The Therapy Edit - On tricks for increasing self-worth

Episode Date: May 4, 2020

A different view of self-care for you. What place does it have in our understanding of our worth? I tell you how you can re-prioritise this fundamental cornerstone of wellbeing even when you have no spare time.

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 episode 8 of The Therapy Edit today. I'm going to be talking on how to increase your sense of self-worth. And I'm going to be focusing on self-care. But I promise you, I'm not going to do it in a cheesy way. I'm not going to be instructing you to go and book. a spa day. I didn't want to call this self-care because I don't know about you, but I've

just become a bit fatigued by seeing self-care battered around and, you know, have a nice little bubble bath and do all of those things. But actually, for me, self-care has just been such an important part of addressing my mental health. And I want to talk about the non-cheasy side of self-care. I want to talk about actually what it really means and what it really does when we start being kinder to ourselves in the way that we treat ourselves. Because honestly, this has absolutely changed my life. I am someone who, not even that long ago, I'm talking three years ago, that found it hard to have a bath because it felt useless and indulgent.

And I am the kind of person that could not contemplate for a moment putting one of my kids in a nursery because I felt so guilty. And guilt, yeah, there was just so much guilt, to be honest, which I will come back to you in the next episode. But I found it really hard. I would have a massage every now and again. Someone, you know, my husband might have, say, booked me in for a massage or something.

And I would lie there feeling so bad, guilty for the person doing the massage. I would almost have to kind of talk away to them and ask them lots of questions so that, I don't know. It was kind of like my interest in their lives made it feel less awkward that they were doing something for me, but I mean they were getting paid. So it was just that I found it so uncomfortable to look after myself or to be looked after. There was times in my life where I wouldn't even have an umbrella when it was raining or a coat when it was cold because there was so much of a destructive drive for me that even just doing their simple acts of, I don't know, just the little fundamental things, hey, that that we do when we look after ourselves, you know, they would be such a challenge to me. And for some people, they'd be like, what? You wouldn't, why would you not wear a coat when it was cold? But actually, for me, that was a way of not being kind to myself, because underneath all, I felt so unworthy

of even these tiny little acts. And so it is a massive deal for me to be in a place now in life where I will, you know, find a way to get a break, but I will find a way to go and get some space that I will be kind to myself in the way that I treat myself. You know, for some people that just it's my husband. He hasn't had a self-destructive path. He doesn't think twice about taking a rest when he needs one, sitting down when he needs to. And that is great. But it just shows, you know, there are so many different ways, aren't there, of our experience of, of, of, the ability to be kind to ourselves and to be compassionate to ourselves. You know, we seem to have learned, or a lot of mums, you know, and myself have gone through

this, we seem to have learned that loving others and to being a good person means completely giving ourselves away, completely spending our resources so that there is so little left, if anything, for ourselves, you know, that we live in that gap between our load, our responsibilities and our personal resources, the limit. So we live right up to our limit. We spend ourselves until we're burnt out. And, you know, and often I find that my family do not get to enjoy me when I am burnt out. I am irritable. I am tired. I am grumpy. I do not get to respond to the kids in the way that I am proud of. And self-care is the antidote to that. You know, self-care is the antidote to this way of living. And I think,

many of us know well that kind of that burnout cycle where you live life at 100 miles an hour you give give give you do do do then you crash and that can be you know for me that often means a very tearful a very tearful day where even getting a message from a friend asking me how I am feels like too much of a call on my resources to reply and then you know there have been times when I've resented my husband for his trip, his lovely lone trip on the train into London for his commute. You know, when you start resenting someone, their space on a on a commuter, on a pack commuter train, and it's a bit of a flag for me that I'm not looking after myself, well, to address low self-esteem, to address low self-worth, we need to address

self-care. And I'm not talking about blocking out whole chunks of your diary to do. do these wonderful indulgent things. I'm talking about reprioritizing what is a very fundamental building block of good mental health. You know, we've we've kind of got this, this very important cornerstone, very, you know, fundamental part of mental health. And we've, we've made it optional. We've made it something that we just kind of fit in on a Saturday morning. If there's nothing else going on and then maybe we'll do something nice. You know, we become so fixated on meeting the needs of other people that we don't meet our own because we de-prioritise them.

But the important thing is that actually we need to start putting ourselves back at the top of that priority list because for me to be able to fulfil the needs of those around me, I actually need to be in a good place myself. Otherwise, what use am I to them when I'm grumpy and snappy and resentful? You know, we often monitor the needs of other people and that's because we care about them. We value them.

We think about our family. You know, if you've got kids, you're all probably thinking, are they hungry, angry, thirsty, tired, did they need a nap? Did they need to zone out in front of the TV? If they had too much TV, well, we monitor their needs because we want to meet them because we value them.

So when we're ignoring our own needs, what are we saying to ourselves? You know, if my child was to say, Mommy, I'm thirsty and I kept putting it off and saying, oh, I'll do it, you know, I'll do it tomorrow, I'll get your drink tomorrow. What would that be saying to them? What message would I be giving? It would be, I don't value your need. I don't value your basic need enough to kind of get off the sofa and meet it. Self care,

builds self-worth. So if you are struggling with low self-worth, self-care is going to be one of the most important things you can do and start asking yourself, what do you feel? What do you need? Just like you monitor those around you. Feeling need. Set a reminder on your phone. Doesn't matter. Write it on the back of your hand. FN. Feeling need. What do you feel? on the feelings like clothes because sometimes it's not even easy to identify. And you know what? I remember years ago when I was training and one of my tutors came to me. And she just said, Anna, what do you need? I was like, oh my goodness. I don't even know. I do not. I could not even tell you. I had lost the language of my own need so long before that I couldn't even access what it was in that

moment that I needed. You know, what do you feel? What do you need? Are you scared, angry, hungry, retired, do you need comfort? Do you need something to eat? Do you need a drink? Do you need to, you know, to go to bed earlier tonight. So do the things. Do the little things. Little by little, the little things become the big things. Start small. You know, drink the water. Go for a wee when you need one so you're not hopping about. Start small, start small because those, those are statements to you. those those little things are not little the glass of water when you're thirsty instead of putting it off for hours and hours is a statement I value myself despite everything in knowledge of everything regardless of everything I am choosing to value myself enough to listen to that thirst you know asking for comfort or reaching out to a friend or whatever it is in response to that feeling just that one little step to meet that need it's turning that

that self-esteem, that sense of low self-worth, it's, you know, it's, it's changing that dialogue. You know, these deeds are so important, aren't they? That's how we feel loved. It's in what people do and how they treat us. It's, words are great, but it's the actions that make it real. 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. Anna Martha, you might like to check out my two books called Mind Over Mother and Know You're Worth. I'm also the founder of the Mother Mind Way, a platform full of guides, resources and a community with the sole focus on supporting mother's mental and emotional

wellbeing. It's been lovely chatting with you. Speak soon.