LIFE | A YEAR OF SELF CARE
I had CBT many years ago and one of the topics we covered was self-care. Self care comes in many forms, and for me it was about building an arsenal of helpful behaviours to change my outlook and give me the strength to face difficult situations.
Today, 28th February, and what would have been my Dad’s 79th birthday gave me some time to reflect and I jotted down the activities that I wanted to do more of over the next year with goal of following a self-care journey.
These aren’t new and I’ve done each of these on and off, but as life got in the way I would often forget to keep them up. This time, I wanted to focus on following these on a consistent basis with the goal of documenting how they would hopefully enhance my wellbeing.
Journal
The Elephant Stamp is my little corner of the internet, a creative outlet where I can share my musings, photos, a diary of my adventures and a snippet of my everyday life. I’m certainly no writer and instead my novice journaling takes me back to happy times, allows me to relive memories and as I delve back in time to previous trips, my mind completely switches off.
2. Gratitude
I often neglected gratitude and couldn’t see the link with overall happiness but as I reconnected with my therapy notes, I remembered how incredible gratitude is to your overall wellbeing, allowing your mind to focus on positive moments and push any negative thoughts to the side.
3. Positive affirmations
In hand with gratitude, this is about voicing out loud positive affirmations and visualising a great day ahead, with the goal of changing your mindset to think positively. I’m still not 100% convinced but will see how its plays out over the next year.
4. Read
I’ve never been a bookworm but back in my twenties, instead of being glued to my phone, I would sit and read on my commute. Again, it would allow my racing mind to switch off, escape to another world and today with no social media to scroll, I’m back reading before bedtime.
5. Invest in Health
I’ve always exercised regularly but I’ve decided to go one step further and really focus on building my mental health through meditation, breathing and perhaps giving pilates a whirl.
6. Self Growth
I remember meeting an American whilst living in San Sebastian, Spain and to this day, his words ‘there’s no challenge that can’t be fixed’ have stuck with me. I’ve learnt to face fears which were holding me back. There are still things I want to focus on so this year is about self-growth, and building new skills.
7. Quit Social Media
Any spare 5 mins I had, I’d be on Instagram. Thankfully social media only entered my life in my early twenties so I’ve known a pre and post life. Back then, I lived and traveled in the present moment and wasn’t obsessed with capturing the perfect instagram shot only to be left disappointed if the algorithm worked against it.
Last year, I deleted my personal accounts along with The Elephant Stamp’s instagram and there was an instant lift. There was no need to worry about posting regularly, and the time spent off social media allowed me to live presently with my twin girls and get through my daily to do list.
8. Stop Planning
I’ve learnt that life doesn’t go to plan, let alone a timeframe. Before I was a meticulous planner, planning every trip a year in advance or writing down a 5 year life plan. As they say, God laughs in the face of a plan and actually it’s no bad thing just to sit back and let life surprise you. So this year, I’m not planning any trips or scrolling rightmove, I’m simply going to live in the present and see where life takes me.
