Self care is lauded as the panacea to all ills. Set your boundaries, take a rest and do what brings you joy. It all sounds so sensible and easy. So what are the challenges to good self-care? why do so many of us feel self-care is self-indulgent, self-regarding and all a bit unnecessary? if not, just plain selfish?
If you find yourself struggling to make time for your own self-care, then take a look at what might be beneath it…
You come from a family that doesn’t do self-care
If you’ve never had good self-care modelled to you, then it can be hard to know exactly what it looks like and why we even need it. If your parents were permanently busy – juggling jobs, getting food on the table, stressed under the pressures of bills to pay, then it’s quite possible you may never have seen good self-care in action. Can you recall your parents ever resting with a good book, running themselves a bath or taking themselves out for a coffee? If you can’t, then I’d guess you find your own self-care difficult too.
According to Consultant Psychotherapist Imi Lo, a difficult relationship with self-care can be common for second generation immigrants. In Psychology Today, she writes:
“As a child, you might have automatically blamed yourself for your parents’ struggles because you thought you did something wrong or did not help enough. So you studied harder, did more housework, counseled them, and may even have become their emotional punching bag.”
You’re not in touch with your body
Over my years as a therapist I’ve realised that, unlike me, not everyone feels sensations in their body. Or if they do, they are limited to one part of the body. For example, a spinning head.
But if you’re not in touch with your body, you are unlikely to be very attuned to it’s signals. At the most extreme it’s possible to miss cues for tiredness and hunger. But aside from this there are smaller cues which come via felt sensations in the body -irritation, confusion and apathy.
All of these sensations may be a warning sign that you need a rest. some time on your own, or a change of scenery. Missing them can lead to burn out or an explosion when strong feelings overwhelm you.
If this sounds like you, then there are some excellent books on this topic. The Body Keeps the Score by Bessel Van Der Kolk is a great starting point.
You’re genuinely too busy to make time for yourself
Self-care isn’t just a good idea, it’s essential. But the reality is there are times when the challenges to good self-care are legitimate, and hard to overcome. Whether that’s because you’ve had a baby, you’re overwhelmed at work, or your caring for elderly parents. Just as sometimes we really are too busy to go for counselling, we can also be too busy to make time for the right level of self-care.
If this is the case, then for a time your definition of good self care has to alter. So a 15 minute walk in the park, or a 30 minute coffee might be all the self care and space you’re going to get. So schedule it in, and stick to it. Include all the small pleasures that you reasonably can – butter on your toast, listening o a podcast while you push the pram and good quality coffee to see you through. And when finally, there’s a break in the cloud, get good self-care straight back at the top of your list.
I’d love to hear how you overcome your own challenges to self-care. Simply comment below or email me.