Real self-care

Not just recently with COVID-19-induced attention, but in the past … 3 years I would say, I have noticed a huge uptick in attention to “self-care,” “mindfulness,” and other focus-areas related to self-improvement targeted to managing stress and improving mental health. We live in a culture of multi-tasking, pressure, and showing others how well you are doing in every aspect of your existence. I’m a Virgo. I know. This high-intensity, driven life is my existence, innately, sometimes it seems. What I have learned about this way of living, and all the things related to self-care and mindfulness that I have learned, is dismayingly not clear-cut and simple. Long story short, self-care I find, is about everyday, finding ways to make real changes in 1) habits about how you think about yourself, 2) how you approach your priorities, and 3) how you build in a tolerance for “failure” and adaptation as success and relevant to this blog, successful resiliency.

I could leave it there, but I give one example. And I will be totally frank, this attention in the media to self-care and mindfulness really came quite perfectly timed for me with the arrival of my first child, in 2016. I have always been sometimes abashedly, but really not secretly, a lover of self-help. I was the teenager hoarding library books about among other things, self-help, self-improvement, psychology of success, and other related things that I’m not sure most young kids are reading. I realized a lot of things with having my first child, and really, my little boy changed my life in millions of ways that someday I hope I can tell him about when he is looking for a life partner, having children, and evolving through his own life. Having a child brings a whole new world of stress and anxiety that I could never have imagined, even with the addition of tremendous and unimaginable joy and love.

I have tried hundreds of things, especially lately, when work, marriage, children, work-life balance, aging parents, physical health, and so many other things become heavy weights of stress and anxiety at times all collapsing on me at once. I’ll share a little a time, because I know no one has the time to sit and read through a long story of anything I have to say, and if I could, I would TikTok it somehow in a short and catchy viral video. So a couple things. Buying myself presents and taking time to be by myself and do things only for me (e.g., pedicure, go for a run, read a book), don’t seem to work for me. Maybe they do for you. I find seeing self-care as selfish-time for me, and saying, I deserve this, doesn’t last in relieving my stress, and I end up going through stages in which I am beyond stressed, take some selfish time, and then go back to being stressed, guilty, or wishing I had more selfish-time.

I think the thing that’s unique in my situation that might resonate with some of you, is that I have 2 young kids. I can’t really take selfish-time because my kids need me, and if I do, my husband makes the sacrifice, and then he needs his selfish-time and it’s just an unsatisfyingly redundant and unresolved cycle. Your situation might be similar. One thing that seems to be working, and it’s an ongoing experiment (Week 2), is to self-reflect and identify a few things that inject lasting positivity in your life, and bonus, if you can identify why. Then, see if there’s a way it can be done in the context of your million other responsibilities.

For me, I have found that running is important to me. I knew that already, running is a hobby, and I love it, but I’m definitely not as good at it as I was before I had kids, and sometimes that ends up being more stressful than relaxing. So, I talked to my husband about it, and we are a team about it. Instead of me taking an hour and a half to go for a run and then come back and shower, and it’s all about my time, here’s what we did today:

Today, my husband had to take the garbage to the transfer station (we live in a rural area where you have to take your own garbage to the dump), which takes about 30-40 minutes, and he thought he could take both kids in carseats, and then stop by on the way back for a treat from Dunkin’ Donuts drive-through to get breakfast and coffee on his way back. 1.5 total hours to get kids into carseats (1-year old still takes a morning nap), package up garbage and recycling into the truck, drive to dump, unload, get coffee, 3-year old who is well-behaved gets donut, and mom gets 90 minutes to do whatever. In that 90 minutes I ran about 0.5 mile, was too stressed and unmotivated to go any further and went back and started small by making beds, and then ended up quickly tidying our house. Then I was happy I got that thing done so I was went on a run and planned my run to be on my husband’s route home, and he picked me up and we all went home together. During my run, I listened to audiobook that was a fiction action-hero-thriller book instead of the science-y other book I have ready to read.

1. I started my run and didn’t finish because I was too stressed about our messy house, so I focused on that first. I didn’t beat myself up about only running a little bit and forced myself to say, even if I don’t go out again, it’s ok. I did something and that has to be ok today. Relieving that pressure on myself allowed me to try again and get more mileage in.

2. This morning, I never asked of myself to be the best in anything. I could have vacuumed and cleaned floors, too, or timed my run to try to get my ideal 7:45-8:00 min/mile pace, but I was satisfied with at least not walking during my run and kept my feet moving, even when it was hilly. I’m not gonna lie, there were sometimes I was straight-up small-step-shuffling-tip-toeing up hills at basically a walk, but I’m satisfied to say I did not actually saunter-walk today. I gave myself a break. I did that in other ways, too. I didn’t listen to the academic audiobook, but rather the fun fiction book. Going out without coming back, I find, and have talked about with my husband, is a really nice stress-free way of running. I am Forrest Gump, just running until I’m done, without worrying about a loop or having to come back. I just run, and my husband is coming the other way and stops the truck. It’s awesome.

3. I thought about my husband and our happiness. We both got stuff done and got to do things that we each care about, without one person waiting on the other. Not you, then me, but us, compromising. Maybe other people have this all figured out and are reading this like, “duh,” but I’m just getting it, and it’s amAAAzing. And, we have tried this for over a week, and it’s working, but we (my husband and I) sit and evaluate and talk about each day, and what’s working and what’s not, and we had some frustrations today, definitely, but we are always moving forward. I think I covered the 3 bold-faced items above in my story. And bonus, I know that running is important to me, because I care about my fitness and my body, and it’s an activity that requires no skill and equipment and that I can “check off” as done. It appeals to my nature in which I can count things I have done (miles, minutes, etc.) and feel good about. I get better at it and can see results. It checks off things that make me happy that last.

Self-care is diverse and customizable to your life and a dynamic, everyday experiment of finding what works and what doesn’t. Try it out and let’s all share. I need some more tips, God knows, and don’t we all.

© Elaine C. Lee, please do not copy, reuse, or repost without permission and acknowledging ecleelab.com