Self-care can be tough to master. I recently took some time for myself to help me focus on the most essential roles I have in life right now. I was getting really stressed out about keeping up with things that I considered commitments, but weren’t essential to my personal or work success. I am a ‘yes’ person and it is very hard for me to turn down the opportunity to be involved or to help someone if I am able. The past few months have been very eye opening and have helped me realize that what I was doing for self-care before is nothing like what actual self-care should be.
Before, if you would’ve asked me what I did for self-care I would’ve told you that I read and spend time exercising. Now I can definitively tell you that those are two things I enjoy doing, but they don’t help me decompress or heal after the tough days at work. Real self-care shouldn’t describe hobbies you do in your free time that help you “de-stress.” Self-care is what you do to help recover from the emotional burden that is taken on while working as a child life specialist. I’m still learning what really works best for me, but I have posed two rules for self-care improvement:
1.) I need to actually set aside time for self-care, not just wait for some random free time.
2.) I need the opportunity to address my feelings/thoughts surrounding my work so that I can address them and then let them go.
I have brainstormed a lot of ideas to try and improve my self-care, as well as asked my child life friends/co-workers for their ideas. I’ve tried a lot of these ideas and found that some work for me while others simply don’t. It’s important to figure out what works for you and not just do something because others recommend it. I found out that blank journaling doesn’t work for me, but I do appreciate utilizing a directed gratitude journal to facilitate my thought process. I really like using my drive home time as a reflective period for my work day. The symbolism of my garage door shutting is my sign that work related things are done being thought about and it’s time to focus on my home life instead. I have also started to keep a box of positivity. Any time I get a picture from a patient or positive feedback from a staff member I keep it and put it in my box of positivity. When I have days that are really tough or that I am struggling I open this box and I can remind myself of all the things I do that make an impact.
I hope that if you are doing regular activity and counting it as self-care that this post can help you make a positive change. I would love to hear your methods for engaging in self-care, either ones you utilize yourself or those you’ve heard of from others. Now that I have taken this time for myself I’m planning on writing more again, so thanks for your patience.
-K
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