The Most Important Self-Care is the Hardest to Do

I recently had a spa experience at CitySweats. I met the owner, a fellow female business owner of color, at an event a while ago and had been following her on social media. I finally decided to do an infrared sauna session because they have a “sweat with a friend” package. I needed my friend to help me give myself permission to “indulge” in such a thing. It was an incredibly mindful and intentional experience and I left feeling relaxed in both my mind and my heart, something I’d been needing lately after a challenging month in February with too many snow days and getting pushed out of the routine and mindset I work so hard to maintain. It was completely worth my time and money but it was hard to break that barrier to actually do it.

I grew up in a household where there was a lot of scarcity. There was never enough money and there was never enough time. My parents owned their own business and they worked ridiculous hours, taking vacations for a week only once a year. I remember one time, my dad spilled a entire commercial sized pot of boiling water on his leg at work. He must’ve had what seemed to be 2nd and maybe even 3rd degree burns. We didn’t have health care so he didn’t go to the hospital or anything but consulted his friends with medical backgrounds, dressing his own wounds and continuing to work. It makes me sad to think of his life…

The thing about scarcity is that is when we grow up with it, we create this sense in ourselves of there not “being enough.” It becomes a lifestyle and mindset, dictating how we make decisions that aren’t based on facts but memories of not having enough as we grew up. I’ve been thinking a lot about the notion of self-care and prioritizing ourselves as women, and some of us as moms, and how we avoid it because of the idea of scarcity. There is never enough money…especially when your kid just ripped another hole in his pants or she outgrew her shoes again for the second time in the last six months. There is never enough time because the laundry never ends, meals need to be made, pee-splattered toilets need to be cleaned…again. Or you don’t have kids but you have a demanding job and are struggling with balancing your time. While we focus on the external and what we don’t have enough of, what we actually need to focus on is the internal…the scarcity inside of us, our energy and the emotional space inside. Have you ever had a day where you spent most of it sitting but you were exhausted at the end of the day? Or when you’re dealing with a fight with your partner or your kids and you feel tired? Our emotional energy is limited. Life, with all of its obligations and the things we have to do, drains our energy. Yet we keep depleting and running ourselves on empty, rarely refilling. And when we do that, there is no room left in us for anything else.

So how do we engage in self-care? There are, of course, the spa days, the night out with girlfriends, and all the typical things we think about when we think ‘self-care’ but the real self-care, the things that truly nourish our souls is much harder to do and may not feel good at first. The most important self-care doesn’t cost anything except giving up the idea we have of ourselves as self-sacrificing givers. It’s about setting strong boundaries and guarding your energy and time. This means saying “no” to the things we feel like we should say “yes” to because we’re worried what others will think of us. It’s about honoring your body and your intuition and walking away from things that don’t feel right. It’s about realizing how important and valuable your energy is and carefully considering what you do say “yes” to. It’s about checking in with yourself and asking, “what’s my motivation for wanting to say yes?” It’s about being mindful about how you feel when you interact with others to recognize who drains and fills you and being committed to spending more time with the people who fill you and less with the ones who drain. It’s about detaching your sense of self-worth from your actions…from the feeling that we have to, as Brené Brown would say, “hustle for your worthiness.” Doing all these things is about making room in you, about creating space…

I am a yeller. I yell at my kids a lot. I’m this way because my dad was a yeller and I have many friends who’ve admitted the same—women who are kind and loving and who I didn’t believe when they told me. We all talk about how we can stop. We read books, take parenting classes and tell ourselves we will try to stop but it only lasts so long. The thing that’s made a true difference in how much I yell is making room for me, leaving behind the idea of scarcity when it comes to money and time, and looking inward to make sure there is space. Because self-care isn’t ultimately about you. It’s about making space and creating a sense of abundance in you so you can make room for others, especially for the people you love like your partner, your friends…and your kids. Yelling at my kids isn’t about what they did to piss me off. It’s about my not having the capacity to handle life’s challenges. It’s about not having any space in me to handle what’s really going on and interacting with my kids in an empathetic and giving way. When we’re empty, yelling at the kids becomes about what they’re taking from us instead of what we have to give to them. So now yelling is my gauge. It’s an indicator of when I need to step back and make room for me, even if it means my kids are unhappy that I’m leaving the house 1-2 evenings a week to lead WomanSpeak or go to an interesting event, both things that fill my soul, and not feeling guilty. It’s about leaving the kids to my husband on a weekend day so I can work or take care of things. It’s about asking him to step up and take responsibility for the household too so all the burden doesn’t default to me. It means stepping back from PTA volunteering because I want to be there for my business, my family, and for me and recognizing there is only so much room. It means being mindful of my schedule and being guarded about who I give my time to. It means letting go of the guilt, giving myself permission to feel good and making a commitment to stop hustling for worthiness. It’s about prioritizing and loving myself. Because only when we truly love ourselves can we truly love others. True love is about feeling like you have so much abundance inside of you that you want to give fully and unconditionally without needing anything in return. This, in turn, helps make space in others too. So make room. Do it for you because the people you love will be the ones who benefit most. Self-care is not selfish. It is an incredibly bold act of love.

This is from a personal journal writing shared in the newsletter and typically not shared on the blog. To read these, subscribe to the “I Matter” newsletter below.