Self – Care…Wait, Self - What?Part 1…Defining Our Needs

Where and how did you learn what feels good and nourishing for your body, mind, and spirit? Think about it…if you are someone who feels calmed by a bubble bath and excited after a night spent in the company of friends, how did you make these discoveries? And how do you know when you need which activity? As we settle into the routines of daily life, we can become complacent in the ways in which we take care of ourselves. Is what you are doing to care for you actually working?

These next few blogs will sift through the various dimensions of self-care, and hopefully, challenge a deeper exploration of what self-care means and looks like for you. Because while the term self-care may seem simplistic, the actually act of caring for ourselves is quite diverse and complex. So let us first break it down by…

Defining It

Selfcare encompasses the myriad of things we do, or in some cases avoid, in order to take care of our physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual selves. In order to have a fighting chance at achieving the day-to-day tasks, we at the very least need our body to physically be up for the challenge. But simply caring for our physical self would be like diligently washing your car’s exterior but never popping the hood. The car may look great on the outside but sooner or later you are bound to experience a break down and be left in a tricky situation.

A healthy body has tremendous limitations if mentally, emotionally, and spiritually you feel void, or conversely overwhelmed. Effective self-care allows our needs to be met so all aspects of ourselves and our beings are cared for. But while our physical body can give us tangible signs of our needs, like a nasty cough prompting you to go the doctor or droopy eyes encouraging you to take a nap, our mental, emotionally, and spiritual needs can be more challenging to internally distinguish. So…

How Do We Learn What We Need?

Ideally, we first learn about our needs from having our needs met by the adults in charge of caring for us when we are little. A parent attuned to their infant’s needs will learn to distinguish the different cries of their infant and, based on the pitch or tone of the child’s cry, identify if the baby is needing snuggles or a burping. To anyone on the outside, the child’s cry may alter in volume but there is nothing apparently different from a hungry cry vs. a change the diaper cry. The outsider, even if they are a parent themselves, has not experienced the same time, connection, and trial and error process that the attuned parent has experienced with this child. The attuned parent develops a working language and framework for their child’s needs, which then provides the child a deeper understanding of their own needs. This is a similar dynamic as when a co-worker mentions something about lunch and suddenly you become aware of how hungry you are. We are better able to identify our needs when we have a sense of guidance around what our needs are.

But what happens as we get older and there is no parent figure following us around reminding us that the growling in our stomachs is a cue to eat? Eventually it becomes our individual responsibilities to identify and meet our needs. This is a big task to take on, and even more challenging with the added sense of loss and confusion if there was never the experience of an attuned parent figure directing us to our needs early on.

So how do we become our own attuned parent and learn to distinguish between our internal and external cues alerting us to what we need? Much like any parent experiences, there are no manuals or guidebooks directing you to how to best take care of you. It truly is the ultimate learning process. We are all unique, requiring different needs to feel nourished and healthy. Below is a brief list of needs I sometimes hand out to clients to help them begin to develop their self-care language. Look it over and see what stands out to you. As Carolyn Myss once said, “the soul knows how to heal itself, the trick is to silence the mind.”

Physical safety and security

Financial security

Friendship

Attention

Being listened to

Guidance

Respect

Validation

Expressing and sharing feelings

Sense of belonging

Nurturing

Physical touch

Loyalty and trust

A sense of accomplishment

A sense of progress towards goals

Feeling competent or masterful

Making a contribution

Fun and Play

Sense of freedom, independence

Creativity

Spiritual awareness, connection with a higher power

Unconditional love

The first step to exploring self-care is learning what we need in order to feel taken care of.  So take some time to read over this list, add to it, and find the wording that speaks to you. Experiment with getting to know yourself!

(January 2016)