Self-care. Everyone tells you that you need to take care of yourself. Everyone tells you that you need down time and you’ll become a better person and business woman.
You hear this and you think, it’s not like you don’t want to take care of yourself. But how do you do that when it’s your job to take care of others? And that’s not being all holier than though. It’s your actual job to take care of your clients. You are there to help them get their body back. Your there to help them get to the next level. Your there to help them to get healthy.
You give it all you have. You put in the extra time, stay up late and hustle your soulful butt off.
But then you get sick or start to feel run down. Does that stop you? No, you push harder. But what does that really prove?
- That you’re a big hearted. Yes.
- That you’re strong and capable of juggling a lot on your plate? Yes
But since people are paying for is to teach them how to care for themselves. Since they need your help to change their life around. To lose weight, to reduce stress, to become stronger.
It’s time to walk the walk and start putting yourself first.
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As women, were rewarded for caring for others. For being Mrs. DO IT ALL and never complain. But that’s not healthy. As I have gotten older I have noticed that I actually crave self-care more and I have stopped apologizing for it.
I don’t justify to myself or anyone else that I need a day off. I don’t justify that I want to have time where I disconnect from technology and got to the park with my puppy. Or that I need a day where I slather myself in coconut oil and just recharge my skin and hair.
It started about a year ago I started working on building better boundaries.
When I was in corporate America I was required to have not boundaries. I was required & expected to give my personal cell phone number out to clients to be on call when they needed me. I was required to work lots of unplanned late nights. I was required to work through lunch just to take one more meeting. I was paid to put myself last.
And the scary part was that I didn’t really see myself getting affected.
I was still able to spend time with my family and friends. I just was a bit busier. But as time went on instead of leaving what little free time I had in my schedule I stated filling it up. I saw blank slots of time as a bad thing. Then I got the stupid idea that instead of having free time I needed to use that time to be achieving something.
So that’s what I did.
I used that time to organize my house or to learn about a new program that would help me make thousands. I filled up my calendar and head with busy work. Gone were the quite work lunches. Instead they were power lunches when’re I was trying to do something. Gone were the unexpected quite nights after work. Instead they were filled with Pinterest projects that I would never look at again. On and on it went for years.
It got so bad at one time in my life that I would EXPECT to be burned out about once every six months. And when that time came. I would veg on the couch or in bed for a about two days. Hardly read, put all my projects down and just watch mindless TV and eat take out.
I use to think of that burnout was a reward because it was proof that I was successful. Since the only way to success was to burn myself out and do, do, do.
But as time went on. A day off every six months wasn’t enough. The burn out then came every four months. Then it became every two months. Then it became this state where I wanted to do nothing for months on end. But instead of just unplugging. I would use this down time to cram into my brain all the ways I was going to crush it once I was not exhausted anymore. Even in my down time I was trying to prove something to the world but my heart wasn’t in it.
I finally had to change and start taking care of myself when I shattered my arm. I had gotten into a car accident and had the air bag go off what my hand on the horn. That shattered my wrist and arm.
Which required pins to hold my remaining bones together until everything healed. And even the first few weeks I still didn’t get it.
I would still try and clean the house with one arm instead of having someone else do it. It wants like it didn’t have an army of volunteers. I would still try and do laundry or get dressed in jeans and complicated bras on my own. I hated asking for help and truly saw it as a Sign of weakness. When in reality I was weak and needed help. I was in excruciating pain and was being a stubborn brat.
The biggest kicker was when my doctor and husband stared threatening to put me on bed rest. Not only was I not healing properly, but I keep on getting infections.
After the first time I had to get even more tissue removed from the wound where my pins were. And seeing the X-rays that my arm was not healing properly. And hearing that I was going to have to be in being in pins for even longer than planned, I finally got the hint. It just took the universe putting me into a car accident, plus the threat of never fully regaining use of my arm again to hear it.
I needed to take care of myself and NOT apologize for it.
So that’s what I did. I watched mindless TV, not educational TV for hours since I couldn’t do anything else. I slept and took frequent naps when I was tired. I listened to my body and took it easy. I paid the money and took the highest quality vitamins I could find to replace the vitamins and minerals I had lost I the accident and over the years.
And after a moth of just relaxing and taking care of myself, I finally started to see progress. My bones were finally healing from the amazing vitamins. And I had proof since I was still getting weekly X-rays. The before and after was just so amazing that my doctor told me to keep doing what IV was doing.
And the unexpected part that I learned from this was I had stated putting in boundaries again. I didn’t stay up really late at night just because my friends wanted to hang out. If I was tired, I told people I was tired and went home and to bed and stopped apologizing for it.
I started actually scheduling in dates with myself.
I would go to Starbucks and read and drink coffee. I would go to the park with my puppy and disconnect from technology. I started reevaluating my expectations and questioning what real purpose was it serving me.
And I have never looked back.
If you have had a similar experience, share it in the comments below. We need to embrace self-care instead of valuing burn out. The more women that share their story, the more we can help.
