Selfish? No, Self Care.

I am often asked the question ‘isn’t self-care just being selfish?’ I always answer ‘No!!!!’

It is that time of the year again when many of us have had a pretty exhausting couple of festive weeks, cooking, entertaining, shopping and looking after children etc and often we do all these things whilst struggling with winter colds and flu! Time to really focus on self-care to restore our energies and boost our sense of wellbeing and motivation for the start of the New Year.

Many of my clients are not used to focusing on self in a compassionate way, they think of it as selfish and self-indulgent. They should be putting others before themselves, shouldn’t they? Give and keep giving rather than receiving – that sounds much more noble and doable!

However, this belief comes unstuck quite quickly. If you have ever been on a plane and asked to watch the safety advice video, you will know that you are always told to put your own oxygen mask on first before that of a child or an elderly person. This is because if you have no oxygen, you cannot help that other person with their mask and both of you will perish.

Another familiar analogy is that of the glass full / glass empty. If we drain our own glass of water (energy), we do not have any to sustain us or to give away to others. A no win situation!

Where are these 2 analogies going you may ask? Well if we want to care for and give love and compassion to others, we must be able and willing to give it to ourselves first.

Are you your own best friend or worst enemy? Experiencing what it feels like to be kind to yourself can really help to uplift your own sense of esteem better appreciate the impact of showing kindness to others. So some important steps to better self-care include:

Knowing our own limitations and boundaries in terms of how much we can physically and mentally do at any given time and how much stress we can cope with.
Recognising when we are coming close to stepping over our boundaries and doing something to pull us back to a safe and comfortable place.
Practising daily the art of relaxation and anxiety busting techniques, creating personal time and space, taking up new activities, developing hobbies and pursuing enjoyable moments.
Reaching out to carefully chosen people who are ‘radiators’ not ‘drainers’, those who will support and nurture us from time to time. Knowing how to restore ourselves and top up our own glasses.
The result of better self-care? – being calmer, less tired and more relaxed and enabling ourselves to help others more, having more mental and physical energy and motivation. Being able to see a future for ourselves and our loved ones and learning to love life more, developing resilience when life gets tough.
So go on give it a go and focus on your own needs at least some of the time – work out a balance between giving and receiving and start to reap the benefits!

You have perhaps been struggling for some time, you are aware you might need some help, you don’t feel you can face your friends and/or family, you feel they may judge you as silly, weak or worse and won’t be able to or indeed won’t want to help you.

Your issues are scary, it is difficult to cope, you feel no-one will listen or understand and you feel isolated and desperate. Your work is suffering or maybe you can’t work at all and the impact on your life in all areas is huge. Where do I go next you may ask yourself?

You may have heard of therapy but that has always been something someone else does not you! You have never asked anyone for help and consider it a sign of weakness. That doesn’t seem like something you could possibly do and anyway what is it, what is the point and are you really suggesting I talk to a complete stranger – no thanks.

‘No somehow I will cope on my own and ‘pull myself together’ – I really don’t want anyone else to know I am in such a bad place’. However, gradually this plan begins to unravel and as a very last resort you consider seeking help – you begin to search the internet for someone called a counsellor – STEP 1.

‘Oh no there are lots of counsellors to choose from and they all seem to offer something different – how can I decide, it might be easier not to bother at all. I will put it off for a while longer – it’s much too confusing and even more scary! Trouble is I am still struggling badly’.

‘It’s no good I am just going to go for that one and hope for the best, they seem genuine and it does say they are experienced and qualified’ – STEP 2. ‘I will email them and see if they respond – I don’t feel up to speaking to them on the telephone yet as I don’t like using the phone much anyway – I am always too nervous’.

‘Oh they have replied and they are offering me an appointment – ignore the email, say no and hope they don’t keep pestering me – help! No I can make that date and time and really need to say yes but I feel so anxious – I don’t know if I am doing the right thing but know deep down that it is now or never. I will say yes as I think I am ready – give it a go, after all if I don’t like them, I don’t have to go twice!’ – STEP 3.

‘It’s the day and now I almost feel sick with nervousness but don’t really want to let the person down at the last minute. I am going but it is taking every bit of courage I can muster as I have no idea what to expect. Will I even be able to say anything? – I do hope this person understands what a big deal this whole thing is’. STEP 4.

‘Wow what a relief, first session over and it was much less scary than I had expected – I was actually smiling at the end and quite talkative – the counsellor made me feel really comfortable and I think I am going to continue. Finally after so long deliberating, I feel I have made the right decision to seek some help and hopefully improve my life a lot’.

Could this be You?? Can you take that first step?? I do hope so!

So much is said about the question of anxiety and its profile has certainly been raised recently. However, it can be misunderstood, feared and unfortunately still comes with some stigma! Isn’t anxiety something ‘weak’ people suffer from? Well guess what, no it isn’t! All of us experience some levels of anxiety at certain times in our lives and we are all vulnerable to its power over us. How come you may ask? Well let’s have a quick and very simple look at what it actually is.

Basically anxiety is the brain’s survival mechanism and, as such, is intended to be attention grabbing. Fundamentally simplifying the process means imagining our brains constantly on the look-out for threats to our safety and survival. These threats can be thought of as triggers and they are very individual to us all. In other words what makes me anxious may not make someone else anxious and visa versa.

As soon as a threat is detected the brain sends a message via the sympathetic nervous system to the adrenal gland to pump the hormone adrenaline around the body (along with some other stress hormones) to prepare your body to run away, stand and fight or perhaps freeze. This is a physiological response to stress causing a range of reactions such as increased heart rate and blood pressure, increased blood glucose levels and problems with your digestive system.

Now if you are a sportsperson and say you are about to run 100m in a competition, you will need plenty of adrenaline pumping around your body to prepare it to run or if you are a boxer to prepare your body to fight. Once you have reached the finish line or fought several rounds in the ring, you will have used up all the adrenaline and your body can return to its normal state. However, when we are faced with threats generally we do not need the adrenaline and are not using it up so our bodies are flooded with it. In other words too much adrenaline in the body is what causes the physical and psychological symptoms of anxiety, of which there are many – some more obvious than others.

Too much adrenaline is all anxiety is I hear you asking?? – well no but it is the main culprit causing anxiety to feel so awful and at times utterly overwhelming. Furthermore over time and constant stress, the sympathetic nervous system can become overdeveloped and hypervigilant, increasing the risk of experiencing anxiety more often and more intensely. At the same time the parasympathetic nervous system (the calming, restorative side of the system) can become underdeveloped and less likely to manage to switch the brain off or balance our wellbeing.

What to do!!!!!!

First up – Learn not fear anxiety but rather accept it as a natural process. Take on board that whether we suffer from anxiety or not is nothing to do with any sort of strength of character but know that we are all vulnerable and will experience it in our lives. Also begin to believe that there is plenty that we can do ourselves to at least manage our levels of anxiety and the symptoms it creates.

Secondly learn to recognise our own triggers and our symptoms which will vary wildly – there are a lot of different physical and psychological symptoms, some more obvious than others. Seek help in doing this, as not always easy.

Thirdly do something!!! Learn some tried and tested coping strategies. Introduce exercise and regular relaxation into your life, as well as have a check on your diet – are you having a lot of daily caffeine and/high sugar drinks? Develop an emergency ‘toolkit’ of anxiety busting techniques that work for you and practice them. Some of these include slow and deep breathing, muscle relaxation exercises, grounding techniques using all your senses and listening to music/meditation apps or simply getting outside into nature!

Finally I believe that trying to develop an ‘I can do’ attitude, despite feeling anxious, is very important and not falling into the mind-set of ‘owning’ our anxiety. I believe that by saying ‘my anxiety’ brings it very close to you and gives a sense of helpless inevitability to its power. How about adopting the language that says ‘there is that anxious thought again or that symptom is ‘just anxiety’. Give it a try and good luck!