by Erlene Grise-Owens, EdD, LCSW, MSW, MRE, lead co-editor of The A-to-Z Self-Care Handbook for Social Workers and Other Helping Professionals
Practising self-care is akin to studying prepare dinner a life-menu that nurtures, fuels, pleasures, and satisfies. Like cooks studying their craft, over a few years, my experience and artistry in self-care has grown. So, right here’s what’s cooking!
Designing a Self-Care Cookbook
I’ve developed some tried-and-true self-care recipes and ideas. As you learn mine, contemplate what are the principle elements for YOUR self-care cookbook.
- Important Components: Deal with Foundations— Each good prepare dinner is aware of, even while refining recipes, it’s essential to recollect the foundations. For my self-care menu, I all the time embody the fundamentals of Relaxation, Vitamin, Motion—important elements of self-care. Like a consolation meals that heals, when getting overwhelmed, I concentrate on that primary recipe. I prioritize getting some relaxation, attending to my dietary/hydration wants, and integrating motion. Not all the time straightforward, however, all the time important.
- Go-To Recipes: Go Small, Smaller, Smallest—Each prepare dinner wants go-to recipes for simply good, primary fare. Equally, while progress and problem are essential, I’ve discovered that once I get too fancy with my self-care, I can turn into discouraged. To regain perspective, I am going small, smaller, smallest. What’s the smallest step I can take right this moment to feed my self-care? Make my mattress; do some stretches; say “No” to one thing. Over time, collectively, “smallest” steps turn into habits, which turn into a smorgasbord self-care life-style.
- Marinate: Observe Gratitude—Of many self-care habits, practicing gratitude could be the most impactful. In cooking, marinating enhances flavors. Gratitude is the marinade of self-care. It deepens each expertise—strange, troublesome, joyful. Certain, you may make a meal with out it, however ahhh…when you’ve discovered the marinating energy, you’ll use it extensively.
- Simmer: Sluggish it Down—Equally, simmering self-care entails slowing down to permit for mindfulness, reflection, and ease. My simmering self-care consists of studying, journaling, puttering, simply being. It consists of organizing, cleansing, and attending my surroundings. Simmering additionally entails slowing down choice processes and/or responses to worrying conditions. Slowing down permits for aware consideration, gathering vital data/help, and being current to oneself and others. Like marinating, simmering is important for a menu that promotes a wholesome self-care repertoire.
- Know How To Mix, Stir, and Separate: Connection & Solitude—Good cooks know mix and stir. Additionally they know the significance of separating elements—comparable to egg whites and yolks. Equally, good self-care engages connecting to others, particularly infusers. Good self-care additionally entails connecting to our function and larger causes. These connections are reciprocal; they feed and gas us. Concomitantly, these connections can deplete us. A part of self-care is ascertaining the place feeling disconnected. And, oftentimes, it’s from one’s self. We have to know when to separate; all of us want boundaries and solitude. Communing with nature, reflecting, resting, and connecting to 1 self is essential self-care.
- Saute and Sizzle: Advocate—An excellent prepare dinner additionally is aware of the significance of bringing the warmth! Saute and Sizzle! An important side of self-care is consciousness of broader contextual issues, comparable to poisonous environments, systemic injustices, and different macro components. Advocating for systemic changes is part of self-care—not separate from it.
- Measure and Monitor: Observe and Assess—Skilled cooks develop intuitive expertise, however, even specialists—and particularly novices—must measure and monitor their efforts. Equally, know the worth of tracking self-care commitments and reinforcing habits. Routinely assess: What’s working? What wants work? How can I tweak my “recipes”?
- Senses and Spices: Wholistic & Expansive—Fulfilling cooking (and, consuming!) is a completely sensory expertise: style (yum or yuck), odor (aromas), sight (presentation/colours), contact (textures), and even sound (sizzle!) Additional, glorious cooking entails an array of flavors. Candy, savory, salty, bitter, and spicey: Menu of life. Likewise, self-care engages an expansive appreciation for all features of the human experience and a wholistic steadiness of the spices of life.
- Cooking Philosophy: Self-Compassion—On the coronary heart of fine meals is the cooking philosophy/strategy. Self-compassion is a perfect self-care philosophy. Be variety in your cooking. You’ll make errors; undertake a progress mindset. Use elements at hand. However, additionally, collect what you want. Savor the method of all of it. And, bear in mind good enough self-care: Typically, it’s okay to eat out or simply have a PB&J sandwich. 😊
What feeds and fuels your self-care? Share your recipes!
Peace, Love, & Self-Care, Erlene
Erlene Grise-Owens, EdD, LCSW, MSW, MRE, is a Associate in The Wellness Group, ETC. This LLC supplies analysis, coaching, and session for organizational wellness and practitioner well-being. Dr. Grise-Owens is lead editor of The A-to-Z Self-Care Handbook for Social Workers and Other Helping Professionals. As a former school member and graduate program director, she and a small (however mighty!) group of colleagues applied an initiative to advertise self-care as a part of the social work schooling curriculum. Beforehand, she served in medical and administrative roles. She has expertise with navigating toxicity and dysfunction, up-close and private! Likewise, as an educator, she noticed college students enter the sector and shortly burn out. As a devoted social employee, she believes the well-being of practitioners is a matter of social justice and human rights. Thus, she is on a mission to advertise self-care and wellness!
