Top Three Takeaways from 2020 Self-care Challenge … Moving Beyond Self-care Band-Aids

For most of you - whether you’re actively caregiving or not - it’s easier said than done. Reflecting on my days as my Mom’s 24/7 caregiver while she was dying at home of cancer, I know that’s true. The steps I took to protect myself so I could emerge in one piece were just barely enough, but I’m very grateful I was able to do at least what I did.

At the end of our challenge in 2019, I listed up the top 10 takeaways. At the end of this year’s challenge on January 31, 2020, COVID was upon us, and I’ve been scrambling so much, I haven’t found time to write about it until now!

While the top ten takeaways from our first challenge all still stand true, three stand out in particular in this current situation.

• Make a commitment and set your intention
• Choose some easy (yet effective) ways to show yourself you care
• Anchor and layer your self-care actions

Make a commitment and set your intention … It was great to have one month in which to focus on self-care, but since then I’ve felt my commitment slipping a bit without that direct focus. There’s a great benefit to selecting a set time period and really going for it. It gives you a chance to experiment with some new ways of being and doing … and even to establish some lifelong habits.

Choose some easy (yet effective) ways to show yourself you care … It’s important to create a sense of achievement, and not to overload yourself with unrealistic expectations. Even easy to do self-care actions can have a big impact on the quality of your life - like drinking warm lemon water every morning. Or drifting off to sleep to a favorite diffused essential oil. Or stepping outside for a short walk 3x a week (or even once). Taking the slow and steady route towards incorporating new habits into your routine is far more likely to result in success!

Anchoring and layering … These are two simple strategies that are extremely effective in helping you establish new self-care actions and helping make those actions effortless over time.

In past challenges, many of you found that anchoring NEW self-care actions to EXISTING self-care actions helped you stay on track. One example is drinking an extra glass of water in the morning (before or after your coffee or tea), and again in the evening (before or after brushing your teeth). Or adding some relaxing background music while you brush your teeth in the AM or PM (or both!).

A similar strategy is layering your self-care actions to get double- and even triple-duty out of them. For example, one challenger walked her dog while joining our weekly chat via telephone. Bravo! You could also mix essential oil into your everyday body lotion, or do a foot treatment pack while watching a movie. It’s important to have fun finding new ways to care for yourself despite having a shortage of time!

I’m pretty good at the “Band-Aids” of self-care – things like facial masks, aromatherapy baths, and pedicures – but I struggle with getting adequate sleep, limiting my wine intake, and WAY over-scheduling myself. I figure I’ll surely be working on modifying my behavior on these points for the rest of my life!

The point of all this is to nurture your body, mind, and spirit, so you can pro-actively bolster your immune system and PREVENT health and other problems before they take root. It’s much more difficult to fight a disease state once it has taken hold! The importance of maintaining your balance on an ongoing basis as a preventative measure cannot be overstated.

One thing I’ve learned through doing these challenges is that making sure you are REALLY taking good care of yourself takes focus and determination. Like so many worthy aspirations, it doesn’t happen overnight and again, it’s probably a lifetime pursuit.

I’m in!