5 reasons why everyone should have a practice of self-care!

Are you practicing self-care?

And by self-care, I mean taking care of your entire self:

• Nurturing your body

• Nurturing your mind

• Nurturing your entire self!
  

Most of us lead such busy lives that we are constantly moving from one task to another, from one event to another. But this kind of 'busyness' frequently affects our self-care and our overall health!

You may argue, that I do exercise thrice a week. Or, that I am eating my greens regularly. Or I am keeping my mind more calmer with a regular practice of meditation.

That's great and yes, all of the above are part of self-care.

However,  my conversation about self-care is the holistic nurturing of the entire self and giving time, energy and attention to all aspects of you that need you!

Here is an example that will help explain this:

Neena is a busy working mom also taking care of three young kids. She tries to feed her children nutritious meals and wants to expose them to different activities. 

In the process of doing all of this, she finds herself sleeping late and getting up very early. She also is more stressed at work and ends up having an underlying anxiety because there is always so much to do.

Here are 5 reasons why you should be practicing more self-care:

1) Self-care gifts you more energy to do all the things you love to do in a way that brings more satisfaction to your life.
2) Self-care moves you from a quantitative movement through life to a more qualitative acceptance and understanding of life. You move from 'I have to do more tasks, more activities, more exercise' to ' Doing these tasks were so fulfilling'.
3) With increased self-care you find the joy component in your life increasing. It might even feel odd that by doing 'less' you are getting 'more'. More joy, more time, more energy!
4)  Your health and vitality increases enormously. You feel a sense of vibrant energy that you may not have felt for a long time.
5)  With greater happiness because of self-care comes greater fulfillment in relationships. You are able to make deeper and stronger connections with people. As you learn to love yourself better through self-care, you are able to love others more deeply!

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In my client sessions, I frequently recommend practicing gratitude journaling. Why do I do that? Because of its enormous benefits on both the physical and mental health for my client.

In this fast-paced world filled with constant distractions and pressures, it's easy to lose sight of the little things that bring us joy and peace.

However, practicing gratitude can be a powerful tool to help us reconnect with what truly matters and unlock a deep sense of happiness and well-being.

What is gratitude ?

6 Life-Changing Reasons to Practice Gratitude

Six reasons why you should practice gratitude, life-changing reasons :

Aren’t these great reasons to start a gratitude practice today?

Boundary setting is a very essential part of anxiety management.

Do you know what boundaries are?

Do you know why they are needed?

 When we set boundaries in life, it helps us develop better self-esteem, healthier relationships and more happiness in life.

 Boundaries also help maintain our emotional safety.

Boundaries are limits that we set that helps us differentiate who we are compared to who the other person is.

Watch the video where I share some more examples about boundaries.

Learning to say NO is an important aspect of boundary setting.

When we are unable to say NO to our loved ones, to our friends to our colleagues, we do not have boundaries with them.

When we do not have boundaries, we allow others to intrude into our space and allow them to affect us physically, emotionally, we allow them to take up our time.

Boundaries are limits that we place in our lives, in our relationships. They could be physical or emotional boundaries.

If someone abuses you in a discussion, that is a sign that boundaries have been crossed. If someone yells at you, uses harsh or uncouth language, those are transgression of boundaries. If someone touches you in an improper way, that is boundary transgression.

People cross boundaries of time too.

Boundaries  of time can also be crossed when well-meaning friends or relatives can take up our time and we are unable to say NO to them. When someone calls us announced and keeps talking without considering whether we were busy with something else, that is a transgression of our boundary.

Setting boundaries is important because that means we are standing up for ourselves, for our needs, for our opinions, for our feelings. 

Boundary setting helps us live our lives at our own terms. That helps us value our needs, value our feelings and stand up for ourselves.

I hope this was helpful to give you a perspective of what boundaries are and why they are needed.

We all struggle with different aspects of boundary setting. Some of us may struggle with an inability to say NO, some may struggle with not able to share their opinions or feelings.

What do you struggle with? Do share where you struggle with laying down boundaries in the comments below.

Do you know what are the 10 ways to have a bad day? Yes, I mean bad day and that's not a typo. 

Have a look at this video to understand how we can have a bad day. And maybe, just maybe, we will try to avoid those and end up having a good day.

Have fun watching this very short video.

Why do we react disproportionately and hurt the people we love the most?

This is a question most of us may have. Why do we react? Why do we hurt others? Why cannot we pause and gently respond? Why can’t we look at the situation in a more objective manner and be less emotional about it?

To understand our emotional reactions, we need to look at the subconscious mind. For it is the subconscious which is the seat of all emotions, all memories, all traumas, all beliefs. The part of the brain which reacts with emotion is the subconscious mind.

Think of your subconscious mind like a massive factory. 

This factory has different kinds of  existing raw materials: 

• Old memories, old emotions, old traumas. 

All these materials are currently in storage. But the moment there is a triggering situation, these raw materials start mixing and blending with the situation.

Now lets take a scenario:

Mary is a caring mom and loves her sons. However, this morning her teenage son got up late and is running late for school. This is the current situation. Let us look at how Mary’s subconscious mind processes it and what is the reaction.

Situation: Son is running late for school.

Raw Materials:

• Son has been late multiple times this quarter. 
• Mary had got very upset the last two times he was late.
• Mary is a divorcee and feels the trauma of that loss and the overwhelm of being a single parent.

Beliefs:

• I am unable to raise a son who is punctual.
• I am not a good parent.
• I am responsible for my son’s behavior.
• I am not good enough.

Reaction: New Thoughts being generated:

• I have told him so many times but he doesn’t listen.
• He is becoming disobedient.
• If I don’t say anything or do anything, he might ruin his life.
• What if this affects his academics, what if he gets expelled from school? 
• I am the only parent here, I am the only one responsible; I have to do something.

Reaction: Angry Yelling Words that is generated: 

• ‘ How can you be late again for school today’?
• ‘ This is not allowed in this house. Don’t you have any shame in going late again and again?’

As you see, Mary’s subconscious mind is processing the situation at lightning speed.

In a second, the subconscious looks at the situation, blends it with the raw materials  (old memories, traumas and emotions), processes it with the blueprint (beliefs) and generates new reactions of both thoughts and emotions.

It is the subconscious mind which makes us react disproportionately. 

In order for us to not react disproportionately and emotionally, we have to do one or more of the following:

• Use the conscious mind to manage the subconscious mind. This is the most important. The conscious mind has to move to the driver's seat and take charge.
• Train the subconscious mind not to be influenced by old memories, old traumas for the current situation. Use calming and soothing mechanisms to help you do this.
• Work on the deeper traumas and release them.
• Be aware of deep rooted emotions (from old traumas) and release them.
• Change negative beliefs to positive beliefs and create a healthy blueprint for processing life situations.

Most importantly, we do not have to stay stuck in our old ways of reacting. We can shift our reactions from hurtful to loving, from judgemental to objective and caring, from unconscious to conscious responses.

Hope this helps. Do leave a comment below if you resonate with this kind of drama situation. 

But an important question to ask ourselves:

Can we give water from an empty cup? Can we give something, we do not have? Can we support others, when we are not supporting ourselves?

 If you want to support your loved one, please ask yourself: 

Am I supporting myself? Am I needing to heal? Am I allowing myself to heal?

So, dear friend, today make a resolution that: 

Let me look within myself and see what I need to heal.

Once we are healed, once we feel the energy flow within us again, we can support our loved ones much better.

 When we make time and effort to heal and help ourselves, we do our bit to raise the consciousness of the world.

Sometimes, it is just a habitual pattern that takes over our mind - a pattern of overthinking about something or the other.

The noise in our head maybe about:  

• A mental conversation we are having with someone or with ourselves,
• Thinking about some event that happened in the past,
• A conversation that we have had with someone recently, something that we're thinking about again and again. 
• A constantly recurring worrying thought
• and so many trillion of thoughts that generate noise in our mind.

All this incessant chatter, this constant dialogue that's going on in our minds is so, overwhelming that we don't want to face that.

We would rather drown it with some noise that's happening externally.

Here are some examples of what we may choose to drown the internal noise with:

• Media: Television or radio blaring constantly in the background.
• Call someone and talk to them.
• Get into social media and try to overwhelm the internal chatter with new information, videos or posts.
• Listening to some podcasts even when you are in the bathroom.

Do you relate to this? Do share your own examples in the comments!

 We find it so difficult to just be by ourselves. We find it extremely hard to sit quietly and close our eyes and just be there.  

We find it hard to mindful and present to conversations. We are unable to focus for longer periods of time on stillness and the presence that is within us. We are unable to connect within to our own source energy. All these are so difficult because of this constant noise in our head. 

I want to emphasize that internal silence is a sign of peace and this is very, very important for us.

If we hope to have peace within ourselves, we have to first find peace in our minds by slowing down that chatter by quieting that voice of the mind a little bit.

There is no point in drowning the inner noise with external noise. External noise only generates more internal chatter.

Silence is an important prerequisite for peace. Start thinking about the need for silence in your life. Identify how you can create more silence in your lives. If the internal noise is unbearable, confront it, manage it and teach your mind to quieten down. If necessary, seek support.

Once we learn to become comfortable with external silence, we find silence not only to be tolerable, but something that we want.

Drowning the inner noise with external noise is not the answer. Start your journey by dedicating a couple of minutes everyday to be in silence- just observing and witnessing your thoughts. Practice mindfulness in small things like eating, going to the bathroom.

 Seek silence. Seek places where there is silence. Seek people who enjoy silence. Get comfortable with silence. When you do that, notice how your mind also starts to respond with less chatter, with less noise.

Emotional pain is often misunderstood and mishandled. It is a situation where the heart is aching because of a situation, or an event or maybe a relationship issue.

Emotional pain is the suffering you experience when dealing with difficult feelings. Experiencing grief or loss emotionally is considered emotional pain. Experiencing prolonged anger and frustration can lead to emotional pain.

The mind and the emotions are also intertwined. For example, anxiety can increase the intensity of emotions and the severity of emotional pain. On the other hand, emotional pain may cause more anxiety.

You may feel broken or unable to function  because your heart feels too heavy and the mind refuses to cooperate.

Many a time, emotional pain could be  triggered by a relationship issue. It could be a relationship with a spouse, parent, friend or even the relationship you have with yourself.

Some examples of common situations that might trigger emotional pain could be:

•  My best friend doesn’t talk to me any more.
• My spouse controls me and disrespects me.
• My parents do not understand my perspective.
• My teenage child speaks rudely to me.
• My boss micromanages my work and drives me nuts.
• I am unable to manage my life.

Do you find any of these situations relatable? Do you experience emotional pain as a result of such interactions? Do you feel overwhelmed because of this and do not know how to deal with it?

Emotions are a part of life. But when the distress we experience because of emotions stays longer than necessary, it becomes emotional pain.

Left unattended, emotional pain can start affecting our life and cause a lot of havoc.

So, How do we deal with emotional pain? That's truly an important question.

Awareness is a great first step to moving beyond emotional pain.

Just observing and increasing our awareness of our emotions is a good starting point in emotion management. 

Watch this video where I share the importance of observing.

Coming soon: 10 ways to deal with emotional pain

Even simple statements of love and support can be a balm and give the much needed vitamin boost to help them cope with struggles.

And the beauty is when we are giving them a balm of love, we are also giving ourselves too.

Watch this short and sweet inspirational video where two birds are supporting one another through a storm.

Saying words of affirmation are an excellent way to share the love energy that will go a long way to make both you and your loved one feel supported and cared for.

Try these affirmative statements of love when your loved ones are struggling:

I am there for you.

I am there to support you.

Together we can do this.

 Hold on. Hold tight. We will be ok soon. 

 While we are both struggling, we can both support each other through love. 

 Our love for one another will help us sail through this. 

 We will survive this. 

 The challenges we are going through are big but our love is bigger and more stronger. 

 Just breathe in love. 

Use these affirmations of love and support to help yourself and your loved ones sail through storms and challenges and notice the boost of strength and support that you both get.

Do share your own affirmations of love and support in the comments.