SELF-CARE + PARENTING

We all know self-care is important and yet it is usually one of the last things we prioritise because we are so busy juggling care + career responsibilities.

Here are three things you can do that won’t take a huge amount of time and will help you manage yourself and everything else.

1. Manage your emotions:

Make sure you are keeping your cup full as well as caring for others. When you’re exhausted and busy, it’s easy to let your emotions overwhelm you. Take a moment and try some of these:

Try:

• Meditation (or cat naps, which are super short meditations). Check out the two free meditations we’ve got for you.
• Reflecting on the good things – your brain can only focus on one thing at a time, so build up the good by choosing your thoughts.
• Sit outside or in a favourite spot with a nice cuppa and let your mind go blank. Just a few moments is enough for you to relax, and once you have relaxed, try to keep that feeling.
• Focus on one action you can take that moves you forward on a goal. It doesn’t even matter if the goal is not for you, it could be a family goal – taking action is forward movement, which is good for your self-esteem and emotions.
• Change your media habits. Turn of notifications you don’t need, silence the socials and take a techy time-out.

2. Watch your language:

And I don’t mean swearing. I mean the energy of your language. Become aware of the words you are using and whether they are negatively or positively charged. Positively charged language is uplifting yourself and/or others, it feels nice. Negatively charged language is the opposite (surprise!). If you find yourself telling the kids off or raising your voice and energy levels to get things done, read about the Pattern Interrupt for a quick fix. Or check out the super quick + practical ‘Tude Choosing courses to really understand the importance of language and how you can flip it to support you.

3. Change your state:

We all have moments where our state isn’t upbeat and energetic. Which is perfectly fine. We need those experiences to appreciate the really great times. It’s called duality. What we don’t want to do is lull about in a negative state because it affects everyone around us and becomes an energy sapper in a downward spiral.

I recently recorded a little video on managing your state, there are three super simple suggestions on how you can do this in the video including 1. Do something different 2. Play some music or 3. (as mentioned above) do a Pattern Interrupt.

You can view the Facebook video here:

In summary…

Simple things done consistently to manage your state will build up over time making it easier to do. Over time you create a habit, which also makes it naturally easy to do.

Self-care can happen in small moments, it doesn’t have to require a big commitment of time like a holiday or retreat. It starts with choosing your thoughts, managing your emotions, being aware of your language and choosing a calm, relaxed or energised state.

Other things you may be interested in…

Blog: How to create a haven at home to support emotional health