It’s important to imagine your self healing journey as a trek. Keyword here is journey. It is an adventure into the unknown of yourself, and the greatest adventure you can embark on in your entire life. But it is not a journey that is completed overnight, in fact it really is a lifelong pursuit. Healing is never finished, there is no end point, but a continuous expansion and awakening. And if you are at the start of this long journey, it’s important not to get overwhelmed by what is ahead but begin in manageable pieces. If the end goal is reaching the top of the mountain, then we must begin with starting out on the correct path taking one step at a time. So to get started on the right foot of a self healing journey, our starting line begins with self care.
An important guideline to follow when thinking about self care is that self care is any activity or practice that you do that makes you feel better AFTER doing it. Which means it can be specific and tailored just to your likings. But there can be a bit of discipline required when it comes to practicing self care. Maybe you don’t actually feel like working out today, but you know that afterward you will feel better and be happy that you did. Sometimes hitting the snooze might feel better in the moment, but the rush to get ready then adds stress to your day. So when deciding what is best for yourself, ask if it actually fills you or is it temporarily giving you a hit, maybe it’s even distracting you (like shopping) but never actually satisfies you. Is it bringing you closer to your goals or is it actually misleading you, is it a service or a disservice to you? Keeping these in mind, let’s dive into the 4 main categories of self care to begin your self healing journey.
Mental Self Care
This is how you want to be training your mind. How are you keeping your mind sharp, removing stressors, and providing beneficial stimulation? Stretch it, activate it, but also give it the proper cool down, rest, and recovery. The big dilemma in our lives is finding the balance between being on and working and being off and resting. We all know those things in our lives that require so much from us- our jobs, our family, our finances…I can keep going with examples but you know what they are for you. We love them (I hope) but it doesn’t deny the fact that too much is also draining and overloading ourselves with all these responsibilities is a recipe for stress, burnout, and dissatisfaction in our lives. If they are draining then we need to find the things that are filling, to balance the outflow with the inflow.
Rest and giving our minds the time to decompress and turn off is probably the most beneficial (and obvious) practice for this category, but this goes beyond just sleep. Sleeping seems like the only time our brain really actually turns off for most of us. The amount of stimulation and content is coming at us nonstop, and just taking that in all on its own has the potential to add stress to our lives. When thinking about mental self care, try to find things that actually give your mind a break. Not just vegging, tv streaming, and social media, but what is actually rejuvenating our minds. Those activities may bring a bit of instant relief but they are still draining. Can you start to think of things that let you rest and recover and are filling? Maybe it’s spending time reading, or getting outside in your favorite way, what are your favorite hobbies and can you make them more of a priority, maybe it’s alone time and a chance to be away from people. Is there something you have been wanting to try and learn? Perhaps try out a decompression time in the evenings where you spend the last 30 minutes before bed without your phone and wind down with tea, stretches, and a book to get the most restful sleep you can. Or try scheduling time in the morning to slowly wake up and relax your way into the day with a supportive morning routine. There is no big secret to starting your self healing journey, simple practical steps like these will take you a long way.
Those are some of the ways to start adding more supportive things, but what is equally supportive is taking things out. Take a good look at your life and see if you can find things that aren’t serving you. Where are you overloading yourself? Is it time to set boundaries around how much you do for others, how much work you do even after you should be done for the day? Just start to look and take stock of how much you are doing for others and if it outweighs how much you are doing for yourself. Evaluate and adjust accordingly.
Lastly, take a look at your social media habits. How much time are you living on a screen and away from your life? It’s ok to be honest with yourself. Would a time limit be of service to you? And when you are scrolling, is it making you feel better or worse? Maybe it’s time to reorganize what your feed is looking like. If some people and pages stir up bad feelings, I encourage you to let them go and unfollow. Replace them with only people and pages that make you feel good.
Emotional Self Care
Emotional healing is significant in your self healing journey because it’s the category that tends to be the most neglected. And though similar to mental care, emotional self care deserves its own set of specific practices. Overstimulation also plays a big role here and can be very distracting to staying on top of our emotional health. The way we usually handle emotions a lot of the time is by trying to suppress them, but that is not the way emotions work. They come up eventually, and the longer they stay suppressed the more they fester and larger they come out, usually uncontrollably. They are constant and they must be released, and you can either let them out in a steady stream or wait for the big eruptions. This can happen on both ends of the emotional spectrum. If not kept in check this is when we see big emotional blow ups happen that can seem unmerited to the situation- this is due to the build of emotional stressors over time. And on the other side, it’s pretty easy to find examples of how many in our society have the mentality of getting through the week and living for the weekends. Party hard, drink a lot, hook up, spend money. Instant gratifications that give you a fast hit to make up for the rest. There is this tendency to oscillate from extremes, but what can we do to regulate emotions to be more balanced? So the question is, how are you taking care of your emotions?
The first order of business is allowing them and feeling them. Even the uncomfortable ones. There is so much healing that happens when the faucet of our emotions is turned on and everything can smoothly flow. Expression is key but finding a safe place for emotional expression is equally important. Sometimes others aren’t the safest place to emotionally land so the task is can you find a way to create emotional safety for yourself? Can you make all your emotions ok, can you accept yourself even in those messy bits, can you offer yourself validation and compassion?
Similarly to mental care, we need to focus on where we need to release and where we need to fill. Finding ways to safely emotionally purge, that allow for the energy to move out beneficially is the goal. We all love to vent, it makes us feel so much better, so maybe you need a way to vent regularly. A journal is an easy and simple place that will always hold you when the time comes to unload emotions. A therapist or a safe and trusted friend are other powerful and supportive sources as well. Sometimes it is physically moving the energy. When you are upset, does a run or a workout help dispel the energy, or try to go somewhere private and have a full on tantrum where you can scream and say and do everything you want to help cool you down. And of course, crying is one of the most cathartic exercises out there. Find a way that works for you to move energy out but in a way that isn’t destructive to yourself or others.
And then on the other side, try to find ways that fill you emotionally. Are you bringing pleasure into your life regularly? What are little things you can do daily that bring joy, play, and fun to your life? What fills you up and feels good. Is it having connections with others? Nurturing others, animals, or plants has the incredible potential to instantly lift you. A question to point you in the right direction is: when do you feel the most alive and nourished? Now here is your invitation to practice those things regularly.
Physical Self Care
This is the one that you are probably the most familiar with before you even started your self healing journey. Workouts, clean food, supplements, skin care, are just a few of the things that we see constantly on our media feeds, in advertisements, and just being talked about more in general. Which is great! Self care should be in the spotlight and the wellness revolution is a welcomed pivot in consumer trends. But as I have pointed out already, we have to be careful about how much more we are taking in and consuming. More doesn’t always mean better. Physical self care begins by getting attuned and listening to your body. What is it telling you it is needing more or less of. Your body is your vessel. It is your home. What can you do to take care of it to keep it going efficiently and increase its longevity? Health can get complicated real fast, but really there are simple things that practiced regularly can have a significant impact on your wellbeing. I believe the three main cornerstones of physical self care begin with movement, nutrition/hydration, and recovery. First, take stock of your current health habits and see where they align within these categories. Are you moving your body everyday? What does your water intake look like and are you feeding yourself nutritious meals? How much sleep are you getting?
Movement doesn’t mean you have to get in a super intense 40 minute workout everyday. This is when it requires your discernment and understanding of what your body actually needs versus what you think it “should” do and what self care “should” look like. I believe in the philosophy that something is better than nothing. So even a 15 minute walk outside, if that is all you can get in during the day, is so much better than nothing at all. And running and cardio may feel good one day, and then a restorative yoga stretch might feel better the other day. It’s ok that your body may fluctuate on what it is asking from you on any given day.
This also carries over to nutrition. Just trying to fit more whole, nutritious food into your diet more frequently is moving you in the right direction. However, focusing on making healthy fats, fruits and vegetables, and good proteins the majority of your diet and limiting inflammation causing foods like processed foods and sugars, is the best way to build a strong foundation for your wellbeing. Did you know that eating your vitamins and minerals is actually the only way you can guarantee your body is taking in and absorbing them? Just something to think about before you spend a bunch on supplements that you can’t even guarantee your body will benefit from.
On top of your food, getting in adequate water is key. Water flushes toxins, carries nutrients to your cells, normalizes blood pressure, and aids in digestion, just to name a few of the benefits this life sustaining liquid provides. It is recommended to drink between two to three liters of water (depending on if you are a man or a woman) a day. And easy ways to get you there are starting your day with a glass of water as soon as you can after waking up and carrying water with you wherever you go. And from my own experience, I have found that the more water I drink, the more I crave it, and the less I want to drink anything else. Juices and sodas now taste way too sugary for me to even enjoy.
We have already touched on the importance of rest, but as we have already seen there is actually so much overlap within these categories. So beyond the benefits of rest and sleep has on your mental wellbeing, it is also so incredibly pivotal for physical wellbeing. Sleeping is when your body does its mending and healing. This is when your immune system gets built up and your hormones are balanced. Our sleep health is so important and those 8 hours really need to be taken seriously and made a priority. If sleep is hard for you, I recommend trying a yoga nidra meditation or anything that activates your parasympathetic nervous system and gets you into that rest and digest state. Your body will thank you.
Spiritual Self Care
Lastly and probably most pivotal in your self healing journey… where do you turn when there is no one and nothing else to turn to? Spiritual care is such an important category because you can do all the things, prepare all you want, have the best systems in place, and yet there are so many things in life you can’t anticipate and be ready for. There is so much that is uncertain, beyond our control, and honestly beyond our human minds to even begin to understand and comprehend. And that is ok. And probably for the best, if you can make peace with that. Because knowing that there is a higher power, a higher purpose, orchestrating all this beyond our own comprehension is such a huge relief- like it or not humanity does not have all the answers. It means you don’t have to have everything figured out because you believe and know something else does. It brings peace and purpose to our existence.
Having that knowledge allows us to let go, to surrender, to find comfort and trust that you are going to be ok no matter what because you are loved beyond your ability to even know and everything that happens (even the bad) is meant to serve you. Now your life has deeper context and meaning. We are not meant to just merely exist. To work, save money for retirement, and that be the end of it. This life is a gift. There are lessons to learn and experiences to have that allow your soul to learn and grow. When your life is dedicated to something larger than yourself it only enhances your experience not diminishes it. You have a direction, you have a purpose, you just have to connect with the One that is guiding you and showing you the way. There is a very specific and unique thing that we were each put here to do. So here’s your invitation to find the things that nourish your soul and connect you to something bigger, that higher power and practice it regularly. I promise there is nothing that will fill you up more than this. Whether it be through prayer, meditation, reading the Bible (if you don’t know where to start I recommend reading the short book of Mark) or other spiritual writing, going to worship, serving others, joining a mission, going on retreats, listen to what calls to you and follow it. This is the one thing that is guaranteed to not lead you astray but lead you to the truth.
Feeling overwhelmed yet? I know I have thrown a lot at you, but don’t worry. Think of this post as a buffet in a bunch of different self care categories for you to pick and try. Don’t be afraid to mix it up and try different things till you find the ones that you like and support you the best. I do recommend that you do try to incorporate something from all 4 categories to have a holistic approach to self care. Your self healing journey will naturally unfold. Just by taking this first step, your path will be revealed to you with each new step forward you take. It’s time to heal, it’s time to start feeling better, it’s time to start living at your greatest potential. You deserve it. And we all thank you for it, healing the world begins with healing yourself. If you are ready to start today with the best set of specific practices to kick start your self healing journey with a new self care routine I invite you to join my free 7 day self care makeover. I will take you through the most impactful, beneficial, and healing practices I have encountered so that you don’t have to guess and wonder with what and how to start. Your self healing journey can begin right here. And if you are interested in an actual journey, one that combines travel, adventure, and healing, be sure to sign up for one of my retreats here.