Self-Care
Firstly, identify and reflect on your personality type, where do you sit on the continuum and what does this mean for you?
- Personality type: I move toward…
- What traits suggest this for me?
- What does this mean, regarding the types of things that give me energy? *think external stimuli*
[Refer to Page 22 of workbook to complete this task]
Self-Care is:
- deliberate and purposeful engagement in one or more activities that you enjoy and that promotes good physical and mental health
- a regular habit NOT just ‘when it is needed’
- improves resilience and distress tolerance
- increases your energy for coping with challenges, for yourself AND others
When you’ve taken steps to care for yourself as a priority, you’ll be better equipped to live your best life and therefore be able to help and care for loved ones. Unfortunately, many people view self-care as selfish or a confronting challenge, rather than a life affirming priority.
Self-Care is:
NOT a selfish thing – you cannot be your best for others if you are struggling yourself
NOT doing tasks or jobs that ‘need to’ or ‘should’ be done
NOT necessarily something which needs to take ages. It could be as little as 30min a day
NOT ‘for’ others, this is something for YOU, which recharges YOU
NOT about AVOIDING…. It is not a method of avoiding other important tasks. If you use it in this way, you will feel guilty and procrastinating will increase your stress!
Misunderstanding, misusing or NOT using self-care can leave us feeling frustrated, overwhelmed or just tired.
We cannot be the best version of ourselves in this state.
Your choice of self-care activity will depend heavily on your personality type:
- Introverts will tend to recharge by having space, time and lower levels of external stimuli [e.g. fewer people, noises and action]
- Extroverts tend to need to engage with people, activity and increased external stimuli.
Will your batteries be charged with time in your own space or by interacting with crowds of people? Regardless of the level of stimulus, your preferred type of self-care might fall into one of the following categories: Physical, Social, Mental or Spiritual. It could of course, be a combination of these.
