What do you do to take care of yourself? What do you actively do to manage stress and ensure your basic needs are met?
Self-care isn't just about getting a massage or taking a bubble bath. Although these activities may be relaxing and considered a form of self-care, we are talking about something more significant.
Self-care is about purposely shaping your daily routine, relationships, and environment in a way that helps you attend to your basic physical and emotional needs. Self-care is not a luxury or a selfish pursuit.
Your basic needs include:
Self-care isn't just about getting a massage or taking a bubble bath. Although these activities may be relaxing and considered a form of self-care, we are talking about something more significant.
Self-care is about purposely shaping your daily routine, relationships, and environment in a way that helps you attend to your basic physical and emotional needs. Self-care is not a luxury or a selfish pursuit.
Your basic needs include:
- nourishment
- hydration
- enough sleep and rest
- nourishment
- movement
- sensual pleasure
- expression of feelings to be heard, understood and accepted
- intellectual and creative stimulation
- comfort, warmth, and safety
I have needs. These needs are important, and I have the right to have them met.
When you feel stressed, it's challenging to tune into and respond to body cues like hunger and fullness. Food is deeply tied to our most basic need to feel comfortable and safe. This association begins at birth, the moment our mother first offers milk. That first taste of milk begins to lay the neural pathways associating food with pleasure, comfort and safety following a stressful event (birth). This association deepens as we grow, and food is offered to soothe, celebrate, reward, and show love. Food becomes a reliable friend that provides comfort.
Emotional eating can be triggered by a whole range of emotions including, but not limited to:
These feelings can trigger anything from a benign nibble to an out-of-control binge. It's important to understand that this coping mechanism lies on a continuum of intensity that begins with mild, almost universal sensory eating to the opposite end with numbing, often anesthetizing eating.
Emotional eating can be triggered by a whole range of emotions including, but not limited to:
- anxiety
- sadness
- fear
- anger
- remorse
- disappointment
- envy
- shame
These feelings can trigger anything from a benign nibble to an out-of-control binge. It's important to understand that this coping mechanism lies on a continuum of intensity that begins with mild, almost universal sensory eating to the opposite end with numbing, often anesthetizing eating.
Good self-care starts with recognizing that you have emotional needs. These needs are important, and you have the right to have these needs met. Self-care is a critical foundation of healthy eating and fundamental to coping with our emotions without using foods.
Hard Truths About Self-Care
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When you prioritize self-care, you will disappoint some people.
In some cases, self-care means doing what you don’t feel like doing in the present moment to benefit future you. Your personal boundaries may scare some people away, but that’s ok. Let them go. Don’t neglect your needs, trying to take care of someone else. You don’t owe anyone your time, a quick text, or emotional support when you need to be giving it to yourself first. |
Taking care of someone else's needs and neglecting your own may seem like it comes from a place of love, but giving from an empty cup only leads to resentment in the long run.
In some cases, self-care means letting go of relationships, habits, and old ways of doing that no longer serve you. Good self-care means being honest with yourself, especially when the truth is hard to admit. Self-care is often hard to do, when you need it most. |
Self-Assessment & Reflection Exercise
In this exercise, you will explore self-care activities and attunement disrupters. Notice that the top half of each category identifies positive behaviors and enhances self-care; in the bottom half of the chart, there are attunement disrupters that work against taking care of your needs.
Download Self-Care Assessment Worksheet (here)
In this exercise, you will explore self-care activities and attunement disrupters. Notice that the top half of each category identifies positive behaviors and enhances self-care; in the bottom half of the chart, there are attunement disrupters that work against taking care of your needs.
Download Self-Care Assessment Worksheet (here)