Archive for: Physical Self-Care

Separation Mistake #2: Not being your ‘BEST-SELF’

Categories: Emotional Coping, Health and Wellness, Physical Self-Care
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Sometimes in a separation, early on, we play the victim and throw a big pity party.

  • We whine.
  • We complain.
  • We behave in ways we often regret when we are not being our best.
  • We blame.
  • We take everything personally.
  • We rant.
  • We rave.
  • We get emotional.
  • We over-react.
  • We react without thought.

Have you ever played the victim? I know I have!
This spiral of negativity may feel somewhat satisfying for a while, but it wears thin fast.
No one enjoys spending time with someone playing the victim. except the people who feed off seeing other people suffer. Trust me, these people don’t stick around when things start improving for you – they want you to stay in the victim role because it makes them feel better about themselves.
Feeling helpless and needy is an exhausting way to live.

What you really want to do is pull yourself back to the version you enjoy being – your ‘best-self’.
The person you enjoy being when you are feeling great.
The person that is wonderful to be around.
The person that you are proud to be.

Who are you when things are good and you are enjoying your life?

How do you act when you feel at your best?
What qualities do you admire most about people you know that inspire you and you love being with?
Often we have these same quantities inside ourselves that we admire in others.
What are your best qualities?
Be yourself - but be your ‘best-self’ Click To Tweet

Who are you when things are not going well?

What bad behaviours do your use when you are upset and struggling?
Is your behaviour serving you or is it holding you back? Or worse – harming you?
Remembering who you are at your best.
Start paying attention and observing how you are showing up.
Start choosing to be a better version of yourself in the moment.
Change always starts with awareness!
Show up as the best version of yourself you can manage.
It won’t be easy, difficult things never are, but it will be worth it!
It will make you feel stronger, more resilient and help you be more in control.
Pay attention to the things that improve as you start to show up as your “best-self”.

Let me know, in the comments below, your thoughts on being your best-self vs taking on the role of a victim.

Find my series on common mistakes people make during separation and divorce here:
Separation & Divorce Mistake #1: Not Making Your Own Self-Care a Priority

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Separation & Divorce Mistake #1: Not Making Your Own Self-Care a Priority

Categories: Emotional Coping, Health and Wellness, Physical Self-Care
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Often in a separation, especially at the start of a breakup, people stop looking after themselves. Are you guilty of any of these things?

  • You worry about what others think so you pretend things are “fine” despite not feeling fine at all.
  • You attempt to control things that you have no control over like other people.
  • You power through, like the energizer bunny, despite emotional, mental and physical exhaustion.
  • You don’t listen to your own precious body.
  • You ignore your intuition.
  • You resist and fight change instead of accepting what is.
  • You stifle and avoid your emotions.
  • You blame yourself – you may feel guilty.
  • You beat yourself up mentally and are downright mean to yourself inside your own head.
  • You put yourself at the bottom of your to-do list.
  • You forget all self-care – who has the time or the energy for that when your life lies in ruins around you?

“Self-care is not selfish.

You cannot serve from an empty vessel.”

– Eleanor Brown

Think of self-care as your own personal energy bank account – similar to a regular bank account.

If you do not look after yourself – maintain and fill up your energy supply. You will have no energy to:

  • be able to cope well
  • think things through
  • manage your feelings and heal
  • stand up for yourself and improve your own situation
  • make good long-term decisions
  • look after your loved ones that depend on you

 Put in some deposits,
preserve or save what you can
and spend wisely on things that are important to you.
Making yourself a priority and investing in your self-care during separation and divorce is absolutely essential!
If you won’t look after your own needs – who will?
You certainly don’t want to depend on an ex-spouse to meet your needs!
Self-care actually shows people how YOU want to be treated.
Set a good example – treat yourself well!
Invest in yourself!
You=#1

Save as much of your own energy as you can.
Don’t let others take your energy especially, people that drain you emotionally.
Minimize activities and interactions that deplete you and wear you down.
Learn to say “No” and remember you do not need to justify your “No”!
Conserve energy for your true priorities.
Spend your energy wisely on the important things that will, eventually, increase your own energy over time.
Some difficult things may seem to deplete you – these are actions like setting healthy boundaries, but they will benefit you over time if you maintain them.

AND,

Most importantly,
Make regular deposits to fill your energy account up.

Good self-care = deposits

Deposits will strengthen you up and make you more resilient.
Build up your strengths, your confidence, your skills, your knowledge.
Ask for the help you need.
Make sure that you are meeting your own needs first.
This is true self-care.
It really does add to your life, similar to money in a bank account.

So let’s look at your energy account balance:

What have you done for yourself today?
Are you looking after yourself well?
Are you creating or continuing to practice good habits to look after your body, mind, heart and spirit?
Are you giving yourself time and space to feel your emotions, rest and replenish yourself?
Are you speaking up for yourself and setting healthy boundaries with others?
Are you asking for help when you need it?
What would you say to your best friend in a similar situation to what you are facing now?
How would you treat them? What would you tell them?
Try to treat yourself like this best friend that needs your support, care and love.
Treat yourself with compassion, understanding, respect and kindness!
It is always easy to look back at things and understand them better, but you really did do the best you could with what you knew at the time. Do not beat yourself up or be hard on yourself for the past. It is what it is.
Allow yourself plenty of time and space to look after yourself.
Schedule in some downtime.
Schedule some time to be alone to just think and feel.
Actually, pen it into your own calendar!

Self-care is the best thing you can and should be doing right now for yourself.
We only get one body in this life. One mind. One heart. One spirit or soul. If you are struggling – take the time to be present. Show up for yourself and listen to what your body, mind, heart and spirit are telling you.
Get to know who you really are.
Celebrate and be grateful you have everything that you do have in this moment!
Get to know your strengths and weaknesses. It is all good.
Nurture all of yourself – build up your body, mind, heart and spirit so you can handle the changes that separation and divorce will throw at you.
Don’t give yourself any time limits on grieving your relationship or healing.
Separation and divorce are a marathon, not a sprint.
Build yourself up to make it through to that finish line. It will get better with time and positive action. Divorce really is a journey.
Rest when you need to. The time you rest is just as important as the time you spend moving.
Nurture yourself.
Learn what you need to know.
Work on the skills you need to have.
Take all the time you need.
Keep moving forward.
Self-care is a life long process.
Keep doing it no matter what!
Never stop!

Self-care is never selfish - it’s a necessity! Make it a habit and schedule it in! Click To Tweet

More self-care blogs you might enjoy:

How I define my three types of self-care

More on being your own priority

Please tell me in the comments what you like to do for yourself! What did you start to do that helped during your separation? What did you say “No” to for the first time that helped? I stopped doing volunteer work at my children’s school. I started doing more relaxing exercise routines that required less coordination because I was worried I would hurt myself by being distracted… 😉

My coaching will help you make yourself a priority – you can book a free strategy session here to see if coaching with me would be a good fit!

Take good care of yourself!

Pam

Pam Mirehouse
The Divorce Coach in Dundas

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Valentine’s Day – Let’s celebrate ourselves by examining three different but important types of self-care!

Categories: Health and Wellness, Physical Self-Care
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Valentine’s Day is a great time to celebrate yourself, wherever you are on your self-care journey. There are, as I see it, three different varieties of self-care. Please look at all three types below and the questions I would like you to ask yourself about for each type.

I want to emphasize that self-care is just that – self-care. If you feel bad about what you’re doing, or inadequate, give yourself a break and know you’re doing what you can when you can.

We are all worthy of our own love just the way we are. Improving how we think about and do self-care is helpful, but only if it’s giving you energy long-term, not robbing your energy. Give yourself a break when you need it! Breaks are always necessary and well deserved to help us balance our lives.

Here are my ideas on the 3 types of self-care:

First, there is the pampering we like and enjoy.

These are special things we do to treat ourselves, like eating chocolate, drinking good wine, getting a pedicure or having a bubble bath surrounded by candles. Although these specific things may not appeal to you, I’m sure you get the idea! These treats are like a reward for good behavior, and we should look forward to them and enjoy them. These treats are what people often equate with ‘self-care’ but there is so much more involved in true self-care.

Questions for the pampering self-care:

  • Are you treating yourself on occasion and truly enjoying it?
  • Are you doing what you think you should do, or are you doing what you want to do to pamper yourself?
  • Are you spending money you don’t have for pampering and actually making yourself feeling worse overall?
  • What are some things that you can do to pamper yourself that you can schedule in?
  • Can you schedule these me times into your calendar?

“Loving ourselves works miracles in our lives.”

– Louise L. Hay

Second, there are the basics that we all need to do to keep up our health, well-being and just live well.

Things like sleeping enough, eating nutritious food, staying hydrated, moving our bodies for strength and flexibility, basic personal hygiene, and most of the basics of our day-to-day lives fall into this category. Sometimes, in a crisis, this basic self-care becomes more difficult to maintain and we may really struggle to look after ourselves properly. When this critical type of self-care stops we realize how sometimes we take this type of self-care for granted.

Questions for the routine day-to-day self-care:

  • Deep down what is your body saying when you quiet down and actually listen?
  • What is your heart telling you?
  • What is your mind telling you?
  • What is your spirit telling you?
  • Are you balancing the needs of your body, heart, mind, and spirit?
  • Are you doing the best you can for yourself?
  • Are there simple changes you can make to your routines that would benefit you?
  • Are your personal values and your habits well aligned or do you find resistance and procrastination coming up with basic self-care?

“Love yourself first and everything else falls into line. You really have to love yourself to get anything done in this world.”
– Lucille Ball

The third type of self-care is all the difficult tasks that take courage, strength, and commitment.

These tasks like setting healthy boundaries, standing up for ourselves when things get difficult, and speaking our truths. These acts of true self-care are often the least practiced type of self-care but the most necessary. These tasks are vitally important to living a happy and healthy life, but they are often overlooked and avoided. They are by far the most difficult part of self-care. They also offer great benefits when you commit to YOU and what YOU need! They are often difficult to do but have great positive payoffs for you.

Questions for the difficult forms of self-care:

  • Are you doing the things that may be difficult now but will pay off in the long run?
  • Do you know your boundaries and understand how to maintain healthy boundaries? Do you speak up for what YOU need and want when necessary?
  • Are your relationships supporting you or draining you?
  • Do you say “no” when you need to?
  • Do you tell people when they disappoint you with positive conversations about what you expect and need from them?
  • Are you taking action to obtain your goals, or are you working towards other people’s goals?
  • Are there major changes you want to make in your life that need to be broken down into small manageable steps?

“Don’t rely on someone else for your happiness and self-worth. Only you can be responsible for that. If you can’t love and respect yourself – no one else will be able to make that happen. Accept who you are – completely; the good and the bad – and make changes as YOU see fit – not because you think someone else wants you to be different.”
– Stacey Charter

Self-care, self-respect, and self-love are so essential for health, well-being and satisfaction in life.  Where are you on the self-care journey?

Today is a great day to make sure you’re looking after yourself properly and, if not, to commit to working towards better self-care and more balance. If you’re interested in reading further, here is another blog I wrote about how to celebrate Valentine’s Day single.

If you need help with self-care I am happy to be your coach and motivate, guide and support you on the journey! Contact me for a complimentary strategy session.

Take care,
Pam

Pam Mirehouse
The Separation Project coach

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Journal with no filters! Free your thoughts and your emotions. Let your mind go where it will. These unleashed thoughts will help clarify and organize your thinking.

3 Simple Practices to Nurture Mind, Body and Spirit During Separation and Divorce

Categories: Emotional Coping, Health and Wellness, Physical Self-Care
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When I was going through my own separation, surrounded by conflict, stress, crisis and feeling totally overwhelmed, I found the following three little practices helpful in nurturing and starting to heal myself. I hope you try them out if you have not already discovered them!

The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams.

1. A gift for your MIND:

Create a dream, vision or intention board.

Open yourself up to future possibilities that are available to you by creating a board or scrapbook to gather your dreams of the future and keep it where you will see it every day. Find images, quotes, colours you love, old pictures of yourself laughing as a child, whatever you love looking at and want to find in your future. I like to change things constantly, so magnets or pushpins worked well for creating and maintaining my board.

I also find writing and posting my short and long-term goals and intentions on this board inspiring. Seeing your intended life in these images and quotes daily is very powerful as it gives you both hope and direction.

Take care of your body. It is the only place you have to live in. Good health, good life, healthy lifestyle.

2. A gift for your BODY:

Schedule regular preventative maintenance for YOU.

Looking after yourself is so important at any point in your life, but when you add extra stress and emotional issues it becomes critical. Think about your body as a car that must get you where you want to go and last for your entire life. Do the regular maintenance and avoid expensive and unplanned repairs. Regular or preventative maintenance, like checking your oil, takes less time and less money in the long run than replacing a seized engine when the oil runs dry! Creating good habits and regular routines to maintain your health and well-being will keep your life running better now and in the future.

Sleep, hydration, nutrition, exercise, and relaxation are all so important for your health. Try to improve these things with small routines, one at a time, with some small steps towards your self-care goals. Put aside the time you need on your schedule and book yourself in! Giving your body this extra care can make a big difference in how you feel and dramatically help increase your energy level and ability to cope. Be kind to your body and good to yourself. The benefits of scheduled you time will add up and be substantial.

Journal with no filters! Free your thoughts and your emotions. Let your mind go where it will. These unleashed thoughts will help clarify and organize your thinking.

3. A gift for your SPIRIT:

Start journaling.

Journal with no filters! Free your thoughts and your emotions. Let your mind go where it will. These unleashed thoughts will help clarify and organize your thinking. I wrote lovely lists of all kinds of lovely and horrible things like words my ex-husband said to me that I never wanted to forget.

Allow your emotions to be with you during journaling. Feel how you feel, do not label what you feel, just stay present and allow the release of some emotional energy. Write down all your dreams, all your annoyances, all of your successes, all your failures and all your wants. Using your journal to vent the good and bad will lead you to a path of more insight into yourself.

Try to sit down with a pen at least 10 minutes a day if you can. Schedule some journaling in your daily routine. Understanding your thoughts and feelings creates more freedom and contentment.

Do keep this private! This can be fun to look back at, admire the changes and potentially gain insight, but it can also be satisfying to burn or bury when you are through your current difficulties and ready to forgive and feel free.

If you want help, please contact me and we can talk about the possibilities. I offer a simple discovery or strategy session, at no cost or obligation to you.

The New Year is full of possibilities! Carpe Diem! Seize the day!

If you would like to discuss divorce coaching and how it could benefit you please contact me.

I do offer a free strategy session.

Pam

Pam Mirehouse
The Divorce Coach in Dundas

Copyright © 2016 Pam Mirehouse

Images ©  Ozerina / Nadezda_Grapes / cboswell – all from depositphotos

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