Is your self-care serving you - or your to-do list?
I’m newly experimenting with starting my day with relaxation and stretching partly cause my midlife body is begging me for it, and partly because I want to feel greater calm, and fullness. (More on that later.)
I’ve also big-time slowed my roll on drinking (booze) for a bit— it is a depressant, after all, even as that first sip surely lifts the spirits (ha ha). Yes, me, owner of a dozen bottles of tequila and mezcal, part of a carefully curated liquor cabinet, make that cabinets. And a section of the refrigerator, but I digress.
As I reach for my faithful, duct-taped Nautilus gym mat, I’m asking myself: For what aspects of myself am I truly doing this body health thing?
Greater energy for my business? Check. For managing my head-strong 84 1/2 lb Ellie dog, when another dog dares to walk in her neighborhood? For sure. So I can lift a roller bag into the overhead bin, still? Yup. Or, is there something else, just for me?
I recall a poignant coaching session from the previous day. As we were getting started, a busy exec shared almost as an aside that she blocks off time before and after our time together. A seemingly not noteworthy action peaked my curiosity. She explained that she had developed the habit because she had cared for a beloved parent for a very long time. She had found it useful to create a buffer in her schedule for work meetings and client calls, as she often would be tending to him at home, or accompanying him to doctors’ appointments and hospital visits.
A moving insight followed. Her father had died a year ago, and in this evolving period of work and life transition, she was now creating that space for herself. Her time-buffer practice had become personal. Just for her. No one else.
Seriously. It wasn’t a given. She could have abandoned the practice, now that she was no longer in caregiver mode, and thrown herself back into ready-whenever-you-need-me mode, but she didn’t.
Her self-care regimen buffers time around stuff that matters to her well-being like self-exploration and un-rushed time with friends. A behavior that served as a productivity hack has shifted to a self-nourishment ritual.
Back on my mat, I see that same possibility for myself. My cognitive self aspect has tended to lead the way, propelling my striving and much of my achievement. (Perhaps, you, too.)
Besides the mat activity, I’m taking a pretty wild leap for me, seriously woo woo. As part of my quest for greater calm, and to help me get out of my head, I’m doing some work with a coach to engage differently with, and experience more fully, the “wisdom of my body.” (Shout out, Daven Lee). I’ll keep you posted.
Yes, I’m finding that my body self-care practice and exploration is helping me maintain physical strength and well-being. More so, I’m finding the possibility of tapping something powerful, to feel more spaciousness, connection, and more fully myself.
We all know we need time to nourish our physical and emotional wellbeing. (Whether we actually do it, or enough, is a whole other matter, of course.) We need necessary timeouts from work and stress and life craziness, if only to stave off overwhelm and burnout. But, do our workouts, weekends and vacations merely allow us to feel refreshed, in service to greater productivity, or do these truly serve us, our best self, especially at midlife?
What would it take now to dare ask — What if, what could be, and how, just for me?
P.S. If you’re curious about what might be possible for you - how to move from self-LESS to self FULL - let’s talk.