What is Self Care?

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'The practice of taking action to preserve or improve ones health'

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This has so many areas to it, Physical, Financial, Emotional, Spiritual, Social, Intellectual.

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When I first heard of self care, my initial thought was essentially cleaning and pampering. I thought of long hot bubble baths and face masks, but when I started to learn more, I realised that actually it was so much more than that. It was making sure that all the stresses of every day life were looked into and make them much more easier to handle.  

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So, even though I have a very busy household, with 5 children ranging from 3-16 and a whole flock of chickens and other pets, I made sure that everyday I spent time on me, so whether that was a 15min meditation, making sure my mail was all up to date or having a bath with NO children walking in and out, i made sure that I had time each day to focus on me and the tasks that were building up. Sometimes just cleaning out a cupboard or reorganising a shelf can bring great satisfaction and so I wanted to make sure that I was doing everything I could to stick to my journey. I'm not saying it was easy, it was hard some days to try and fit it in, working my way past kids tantrums, cooking, cleaning, washing and everything else that comes with being a parent, but gradually day by day it was working. I was starting to bring my self care and self development together to make days much more bearable. It was incredibly scary, I was petrified, my anxiety was trying to butt its ugly head in BUT I was determined to not let it win! 

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I started to look at my daily diet, basically consisting of chocolate and Dr Pepper, and how this continuous level of sugar was actually the only thing keeping me going. I wasn't eating breakfast, I rarely ate lunch and snacked on rubbish food during the day. So although I have never been able to eat breakfast when I woke up, actually I was able to have more of a brunch, and  noticed my energy levels were better around 3pm when usually I was ready for bed! 

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Exercise.... now I have never been the fittest person and I definitely don't claim that I will ever be an olympic athlete but actually what I found was that by introducing more activity into my day helped, whether this was walking up the stairs for 1 small thing when normally I would wait, or it was having a little boogie while the kettle was boiling, its amazing how you think exercise will tire you out, it actually improves your physical well being and allows you to do more. 

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