychiatric illness is strongest in neuroses, which is followed by depression and schizophrenia.”
Spirit
Our spirits can suffer profoundly from a lack of self-care, as our needs go ignored as we place all our attention and energy on everyone else’s needs.
Anna Quindlen summarizes this consequence well in her book, Being Perfect, “Someday, sometime, you will be sitting somewhere…. And something bad will have happened: You will have lost someone you loved, or failed at something at which you badly wanted to succeed. And sitting there, you will fall into the center of yourself. You will look for some core to sustain you. And if you have been perfect all your life and have managed to meet all the expectations of your family, your friends, your community, your society, chances are excellent that there will be a black hole where that core ought to be.”
It’s never been more important to practice -self-care and it is high time you give yourself the care that you truly deserve.
And you can practice self-care without guilt!
Over the course of the next 7 articles I’ll be motivating you to take care of yourself, despite what’s going on in your life right now. Along the way we’ll explore why self-care is important, roadblocks to watch out for, creating your self-care survival kit and more.
You’ll get bonus self-care resources and tools, self-care affirmations and journal that you can download, save and print out. Here’s what’s coming up next:
In PART 2… Overcoming Roadblocks to Self-Care
What questions do you have about self-care?
Have you or are you now practicing self-care?
How did it go?