This started out as a hard pill to swallow; recognizing the hurt little girl inside of me who never felt worthy enough of self-care. There is a lot she needs to heal from but this one came in waves of realization and thanks to therapy I think I’m able to put into words the importance of this pill I had to take. Some parts of this might get a little sad, but I will try and keep it brief.
What is self-care for me?
In order to understand it, I had to define it. I was talking so much with my therapist about how frustrated I was every single day and how the smallest things made me so angry! Even just having my coffee go cold, or looking at the clock and it was 10:30am, everyone else was fed, I had even left the house and ran errands but I hadn’t eaten breakfast yet! I still feel this tightness in my chest on days when stuff like this happens to me but now I recognize this feeling, I take stock of what is missing, and I put aside everything else until I’m able to fill this need for myself.
This need changes from day to day, but as a mom I think we all know that basic hygiene can be difficult. For me, I find I’ll go days before realizing I hadn’t had a proper shower – I can usually get in a 2 minute body wash if I’ve been thrown up on, or I hop in with my toddler but those slow hair wash days are few and far between! My compulsion for getting everything done for everyone else all at the same time makes me forget to take my seizure medications on time too! This is how serious the problem can get. So my therapist really nailed it down for me; self-care for Julie is not about finding time to read a book, or have candle lit bubble baths or getting out to see her friends for a girls night. It is literally working on putting my basic human needs first, because these things affect me throughout the whole day, week, and month! I can skip a spa day, I can put down my book for a few weeks, but I can’t keep feeling like I’m always last to the table. It isn’t sustainable and it was severely deteriorating my mental health.
Why isn’t self-care a priority?
For starters, I think as a mom there are just so many things running through our minds all the time that in our rush to get it done, we forget ourselves. We talk about the mental load a lot. Well we need to start offloading the not-so-important crap, and loading up on the you-are-more-important tasks! As an example of just how poorly I prioritize myself, at the end of the day when I finally get to pee, I physically stop myself in the mirror and scan over my day to remember if I missed something… then I usually think: oh, I haven’t brushed my teeth today, ah but that’s ok it’s late I’ll do it in the morning! Now however I have to talk to myself and say: Gah NOPE do it now, you’ll feel better going to bed with clean teeth, you have the time! Before having these chats in therapy I guarantee you I wouldn’t have even noticed that I missed this basic need; and my low self-worth meant I didn’t care about missing it either. My health and well-being was just not important enough, because I truly believed I was not important enough.
“But you are important Julie! To so many people?” You might say.
“Hm, I doubt that, I can go without it’s fine, plus this *insert arbitrary task that is non life threatening* needs to get done so I can *insert self-care item here* later!” I will say back. I have this conversation in my head every hour or so. My therapist asked me, “why are you having this conversation? Where did it originate? Has anyone said these things to you before?”
YUP!
So if you too are feeling like you aren’t important enough to give yourself a hug… ask yourself where that voice is coming from? Is it social media, is it a loved one, is it the patriarchy, was is someone in your childhood who traumatized you to feel less than!? *probably all of those* Now go mentally sucker punch that thing or person in the face and tell them you are MORE THAN worthy of the things you need. I had to look at little me, scared and hiding in the corner of my mind, push the hair out of her face, hold her in my arms and tell her she had the right to shower/ eat/ rest/ play/ laugh/ love/ hate/ build/ destroy … dream again. And trust me, it’s not easy looking at a scared little girl with the intention to love her when you are her and loving doesn’t feel natural.
What am I doing about it?
In the mornings if my baby wakes up after 4:30am I usually stay awake once I get her back down. I have to pump milk, I will grab a snack (or I guess breakfast since I’m breaking my fast), put on a YouTube video or grab my laptop and work on Instagram or blog content. By 6:30am I feel calm and less anxious because I got some important personal tasks out of the way, so then I make the time to shower! Some mornings I’m able to shower, do my skin care, get dressed and even do the dishes before the kids wake up! Those are great days for my mental health; because by 9am the big guy is at daycare and I’ve done 1/3 of the tasks on my to-do list, whereas some mornings we aren’t even in the car by 9am and I haven’t eaten or pumped!
There’s the trend of beautifully curated morning routines going around online, but let’s be honest, a lot of us either aren’t morning people or have been up all night with the kids so a 5am yoga and journaling session isn’t in the cards for us! Although I’m not striving for that Pinterest perfect morning routine, I am trying to find a routine in what I already do; this makes it more likely that I can stick to it. So I already wake up early because of the baby, I already have the house quiet for a few hours so I had to make the conscious effort to take advantage of that. To be honest most mornings I get back in bed and sleep because those extra hours will be my self-care that morning. If I know I have to get my son to daycare by 9am, then it is already a routine to get him up, dressed and eating breakfast by 8:30am. We do routines all day long, we just need to recognize them, see what works for us in those moments (and what doesn’t) and adjust our tasks to make it work for our lives. One thing I have done lately which really works for me is I ask myself: what is one thing that would make me really happy to do today? Today it was make cookies, yesterday it was find 10 minutes of quiet time to think of nothing. And I got to do those things, and it felt freggin good! So ask yourself, what is something you would love to do that would make you so so happy! Then try and DO IT!
I guess in a nutshell I have become even more self-aware of my needs and how they affect my emotional state. It’s been eye opening but also freeing because I feel a new sense of peace I haven’t felt in years! I prioritize being a good mom for my kids, which means I also need to be a good mom for myself. One day at a time and a hell of a lot of reflection and compassion later, I think we can get there!
Till next time,
Julie
This Hive 