Prioritize Your Self-Care

Excerpted from the introduction to my upcoming book, Prioritize Your Self-Care

“To love oneself is the beginning of a lifelong romance.” — Oscar Wilde

Everybody asks for your help. You’re worn out. But you can rest when you’re dead. Your body aches. And not from working out. You know self-care is important, but you just don’t have the time.

Does this sound like your life? Do these feelings hit home? Is this you?

I often hear these lies from my coaching clients:

• “Self-care is for the weak or wealthy.”

• “Self-care is a great idea. I’d love to take a bubble bath and wash all my troubles away!”

• “Wouldn’t that be nice to go to a spa! But who has that kind of money or time?”

• “I’m too busy taking care of others to take care of myself. Maybe when I retire.”

• “I feel guilty when I do things for myself!”

• “Self-care is selfish; it’s contrary to a life of service.”

Do any of these sound like you?

While self-care is a high value for many, few of us practice it. And, when we do, we feel guilty, as Birchbox.com, a beauty products website, found in their comprehensive study on self-care:

• 67 percent of people report caring for others over their own self-care

• 33 percent of people feel guilty taking time for themselves

• 43 percent of single people make time for their self-care

• 30 percent of people in relationships make time for self-care

• 51 percent of Americans feel burned out

• 30 percent of Americans are making time for self-care

Are you feeling burned out or just run down? Have you lost your mojo? Are you putting your relationships with your significant other, children, or others ahead of your self-care? Are you kicking the self-care can down the road?

I’ve been there. The first time I heard “Take care of yourself” was in 1989. My husband

and I lived in the desert of New Mexico. We had one car, no friends, and families that lived far away. We had very little money, and as a medical resident, James was rarely home. My tiny newborn son, Ian, seemed to be uncomfortable in his own skin from the moment he was pulled from my womb by emergency C-section. He took catnaps and cried for stretches far beyond the descriptive “witching hour.” A deep ache still plagued me in the form of a half-smile along the top of my pubic bone—a constant reminder that even in the immediate aftermath of childbirth, I was alone.

My marriage was already hanging by a thread when, one weekend, the hospital where James was supposed to be moonlighting told me they’d never heard of him. Meanwhile, I’d found a sexy shirtless caricature of him, drawn by an unknown artist who simply signed the work “MC” folded neatly in one of his pockets. I called the marriage therapist we had seen once or twice, hoping she’d talk me out of my fears, which were bubbling out of control: What if he’s an imposter? What if he isn’t even a doctor? What if he’s having an affair? She listened compassionately, but, of course, she did not know enough to honestly, responsibly put me at ease.

So, she said the phrase that has been rattling around in my brain ever since: “Take care of yourself, Susan.”

“How am I supposed to take care of myself,” I raged while pacing the kitchen. “Take a bubble bath? Light some candles?” We had a new baby, one car, little money and no community. I was isolated, lonely, exhausted, often in pain, and full of self-recrimination. “How is a walk in the park or a bath going to fix all this?”

So, what does self-care really mean? It is not about weekly massages, IV vitamin drips, hyperbaric oxygen chambers, lymphatic compression suits, cryotherapy, red-light beds, and other cash-only complimentary wellness treatments. Such lies about what you need to do to take care of yourself—especially if they’re above your financial means--only keep you depleted and stuck in emotional and physical pain. It took me the next several years and many more hardships to discover the much deeper meaning of self-care. Though any of these treatments and even a bubble bath might help you feel good, true self-care is an inside job.

At first those words uttered by the therapist, “take care of yourself,” sounded dismissive and even insulting. It was like sending a “get well soon” card to someone who is terminally ill. Yet here I am, more than 30 years later, echoing the same advice that therapist gave me: Take care of yourself. In this book, I will share stories that ended up being messy pathways to my extraordinary life. Only later did the path become clear and could I see that my worst times were my greatest gifts, paving the way for authentic self-care. Self-care is not a luxury only for the wealthy. Of course, any of these treatments can help us feel better, self-care is much deeper. It’s a way of seeing oneself. It’s about saying, “My well-being matters. I matter.”

In this book, I offer my stories in the hope that you will see yourself. From my struggles, self-inquiries and ultimately strategies emerged. If you try my tips and strategies, tips, and self-discovery questions, you will learn to prioritize your self-care. With my Five Wellness Strategies, you will learn to prioritize your self-care so you can live your birthright of an extraordinary life:

1. Set healthy boundaries.

2. Monitor and marshal your energy sources.

3. Create pockets of silence and stillness so you can…

4. Learn the language of your body.

5. Listen to all of yourself: body, heart, mind, spirit, and emotion.

Beyond candles, bubble baths, or expensive spas, I will share how I learned to honor and value myself every day. Throughout this book, I will provide opportunities to reflect on your own experiences and show you how to use them to light the way to your own self-care plan. The future is now. I challenge you to stop kicking the self-care can down the road and start prioritizing it every day as though your life depended on it. Because it does. Here you will learn the radical act of paying attention to what you need—not only in times of stress—but all the time.

This book is both memoir and guide. My advice is born of experience. Through accounts of my own heartbreaks and traumas, from being alone in the wilderness to an emergency C-section and visiting my son in jail, together we’ll discover what self-care can mean for you so you can come home to your own truth and live a life authentic purpose. I recommend you use this book as a kindred spirit, a co-explorer, with the goal of finding unconditional and loyal friendship with yourself. Only in self-compassion can you ultimately live the life of greatest possibility. This is the path to living an extraordinary life—as you define extraordinary. Remember, self-care is an inside job.

This is not a cry for soft-and-fuzzy, feel-good treatments. This is a book for self-care warriors. In that spirit, I challenge you to make self-care a top priority, to be a warrior in service of filling your own cup…