Embrace Self-Love: You Deserve Better Care

Selfish.

It’s a characteristic that most of us dislike in others, and certainly one we want to personally avoid.

Sadly, putting yourself first is something that feels selfish to many women.

Our culture sends us mixed messages — while it sometimes urges self-indulgence, the messages we get frequently normalize, and even glorify, self-sacrifice.

Putting your wellbeing first is not selfish!

I invite you to think about taking care of your body and your spirit as being a key to being your best.

Bringing this focus to your life is a meaningful way to love yourself.

It’s also the foundation for loving others and being your best at everything you care about!

Attending to your physical and spiritual needs supports you to have your biggest impact in everything you do.

Who doesn’t want that?

What loving self-care looks like

A woman who nourishes herself with care is rested and strong.

A woman who fuels her spirit with things that bring her joy feels vibrant and shines brightly.

I believe that that woman is anything but selfish.

She is generous and loving to herself, and is able to have a big impact — that in turn makes the world a better place.

Easy ways to embrace self-love

If you are inspired to make space and time for more self-care, and yet it feels a bit hard to know where or how to begin, start by embracing you worthiness of exquisite care.

1. Get comfortable about deserving.

You might make a brief entry in a journal each morning. Remind yourself to love yourself, and list a few ways you can do that in the day ahead!

Next quickly list a few ways you are great — because all of us are! — and let that sink in.

Last, remind yourself that you deserve to have a day that does not exhaust you.

Then bring the upbeat energy into your day!

2. Choose something small and specific to do differently.

Think of a specific small thing to do to take good care of yourself each morning. Choose something that will bring you joy, peace, satisfaction, or all of those!

Maybe you will eat slowly at lunch instead of rushing.

Maybe you’ll take a short walk for fresh air and quiet.

Maybe you will call someone dear to you for the first time in a while.

3. Practice, practice, practice!

As you cultivate a mindset of deservingness, and do small things that are kind and loving to yourself, you will soon notice that it is easier to create opportunities for gentle, loving ways to do more things to support both your body and your spirit.

The more you get in touch with what will be the most nourishing for you — and what you most want for yourself — and then bring those things into your life (even in very small ways!) the happier and more energetic you will feel.

As you inspire yourself, you’ll inspire others!

When you push yourself when you are depleted, you cheat yourself and others.

You may have heard the saying that you cannot pour from an empty cup. I just heard a new version of that concept from a dear friend: if you bathe in a tub with two inches of cold water, you cannot expect to be or do your best.

I hope you feel inspired to shift into a better way to live.

The “icing on the cake” of cultivating rich self-love and practicing meaningful self-care is that you will show up in the world feeling great.

You will feel creative power course through you. You will shine with palpable energy that others will feel. And you will inspire people around you in ways you may never even realize.

As more and more women live a fully fueled creative life, our collective impact will make the world a better place.

Let’s do this together!

Ready to delegate and reclaim your time?

Whenever I speak about the subject of delegating I hear about how hard it is for women to let go of the idea that they have to do it all themselves.

And I get it.

I lived that way for sooo long.

I was trapped in that thinking.

Trapped in the belief that asking for help or delegating tasks was a sign of weakness.

And my fear was amplified by my perfectionism. I believed that nobody else could do things as I would do them — or at the high standard I aimed for.

Are you caught in the trap of doing it all?

Holding a belief that you have to do it all puts you on a fast-track to exhaustion and overwhelm. 

Maybe you are there already. (Sadly, I lived that way for decades.)

Whether you realize you are there, or that you are heading that way, I invite you to consider that delegating and asking for help, are options that can positively impact your day-to-day wellbeing in ways you may not even fully imagine.

Look at the origin of the story you tell yourself

I know the origin of my belief that I had to do it all myself.

My father was an immigrant who was proud that he built a new life using his intelligence and hard work. He talked about it often.

The message I got from him was that asking for help would be proof that I lacked sufficient intelligence or was unwilling to work hard enough — or both.

And thus I drove myself relentlessly.

Perhaps your belief is that you don’t feel you deserve help.

Perhaps you don’t think there are people who would help you.

Perhaps, in spite of exhaustion, you feel pride in being the person who does it all, or the person everyone turns to and counts on.

If you can spot the way your misbeliefs took hold, it may be easier to see that they are simply stories — old stories that do not serve you.

Stories that can be dropped.

It’s time to shift your thinking

The opportunity you have now is to give more to you — to give yourself more space so that you can focus more on what you need to thrive.

Envision having more rest, easily taking better care of your body, having more time with people you love, and time to enrich your spirit by doing things that bring you joy!

Hold that vision clearly. It can be the engine that enables you to make change.

Delegating changes the game

The fastest and easiest way to live so that your vision becomes reality is to lighten your load. 

Now’s the time to focus on the benefits of delegating and how it will help you to be a better you.

Think about being able to make bigger contributions to everything that matters to you — in the work you do, the relationships you care about, and your ability to make the world a better place.

This will make the thought of delegating tasks, and reaching out for help, too, feel easier.

Next, think of one thing to delegate this week. 

Pay close attention to anything that someone else can do faster and/or better than you! That's a great place to start.

You can delegate tasks to:

• people you work with

• to family members and friends

• to people you hire

A great benefit of delegating — particularly at work, and also in personal relationships — is that people will become less dependent on you. The people to whom you delegate tasks get to build confidence and develop skills. It’s a win all around.

And consider who you might turn to and ask for help.

Most people love being asked to help. You might ask someone to be a sounding board for your new ideas. You can ask for help to do something around the house rather than doing it alone. Someone may be happy to pick up something for you on an errand they are doing for themselves.

As you gain more ease with delegating and reaching out for help, the benefits will become clearer and more satisfying.

The real you — the woman who creates the conditions to show up as her best self, and has the bandwidth to tap her rich creative power — will shine brightly.

We will all be the benefactors of your gifts!

Take time to just be

Winter has finally arrived in New England, after mild and rainy months in November and December.

Enjoying the visual delight of a shimmering white coating on snow-covered trees, I am treating myself to a snow day.

Snuggling in with a cozy blanket, sipping hot tea, Edith Piaf serenading me, this is a treat I am delighted to give myself.

What about you? 

You do not need actual snow to have a snow-day

Few of us take the time to be quiet, to rest, to simply let ourselves BE.

If you tend to live the way I lived much of my life, you are likely so caught up in doing, that you rush through your days and miss the opportunity to get quiet, rest, and connect to your heart. 

You may wait for a vacation to take a break, and even then, you may have a full schedule and be in constant motion.

Making time to slow down and indulge your body and your spirit is a gift you can choose to give yourself — no matter the calendar or weather.

And you need not make it a full day of down time, if that’s not practical.

If there is a lot going on, look for ways to bring a short respite into your day.

And take a look at you schedule. Block off space for being at regular intervals — whether you want that time for reading, journaling, assembling a puzzle, drawing, day-dreaming, cooking something fun, walking in a special place, or connecting for a longed-for conversation with someone you miss.

The gift of stillness and quiet

When you make small, or more extended, periods of quiet time a regular part of your life, remarkable things can happen.

For me, it works in a similar way that savasana does at the end of a yoga class — the period of stillness at the conclusion of a physical practice. In the stillness, my nervous system is remarkably quiet. I feel a distinctive sense of relaxation and feel refreshed.

I also make a deep connection to my heart — what it wants and what it needs. 

And in that “emptiness” I often find insights and ideas show up that are fresh and surprising.

Many times I find myself feeling more alive and inspired to move into the next part of the day.

At the start of this fresh new year, why not see how making a “snow-day” practice of your own will work for you?  Email me and let me know how it goes. I'll be delighted to hear.