Self-Care Reminder Board

Dear <<First Name>>.

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Have you thought about creating a self-care reminder board?

Let me tell you how this idea came up for me...

I had an interesting conversation with a former work colleague (let’s call her Yolanda) about self-care, work/life balance, and overall sexiness as we age.

Yolanda had attended her 20 year college reunion and she had some interesting observations about life choices and who was in the “hot or not” category.Her top observations:

The men were thriving, but of course skimpy on the hair or totally bald.
The women who didn’t work were super-hot and in tip top shape.
The women who did work – they were all over the spectrum.
Yolanda said the working women could talk about their value added based on the important work they were doing. But, they could kinda or barely breathe depending on how Spanxed up they were.

Yolanda’s “spin my head statement” to top it all off was, “You know – there is that trade off when it comes to self-care when you work. Something had to give and it’s usually how you care for yourself.”

Yolanda was going to continue down this path of “my self-care is not important”, but the look on my face must have singled my confusion and disbelief that she would feel that way about herself.

I mentioned self-care is not only about being fit, thin, free of spanx, and rockin’ the latest fashion. Self-care was about loving yourself, nurturing your needs, saying kind things to yourself, and listening to your inner voice.

Yolanda said, “Well obviously your definition doesn’t come from the cardio pushing, no carb eating, weigh yourself daily magazines I am reading.”

No, Yolanda, my definition does not come for there. My definition for self-care comes from my essential self. The part of me that knows who I am and how I thrive the best.

Self-care for me is non-negotiable because if I don’t look out for myself, who else will? If I don’t know how to treat my myself so I am fulfilled, mindful, and happy – how will others know how to tap into that to support me?

I know many of us live fast paced lives and we are trying to juggle and fit in a lot. Adding one more thing seems like it’ll crush us and turn us into overworked or overwhelmed dust.

It’s easy to look outside ourselves at others who seem to have it all or have it all together. We compare, get discouraged, and then don’t make small or large changes to bolster our self-care needs.

When this happens to you, what’s the message you are communicating to yourself?

Are you being nurturing? Are you being supportive? Are you being too rough with yourself?

As I wrapped up my conversation with Yolanda, I encouraged her to be tender with herself. I told her she could start her self-care regimen today and not look back at her old self-care habits (which were basically non-existent).

I told her to be easy and not add anything major to her list. We were not trying to send her system into shock.I encouraged her create a self-care reminder board that:

will remind her to take care of her mind, body, spirit, and creativity
has inspiring pictures or images of the self-care activities that fuel her
will serve as an inspiration to keep herself high on her “to do” list
rewards her for all her hard work in taking care of herself

This seemed easy enough, and actually fun, for Yolanda.

How did you create your self-care regimen? What motivates you to stick with it?

xo
Kanesha