The Therapy Edit - On something you need to know about self-care

Episode Date: November 22, 2021

Find self-care a tricky concept to grasp? I have a fresh approach, and I promise, there are no bubble baths in sight.

Hello and welcome to the Therapy Edit Podcast with me, psychotherapist Anna Martha. I'll be bringing you weekly 10 minute episodes to encourage and support your emotional well-being. Hello and welcome to the Therapy Edit podcast. Today I want to completely turn self-care on its head for you. I want to completely change the way that you feel about it. My understanding of self-care has really transformed. actually recently over this last couple of years, I used to think of self-care as the bubble baths and the spa days. Now, I am all for those things. But I realised also what I had been doing

is thinking of self-care is having a shower, going for a wee when I needed it, drinking enough water. And I had thought, yes, I've ticked the self-care box, had a glass of water, ticked self-care done, had a shower today, tick self-care done. guys moms how have we turned these fundamental building blocks of self-respect into acts of self-care something to applaud ourselves for you know I think meeting our very basic needs need not be termed self-care but self-respect I don't see my husband celebrating when it gets out of the shower thinking that he has ticked the self-care box of the day and applauding himself for it. You know, so often these things were just fundamentals. You know, rest being clean, kind of

personal hygiene, brushing your teeth, having the shower, drinking the water, eating the food. Those are not acts of self-care. They are fundamental basic acts of self-respect. Even prisoners in prison are afforded those things. To show you how imperative these basic acts are for our worth, I want you to think about if you were to deny your child water, if you were to deny your child rest, if you were to deny your child nourishing food at a meal time, how many times have you eaten scraps?

How many times have you gone around thirsty whilst refilling cups and bottles for children? You know, if you were to deny your children those things, it would be labelled neglect. Yet we have gotten to this place so many of us where we just kind of chronically neglect ourselves. What message would it give our children if we weren't even meeting their basic needs? And therefore, what message is it giving you your sense of self, your sense of self-respect, your sense of value, your self-esteem, your worthiness as a human to have those fundamental needs met? What message is it giving to yourself? I think this is part of the reason we find it so hard to rest. Part of the reason we find it so hard to not to feel that kind of, I'm a burden if

someone is supporting me or we kind of brush off offers for help or support. Because what message are we giving ourselves? What message are we giving ourselves in the way that we are treating ourselves in the small way. If you are not deserving of being hydrated, then of course it's going to be hard. It's going to be challenging. There's going to be guilt when it comes to some of those larger things, the day out, the half day without the kids that are letting someone help you, letting someone support you. Of course, those things are going to be harder when we're not even affording ourselves, those basic things. So I want to challenge you to start to start shifting and changing what you understand self-care to be. You know, I started thinking, for me,

if water is the, you know, the act of self-respect, then what is self-care? Self-care is making myself a nice kind of, I don't know, a smoothie or whatever it is that is actually going that extra mile. It's like having a friend round, you know, respect is basically putting them some clean linen on. You know, care is thinking, well, what do they love for breakfast? I'm going to I'm going to get that. I'm going to roll them some towels in a nice, not in a swan shape quite as much, but I'm going to roll them some towels up to make it look nice. I might stick some flowers in there. It's going the extra mile. Now, if you're feeling burnt out and overwhelmed, you need more than basic. The more you give, the more you need. And self-care also, I don't believe

it's quite as much as what it is. It's how it feels. It's what it gives you. It's not the what, it's the how. For someone it might be a bath, for someone it might be a long walk with a friend, for someone, it doesn't matter what it is, it's how it refills you, how it refules you, how it values you. All of these things are gestures of worth the way that we treat ourselves. Self-care is the extra. The things that start topping you up that little bit more than just the skim of water at the bottom. You know, I've started drinking so much more water. and I think this happened about a couple of months ago now. I've been doing it and it's turned into such a habit.

I can't imagine not drinking my two litres of water plus a day. And I think I read something that said, you know, your body is depleted. Your body is under stress when you're dehydrated. And then I started thinking, man, there's already enough stress going on in my life. So if my body is already stressed and I'm experiencing stress, no wonder I'm finding it so overwhelming and hard to deal with. Now, there is a lot of stress in my life that I'm. cannot remove it is just there but there are some things that I can do to equip myself so that I'm

better resource to deal with them and the one simple one was just to drink more and I honestly I feel different physically in my body but it drew my attention to the way that we consistently neglect ourselves because we have started to call you know that glass of water or that shower, is that act of self-care? No. We need to up our standards for the way that we are treating ourselves. And I promise you that as you start to do these things and my Instagram community and we've been doing that one tiny thing, one tiny change, one tiny habit. And for many people, it has been to drink more water, to drink water at all. Many people have been existing on caffeine, just those things just to get through, keep on, keeping on.

But you are human with needs and feelings, and you deserve to have more than the basic ones met. And as people are starting to do this and starting to make these things a habit, the drinking the water, they're stretching, the talking to friends, and sometimes it's a case of putting boundaries in. You know, starting to say no to things. Even if it's hard, it's a challenge. But actually, when you say no to something, you start to respect the parameters of your non-non. endless human resources. You know, so it might be something self-care for you, might be something you take away. It might be something that you add as a boundary. It doesn't necessarily need to be a habit, the drinking water. But it did amaze me how many moms, their little pledge was to

eat lunch, their little pledge was to drink water. It was to eat a piece of fruit instead of the scraps left by the kids. You deserve more than scraps. Your kids deserve more than scraps. You have the same worth and value as your children. You deserve more than scraps. If scraps is what you are giving yourself, physically, metaphorically, whatever, your self-esteem is going to be feeding on that statement.

This is what I'm worth is scraps. So therefore we find it hard to believe on other things, good things come our way that we are worthy of them because the message that we are telling ourselves repeatedly is a difference. So I hope that helps reshift the way that you think about self-care. Start thinking about what are those fundamental needs that you might be overlooking? What are those fundamental needs that you might be meeting and then thinking,

yes, that's self-care. How can you go beyond? What habit can you start forming? What boundary can you put in that is about more than just respect for yourself? Feel free to let me know. on social media how you're getting on and join in with us as many of us start trying to do the same thing thank you for listening to today's episode of the therapy edit if you enjoyed it please do share subscribe and review you can find more from me on instagram at anam arthur you might like to check out

my two books called mind over mother and know your worth i'm also the founder of the mothermind way, a platform full of guides, resources and a community with the sole focus on supporting mother's mental and emotional well-being. It's been lovely chatting with you. Speak soon.