-
1.2 | What have you observed about your self-care practice?
Below, you will see the Session #1 reflection questions. Please answer these questions at the bottom of the screen.
-
57 Replies
-
This is the one I found more difficult to tease apart and engage with more intentionally. The self-care practice I identified as needing more attention was play/fun/humor, but I noticed that for me it has been tied to having social interactions with good friends, which are limited at the moment. The time I had the change to observe humor in my body (laughing with myself and lovingly at myself), it was quite nurturing. So, I will continue to try to find new ways to cultivate play/fun/humor.
-
Daily exercise has been critical for me during this pandemic. But in recent days, due to the extremely dry and hot weather, I have been feeling drained of energy. Not exercising and not leaving the house has a negative impact on my motivation to work and my ability to face challenges and concerns. I also have to be careful not to read too much news and stay on social media, as this can lead to feelings of impotence. I’ve been doing this more than usual for the last week and it’s pretty clear that it doesn’t contribute positively to my well-being.
-
2-) THE SELF-CARE practice allows me to accept myself and be more gentle when I need to.
It helps me to access my inner voice.There is more joy and love to connect with. As “healing is situated in the heart,” I find myself softening that chest area through breathing and self compassion breaks.The RAIN practice allows me to feel without becoming entangled in a storyline, but to simply recognize what I’m sensing or experiencing through my body at a particular moment.
-
I am at a place now where, compared to times past, I feel comfortable been more gentle towards and supportive of my needs. I feel quite comfortable in my current self-care practice – which was until relatively recently, de facto, non-existent. Nevertheless, I really appreciated learning about the RAIN practice, as it offered an easy to remember tool to manage my immediate response to emotions – which is still a work in progress.
-
Self care is going ok right now. I need to work on the fun/humor area of my self care regime and I’m not sure how to do it. The pandemic has gotten in the way a little and perhaps I have forgotten how to socialize. I am playing more sports but that can bring pressure. I am a writer outside of work but that brings stress right now too. I love wine but I’ve tempered that. When anxiety kicks in (due to stress and pressure) I seem to be less dedicated to my morning routing (yoga, meditation, writing). It can slip. I am aware of it though. I do keep making promises to myself that I’ll “be better” next week. Sometimes life gets in the way and then I feel bad when I break a promise to myself.
-
My self-care practice includes drinking more water. I usually drink about 2-liters of water a day but sometimes I’ll go all morning without water and then notice that I feel irritable. I’ll drink a tall glass of water and notice the irritability dissipating. My mother would tel me that if I feel I have a headache to drink water first before taking any medication. I rarely have headaches but when I do – I drink water.
-
It’s always been difficult for me to justify practicing self-care given the other competing priorities in my life. So focusing on this as a daily reflection has been an excellent way of keeping it top of mind.
My self-care goal at the moment centers around getting more sleep. The biggest revelation for me has been that I unfairly continue to compare my sleep goals to the habits of my younger self (when little sleep with great energy was my superpower.) This has led me to greater self-acceptance around the amount of sleep I truly need now and embracing that rather than shaming myself for my inability to do what I used to.
-
Recently moving from Maine to Hawaii, I resolved to keep mainland hours for team cohesion and work efficiency. The only catch is that I’m not a morning person. I also need 8+ hours of sleep. I’ve prioritized getting to bed early and committed to getting a full nights sleep. This makes all the difference when the alarm goes off at 4:30am. I’m able to get up and get moving without too much sluggishness. I’m noticing how much shorting myself on sleep had created a rough overture for my days in the past and how I wasn’t able to meet the demands of mom/work/house/etc with the attitude I wanted.
-
I noticed that I need to focus a little bit more on self-care than I thought. I need to take care of my feelings.
-
My self care practice is strongest when it comes to exercise / movement and sleep. I also generally eat well. I find myself struggling to take care of myself in other ways though. For example, after a long day I know I need to give myself a cognitive break but I stay on my computer or phone longer than I want, and put off meditation or other calming activities. I know what might be more supportive activities, but struggle to actually do these things in service of self care. As a result, I can feel frazzled or like im jumping from task to task or topic to topic vs. feeling grounded and centered in what I’m doing.
-
I decided to work on sleep. Previously I was only getting around 6-7 hours per night.
It was a struggle to shift. ON the one hand I want to stay up later with my teenager and connect with him. On the other hand, I want to wake up early to exercise.
In the end, I am trying to go to bed earlier. I try to model self care, and the importance of sleep to my son, I do spend time with him in the evening, and try to give him more warning that I’m winding down. I do on the weekends spend more time later at night with him, then exercise later too.
The difference has been amazing. And I notice when I have not got around 8 hours (and truly I am okay with 7.5), that everything is harder. When I don’t sleep, I am unfocused, negative and eat badly, seeking some external comfort, when in reality I need sleep.
-
It goes up and down, I get on a streak with exercise, good eating…then I sort of fall off the wagon. I am forgiving and kind to myself when I do.
-
For the past few days, I have given myself the gift of sleep. I know that I need more sleep than I usually give myself, so it was wonderful to prioritize it in these last few days. I have also asked for help and accepted help with childcare. I am so grateful to my husband’s parent who were willing to come watch our son this week. It made such a such difference in my ability to practice self-care.
-
I focused on getting 8 hours of sleep a night, but after a few good nights,
found that I would sometimes still wake up/be awakened by noises before my
alarm. I may need to shift my bed time earlier so that I can still get 8
hours of sleep before the noises of the outside world wake me up. I do
seem to be more patient when I get more sleep. -
I’ve recently returned to exercising regularly, and this has helped me have an outlet to release some energy beyond my mind and give myself time for care. Over the past couple of weeks (this course) I’ve been focused on getting more sleep—trying to go to bed at a more regular time so that I have time to wind down away from my computer/phone, meditate, and then sleep for at least seven hours. This has proven challenging during a couple of intense workdays, and I noticed the impact of not sleeping well when showing up in meetings and difficult conversations. This is an area in which I’d like to continue to focus.
I’m also focusing on just taking a moment (a few seconds) to pause while washing my face or applying face cream—this is a moment of physical self-care, and a chance to connect with my body. I often rush through this time as another ‘to do,’ and this practice has reminded me how meditative even those normal, everyday moments can be.
Log in to reply.