I used to think of self-care as a bubble bath. That was the quintessential form of nurturing and solitude in my eyes, the only way that a person could recharge and rest. That was the meaning I gave to the term, anyway, because every article buzzing around on Pinterest had respite in some form of a bath and candles. I also used to think stress and self-care went hand-in-hand, that without one you wouldn’t need the other.
I understood this stuff all wrong, guys. I’m assuming you have the wrong idea, too. I’m sharing what I’ve learned about self-care so you have an effective way to keep yourself sane this holiday season and every season, for that matter. In essence, the self-care power team is mindfulness and meditation. Having these two in your arsenal will allow you to live a more meaningful life and, especially during hard and stressful times (cue the Christmas music!), learn the tools to take a step back and give yourself an internal hug to remind yourself that everything is okay. So, ladies and gentlemen, step out of the bathtub! Here you’re going to learn how to really check in with yourself and take care of your needs.
Mindfulness
Mindfulness and gratitude coexist on one beautiful plane in this world and if you are wondering how to reach that plane, you’ve come to the right blog. The foundation of TGF, practicing gratitude allows you to water the flowers in your life and not the weeds, it effortlessly attracts the positive into your life and opens a door in your mind that allows you to be downright floored by the magic of everyday, like the simple miracle of oxygen filling your lungs or listening to the sound of a complete stranger laughing in the distance. It’s magic how practicing gratitude changes your life, and luckily that magic has been debunked by researchers and shared with the world.
On my blog you learn that practicing three good things every day before bed has been proven to completely improve people’s lives, particularly those suffering from depression. The holiday season is a great time to start this practice because it will help you notice the subtletys of every day that bring you joy. You can look back on your day and remember things that made you smile, not things that made you pissed. You awaken with a sense of gratitude because of what you had in your mind before bed and every day you practice it, you become more and more aware of the subtletys and focus on those more. It gives you a birds-eye view on what you’re actually living in, a perspective we all need in this life to show us what really matters. You can learn how to practice this here.
Mindfulness Exercises
Another way to practice mindfulness is to stop what your doing and observe your thoughts when you feel overwhelmed. Try this exercise: Sit down in a quiet place, take a few breaths and close your eyes. Imagine your thoughts passing through your mind much like water passes through a riverbed. Often times we let our thoughts consume us, not ever taking into account that our thoughts are just that: thoughts. Thinking about it this way, when you’re not observing your thoughts but judging them, it’s the same thing as being immersed in the water and letting the thoughts drown you. Imagine yourself getting up out of the river and sitting on the riverbank, watching your thoughts without judgment (meaning, don’t ask yourself why you’re thinking what you are). When you do this you understand how much thinking is actually going on in your brain and how not judging, just letting the thoughts be what they are, is the key to not over-thinking, over-analyzing and over-stressing.
Another exercise, one of my favorites, is one I learned from Emily Feltcher’s Ziva meditation courses, ZivaONLINE. She calls it come to your senses and is generally used to help you fall into a state of meditation. However, I also practice this whenever I feel like I am overwhelmed and just want to bring myself into the present moment. Same as before, sit down and close your eyes, take a few breaths, and go through all your senses one at a time: Feel what you’re feeling, see what you’re seeing (with your eyes closed), hear what you’re hearing, smell what you’re smelling and taste what you’re tasting. Imagine your body like spider man, picking up the subtle hairs on your arms reacting to the air conditioner and seeing the nonsensical lines behind your closed eyes. The subtle and the pronounced is what you want to notice with every sense you go through. Then, you want to try to hold on to as many senses as possible at the same time. Sit with this for a few moments and feel what it feels like to be exactly in the moment. It’s pretty powerful.
In sum, practice mindfulness so you can discover things to be grateful for. Carve out time for yourself every day to do this.
Meditation
Meditation is a platform to help you get better at living your best life. According to zivameditation.com (n.d.), it helps you sleep better, it helps you react to stress more gracefully, it helps you think clearer, speak more articulate, become more forgiving with yourself and others, and have fewer migraines. I can’t recommend it enough for daily practice.
Meditating seems to come with a mental image of someone sitting crisscross and floating around a room, unfortunately. It also comes with the assumption that meditating means no thoughts, just dark and quiet. Luckily this myth has been debunked by research, much like practicing three good things has been. Not only are thoughts okay to have during meditation, it’s encouraged. Our brains think, it’s just what they do. Meditation helps us learn to embrace this.
Meditation has also been proven to strengthen your corpos colosseum, the thick nerve that connects your two brain hemispheres together (zivameditation.com, n.d.). When you’re able to access both hemispheres better, you become a total boss. This is the power of meditation and one of the science-y reasons it helps you live your best life. Plenty of meditation practices are out there, many free on Youtube. However, I recommend you put your eggs in Emily Fletcher’s basket to learn to meditate. Her course is pricey, but it is the only thing on this blog that I will urge you to spend a pretty penny on because I’ve tried it myself and it is one of the best things you could ever do for yourself. Her course is on sale right now for over half-off and she accepts monthly payments.
Like with mindfulness, you need to meditate every day. You don’t workout on an as-needed basis because that’s not how you produce lasting results. Think of your mind as another body part and meditation as the gym. Take your brain to the gym every day to make yourself strong.
To sum up what you’ve just read, I’ll leave with a quote I found from one of my favorite blogs, Dwell in Magic. “”Self-care is a deliberate action one takes to communicate with their own soul. It’s a respite from the outside world, a chance to take deep breaths physically, emotionally, mentally and spiritually. Self-care is the act of loving oneself so that that love can then flow out into the world around them.””
I repeat, self-care is not a bubble bath. It’s a lifestyle of self-reflection and self-love. The more you practice real self-care, the more you will be able to give to yourself and the world.
Much love!
