Why Specialize In Self-Care? Because Burnout!
At some point or another, I come to my clients and ask, “What are you doing to take care of yourself?” and it is incredibly rare that they have a healthy and effective self-care routine to discuss with me. More often than not, the answer is a laugh and a “Nothing!” or sometimes we find that the question hits like a ton of bricks and we just need a good cry about it.
Burnout and self-care go hand in hand and far too often I find that people are in the pits of burnout before realizing they are in so deep or even how they got there. We have to do better.
Unfortunately, I cannot follow you around and remind you to take better care of yourself but I can give you the information you need, express the importance of it and give you a few ideas on what we can do to be better at self-care in general.
Self-care, for me, is primarily about our intention behind our actions. Part of what motivates me to do this work is my love of getting under the surface and looking at those intentions and barriers, as opposed to only focusing on behaviors or techniques. If we ride through life without intention, we find ourselves just going through the motions.
Where do we start? How about we just clarify what even counts as self-care?
When we take a shower, there is a massive difference in a shower that society has groomed us to know we shouldn’t leave the house without versus a shower where we are being mindful about the process. Being intentional while taking a shower looks a bunch of different ways, maybe we are being mindful of the temperature of the water and how it feels on our body, the smell of our products, taking some deep breaths or making sure to scrub every inch.
Guess which shower provides more recovery and adds to our self-care bucket? The mindful one! You got it! Being able to walk with clients through these simple but life changing exercises drives me to dig deeper with clients as they explore their value, self worth, and purpose, which is something I love to do. This is what therapy is all about for me.
I do want to clarify that maintenance is NOT self-care. That’s where our intention really shines. Going to the gym, getting a massage or taking time for yourself does not count as or feel like quality self-care without us being mindful and intentional about those tasks.
Imagine scrolling your phone while you drink your morning coffee outside…good. Now, imagine sitting outside and taking deep breaths, smelling your coffee and feeling its warmth, looking out at the yard or up at the sky and really prioritizing yourself in that moment. Just imagining those two scenarios, they feel so drastically different.
A favorite self-care act of mine is when I make my bed. My first reward is feeling the accomplishment of completing a task and building motivation for my day but my second reward comes when I get home later, coming home and being able to relax in an inviting environment with a made bed feels really good to me. That task takes minutes but I get two rewards for the effort! That is a win in my book, and having these shared human experiences in common with my clients brings me joy as a therapist. We can exchange ideas for these simple and universal tasks, which allows for creativity and fun in therapy.
Life comes with ups and downs but if we find ourselves saying, “I don’t know why I feel so tired all of the time”, over and over… chances are, we have some work to do in helping ourselves recover from our daily lives and stressors. Self-care is not a luxury item, period. We really don’t want to back burner our self-care routines, nobody is going to self-care for us!
I’ve chosen to specialize in self-care and burnout for this exact reason-no one can do it for you, but you may need a gentle or not so gentle push to engage in real self-care and I’m that person. I can sniff it out in people, and know undoubtedly when they’re not putting themselves first, or anywhere close to first. I’ve experienced and seen first hand what happens when you don’t prioritize your self-care, and it’s my passion to change how people view and engage in meaningful and intentional acts of caring for themselves.
Now is the time to make a new goal towards your self-care journey. What do you want it to look like? What feeling/s are you hoping to achieve? How can we check-in and maintain accountability with ourselves regarding our self-care routine? Take some time to explore these thoughts and then write it down or create a vision board of what you want your self-care to look like. You got this!