This week, November 13th-19th is National Self-Care Week in the UK, and the theme this year is mind and body.
It kind of made me laugh when I saw that, because here we are in 2023 and we are still separating the mind from the body. We can think of them as separate for convenience. But let’s starting behaving as if they’re not separate.
But what does this mean in practice? Well let’s take yoga as an example. I do a 15-25 minute yoga practice most mornings. I know that when I do my yoga, my joints loosen up, my back feels better and my mental health benefits.
For me yoga is an investment in my mental wealth. Those daily yogic squats keep my lymphatics moving, as well as keeping my joints loose. I feel great because by taking the time on the mat I’ve shown myself some love. I’ve put myself ahead of my work and any other commitments I have.
Yoga might not be right for you, but whatever you do to move, stretch and nurture your body, when you do it out of self-love, then you are adding an extra dimension to the experience.
Similarly if you practise meditation or mindfulness, if you choose to eat healthily, or if you spend time in creative activities, do it because you love yourself, not just because you want to be a little bit healthier!
Self-care is also about taking responsibility for yourself. It’s not just that your GP is over-worked and you want more from healthcare than yet another prescription. When we assume responsibility – response-ability – for ourselves, we inevitably take a more holistic approach to the care of our body-mind.
The doctor will probably not have time to go through your daily habits with a fine tooth comb, trying to get to the bottom or why you keep falling ill. But you can!
You can start with the obvious self-care practices such as meditation, yoga, a daily walk, good, healthy food and 8-9 hours sleep at night. And then you can start to listen to your self-talk.
How do you speak to yourself? If you notice that you’re speaking harshly to yourself, ask yourself what’s the likely impact of that on your mental & physical health. Would you expect a child or a dog to thrive if you constantly threw insults at them, or put them down with harsh words? And yet so many of us speak this way to ourselves.
What’s your response-ability here? You can change the way you speak to yourself. You can show yourself compassion and kindness. You can be curious about why you do and say the things you you do and say. You have the ability to respond to yourself with kindness.
As you learn to show yourself more love and care, you will also find that you have more fulfilling relationships with others in your life. It's easier to be kind and compassionate to others when we are kind and compassionate to ourselves - perhaps simply because as we practise it on ourselves, we get better at showing it to other people. And maybe when we are harsh to ourselves, we attract harshness from others; when we are kind to ourselves, we attract kindness from others.
So you see self-love and self-care are the ultimate holistic practice, with benefits spilling over into our relationships, our families and our communities.
Self-care week is just one week. But self-care is for the whole of the year. So perhaps this is an opportunity to make one lasting change to the way you live your life. And then once that change hs become a habit, you can create another and then another...
What habit would you like to change this week, that will mean you are taking better care of yourself and showing yourself more love for the next 12 months?