Learning that Self-Care isn’t an After Thought

Almost everything will work again if you unplug it for a few minutes, including you. – Anne Lamott.

Happy new week dear friend!

It’s been a good number of weeks but there’s been a need for my silence. The last newsletter I sent was regarding my having to take some time off to rest and as I recall I took a weekend off. However, that weekend wasn't enough as I was naturally forced to take more time off.

I had been running on low again and the week following my weekend of rest saw me with the flu and tummy virus, this happened two weeks before our planned vacation and I used those two weeks trying to get better.

I was scared because the closest I had come to such a horrible feeling and condition was when I had COVID 2 years ago but this time there was a tummy bug thrown in the mix. Without any physical warning or maybe there was - my tiredness over the previous week, who knows; I was down with a fever, chills and aches from one day to another.

How did I catch the bug and flu I wondered because I ate the same food as my partner and he was perfectly fine, and I am still angsty about washing hands. This made no sense to me but as I recall not all things do and I might have been neglecting some warnings.

No, no this can’t be happening, not when we’ve been planning and looking so much forward to our vacation. I mustered some strength and said a short and very pleading prayer- Lord please help me recover and I promise to listen properly to my body. I decided to focus on getting better and then extending the resting period to the 3-week vacation.

During the two weeks where I was ill, I started thinking how ironic things were because I had been reminded just a weekend ago about taking care of myself and rather than devoting more attention and time to this, I gave myself a weekend to half-heartedly relax.

Now the joke was on me, but with this came a very important reminder and lesson for me and one that I have decided to delve extensively into, for myself and for you my friend, in the coming weeks. This is the Art of Self-Care.

In matters of healing the body or the mind, vacation is a true genius. – Mehmet Murat Ildan

Being back from the 3 week vacation and having had time to slow down and put myself and my wellbeing first I can share what a great impact this has and is having on me. So, I will be looking at exploring all the aspects of what self-care is and how it impacts our self-worth — as I see it.

I am a big advocate in cultivating and nurturing our self-worth but what are we worth if we don’t take better care of ourselves?

I will explore this question in next week’s newsletter, then in subsequent weeks have a look at the pillars of self-care which are Spiritual, Physical, Mental, Social, Emotional, Environmental and Recreational but I will also add in Professional and how we can better incorporate the different practices into our lives as well as build our own self-care rituals.

This topic has won a huge place in my heart and mind at the moment and for good reason, also because I realised it has strong ties to being able to build a strong sense of worth. But with this particular reason aside, it’s also a good reminder to always remember to make our wellbeing a priority and we can do this with little to no money before it becomes expensive to do so.

So, as we start a new week, can I encourage you to have an audit of your life and current routines to identify where you are lacking or needing some attention to better take care of yourself. We can’t have it all figured out but we can start from where we are to make things better.

Have a great week!

Love & light

Sheila Daisy