How do you react to a life event and your self-care regium?
Nov 20, 2020
In the last blog we talked about when a "life event" happens and throws you off your self-care regium. It happens to all of us, so how do you deal with it? For us it was a matter of "short term pain" for "long term gain".
In getting a puppy our normal routine was knocked out of whack, however 6 weeks in we now are training our walking partner to get us back on track. Knowing this will become a part of our daily routine, what a great way to commit to walking as part of our self-care.
Why it is so difficult to get back on track once we have slipped off our self-care regium?
I really started searching for the answer to this question, and what I discovered was this interesting observation.
When we try something new we have a different energy, we are excited to take on something new. It breaks us out of our old patterns and gives us something interesting to do, which activates different parts of the brain.
We are excited.
We start to see results, such as feeling better, and are motivated to keep going.
We keep learning new things, or are challenging ourselves, and we continue to get better as a result.
Our mind and body are challenged and as we experience good results, more firing is happening in the brain, our brains are working at a better capacity, and our bodies are experiencing the physical effects.
So what goes wrong?
A life event happens.
or
We get bored and stop challenging ourselves.
or
We stop learning.
or
All of a sudden we don't make the time for it anymore.
or
People around may not be supporting you as the time you take for yourself is time not spent with them, so we stop.
Or, or, or (yes I sound like a seal)
Then we gradually or suddenly stop our self-care regium, and the downward spiral slowly begins until we are back to start.
But are we?
Not really because that "newness" is gone, now our mind shifts to how much time and energy it takes for self-care, so no wonder we are having a hard time getting back on track.
Like anything the first step is awareness, so I encourage you to take a look at your life and ask what happened, where did the "wheels fall off" so to speak and you stopped your self-care so you can avoid that roadblock in the future?
More importantly what now?
You have some options.
You can work with someone like myself (Rebecca) to get to the underlying beliefs that drive your behaviour, that allows this pattern to continue in your life in different scenarios.
or
You can try something new.
or
You can repurpose what you were doing, in other words look at it with fresh eyes.
For example, if you were doing yoga for example (like I was before a car accident I had over 2 years ago), and it just feels like too much to do that type of yoga, that level, that much intensity so instead you do nothing, or avoid yoga, then try a different type, like Yin level 1, a gentler yoga all about being still, and see what happens.
At first I felt like it wasn't doing much, nothing like I used to do, so what's the point? But then again I questioned why am I being so hard on myself? I was injured (hence what got me onto my extreme self-care path) and I have to start somewhere.
Rome was not built in a day so why am I expecting to pick up where I left off?
So now, get up, dust yourself off, stop being so hard on yourself, and make a choice about what's next for you.
You will be happy you did.
Drop me an email and tell me your story, I would love to hear from you!
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