Do You Need a Self-Care Reset?

I love having fresh flowers in the house and as I sit here writing I have a vase of tulips beside me, which I bought myself yesterday.  It had just been one of those weeks, made worse by the fact that I had the week off work and so it should have been a great week. The problem was that I ended up working most days, not for long, but enough to mean I wasn’t able to fully switch off. And the rest of time (well what felt like the rest of the time) was spent doing housework and all the jobs around the house that had been on my to-do list for months. It was great getting some of those ticked off but it was making me miserable! So yesterday I decided to go on strike and just do what I wanted to do. This included buying myself some flowers, going for a facial and reading a book. And I felt so much better for it. I also didn’t resent the things I needed to get done around the house because I chose to do them and wasn’t spending the whole day doing them. Today, I realised that I had effectively fallen off the self-care wagon and was in desperate need of a self-care reset.

It highlighted the importance of taking my own advice when it takes to self-care. I was on a webinar last week that was talking about work/life balance and there was a poll that asked how many times a week you worked on your self-care. And I answered zero. Because it was true. It was months since I had actively focussed on taking some time out for some self-care. And that shocked me slightly because I have written a book on the importance of self-care! I felt like a complete hypocrite! It took me a further week of a lot of swearing while cleaning out various cupboards for me to fully realise that the reason I was feeling so miserable was because I had stopped practicing what I preach. I had let myself get to the point where I completely resented all the cleaning and clearing out I was doing. And I had let my boundaries around work completely slip, allowing it to encroach on what was a much-needed break.

But rather than berating myself about not taking my own advice, I simply decided I would take the day off. This wasn’t easy to do because I felt the familiar feeling of guilt start to rear its ugly head. I still had things on my to-do list to get done and my husband was very keen to add more to it so it felt like I didn’t have time to stop and take some time for myself. But I knew if I didn’t I was going to hit breaking point. I was already getting irrationally upset at the slightest thing and felt a bit like a ticking time-bomb.

It’s hard to work out how I let myself get to the point of doing zero self-care activities, especially as I know the importance of making the time to practice self-care – and the fact that it actually doesn’t need to take much time. Life just seems so busy all the time and it feels like a losing battle trying to get on top of everything that needs doing. Looking back over the past few months though I can see how it just spiralled. I had a really busy summer and although I did manage a week’s holiday, it wasn’t long enough to recharge. I slipped into some bad eating habits and broke my no alcohol during the week rule too many times. The result was that I was really tired all the time, so couldn’t muster the energy to get out of bed early to do my morning routine or to exercise. I let myself get sucked back into social media and so was wasting hours scrolling on my phone. And then everything just became a vicious circle. In reality, I did have the time to do some self-care activities but I didn’t have the energy or inclination to do so.

So how do I get back on track? Yesterday was a great start and I feel so much better for having a day for myself. But I need to get back to some regular self-care. I have to be realistic though and build my way back up slowly, if not it won’t be sustainable. I will start with focusing on what I’m eating, drinking more water and getting more exercise. And stopping with the phone scrolling. To do that I need to have an alternative “go-to” when I basically cannot be arsed to do anything but sit there mindlessly scrolling. I recently bought a creative writing prompts journal for a friend’s daughter but realised it was aimed at adults so I will try writing in that instead of reaching for my phone to see if that works.

And I am going to make sure I have fresh flowers in the house as they are a constant reminder of the importance of doing something for me. Sometimes we just need a gentle reminder of what is important in life and a little nudge to get back on the right track. And if you are reading this and can relate to the feeling of something needing to give, I hope this has been that gentle reminder or little nudge that you need to do your own self-care reset.