9 Let’s Have A Real Talk About Self-Care
Overview
- We’ve all heard a lot about self-care, but what does it actually mean?
- True self-care practice needs to incorporate long-term habits
- Emotional, physical, and spiritual well-being are three equally important elements of holistic self-care
- One model is to get more C.A.S.H.E.W.S.
Self-care is a topic you are going to hear about or read about throughout your career, and you’ve probably already been exposed to it on many levels. My experience is that most people misunderstand this subject. What I’ve frequently heard described as self-care is something more closely aligned with self-indulgence. Perhaps we could even describe it as hedonic pleasure.
Short-term escapes or sources of pleasure are not the same thing as self-care. Now don’t get me wrong, these behaviors – eating junk food, binge-watching favorite shows – feel really good for a limited time, and sometimes they might be part of a larger and more comprehensive self-care package. However, I think it’s important to distinguish true self-care from these ephemeral practices.
By self-care, I mean enduring habits that promote physical, emotional, and spiritual well-being. These are the very foundations of a thriving helping professional. They are the repetitive behaviors that we engage in that feed our internal and external well-being in a way that makes us better helpers, but also better friends, better partners, and happier people. They are the acts that move us toward the top of Maslow’s hierarchy, something close to self-actualization. They are the tools and routines that we hope our clients begin to adopt, and so we need to model those in order to be true to our word as well as to persist in the field.
That’s not to say that any of us will ever develop a perfect set of habits and behaviors that are always on point. We are, above all, human beings – flawed, imperfect, fragile. Yet it’s important that we’re always striving to be better and to be more holistically well.
I see our self-care and wellness in three primary categories. The first is emotional well-being, which consists of being in touch with, identifying, and understanding our feelings. Emotions are an essential part of how our minds function, and they are not to be ignored. When we are functioning well emotionally, we are able to turn negative emotional states into positive behaviors. We don’t try to suppress or ignore those negative emotions, but we are aware of them and we don’t let them interfere with our ability to function.
The second element of self-care is physical wellness. This dimension includes exercise and movement, diet, nutrition, and sleep. I contend that physical well-being is every bit as important to a professional helper as it is to a professional athlete. If we as helpers are tired, lethargic, and unwell on a regular basis, we’re doing our clients a disservice and setting a poor example for them. It’s difficult to take care of our own lives when we aren’t wel