"What do you do for fun?": a therapists guide to self-care

Celebrating Self-Care Day 24 July 2024 #InternationalSelfCareDay #SelfCare.

While the term "Self-Care" is often seen as controversial idea due to its emphasis on individual responsibility versus recognizing the social and cultural context of people's lives, knowing how to look after yourself is an important skill that everyone needs to successfully learn in order navigate the challenges of life.

As a therapist and also someone who has recovered from chronic illness and fatigue, learning to care for myself has been a hard-won skill. There were times in the past when it felt almost impossible to look after myself by observing my physical, emotional and interpersonal limits and hence I don't take the topic nor the adopting of self-care practices lightly.

I have in response to my experience developed a self-care toolkit that I regularly share with my clients as a way of supporting wellbeing and managing their mental health.

In honouring the theme of Self-Care Day 2024 "Let's act on self-care together" I wanted to share the tools that I find most helpful in taking care of myself in times of stress and illness and also in wellness.

Turning towards the self

When things are going wrong, and life is stressful one of our responses can be to turn to and focus on things outside of ourselves. But what happens when we stay with ourselves in whatever capacity we can offer? What if we slow down and give ourselves some space to just be and listen? What if we pause, breath and stay.......

When I was recovering from debilitating post-viral chronic fatigue one of the ways I learnt to do this was through body scanning. I would build myself a comfy spot on the floor and listen to a body scan meditation for 5, 20 or 40 minutes as a way of giving my body the space it needed. More recently during a time of stress a 10-minute EFT Tapping Session focusing on acknowledging the stress felt supportive.

Changing Self-Talk

One of the most consistent forms of self-care that can be found across the psychotherapy literature is positive self-talk i.e. how we talk to ourselves inside our heads, that internal voice that can turn into a fierce critic when things don't go well. One of the things I notice in my clients is that they are having a really hard time and then they couple that with a barrage of self-criticism and really negative self-talk which often makes them feel even worse.

When I notice a client is doing this, I will encourage them to separate these two experiences - 1) Let's acknowledge and validate the initial experience; then 2) What would it be like to stop judging and criticizing your experience? Using mindfulness and reflection is the first step in improving self-talk and when we improve our self-talk, we improve our relationship with ourselves.

What do you do for fun?

In my first session with a client, I usually ask them what they do for fun, and I always enjoy the answer. When life is busy. We forget fun. Remembering fun helps. Accessing fun is in most cases free and easy. Watch your favourite show, call your favourite friend, scroll funny videos and let yourself LOL, go sit in the sun in the garden, get silly with your kids. Gently remind yourself that life does not have to be serious 100% of the time.

When I was sick having fun wasn't always easy due to not having much energy. One the things I could do however was to engage with memories of fun times and look at photo's that reminded me of pleasurable things, experiences and people.

As a Narrative Therapist and Feminist, I acknowledge that self-care cannot solve all the things. It is not a cure all. We need collective care and community to turn to for support and care. When I was sick, I still needed friends to come visit or to reach out via phone or at that time Skype.

One of the reasons I still believe in self-care as a practice is because of the benefits I experience from it whether it be the boring self-care of cooking myself nutritious food or going for that walk, or something more fun like dancing or in-depth like meditation, it helps me to show up for myself and for the people in my life in a more whole and grounded way.

When I connect my clients to self-care I direct them towards themselves to better understand what is nurturing, what is healing and what is helpful and I ask them: What does it mean to truly take care of yourself? And then I gently ask them to do that.

To find out more information about my approach to pain and chronic illness contact me for a 15-minute obligation free consultation to find out how counselling can help.

 #InternationalSelfCareDay #SelfCare #SelfCarePromise #selfcare #selflove #love #loveyourself #mentalhealth #motivation #mindfulness #life #healing #fitness #meditation #mentalhealthawareness