Self Care In Motherhood
Hey There, Mama.
Today - Let’s talk about self care! When you think of self care what do you think of? Bubble baths and pedicures? Or a shower or trip to the grocery store without interruption?
My hope is that today’s blog post can broaden your horizons about self care and help you see where you are already doing self care in your daily life and where you’d like to make some changes to add more in. When I teach about self care for moms I like to talk about it within the context of the 5 pillars of self care.
5 Pillars Of Self Care
Physical Self Care
Emotional Self Care
Financial Self Care
Relational Self Care
Pleasurable Self Care
Physical Self Care
Physical self care refers to how we are caring for our physical bodies. This includes exercise and nutrition. It also includes things like scheduling that doctors appointment, getting a massage or getting outside and getting some fresh air. There is so much more to physical self care than being ‘thin’ or ‘losing that baby weight’ (which I have still never successfully done..). Physical self care includes getting enough rest (7-9 hours/night after the newborn phase), taking time off when sick and spending time away from electronic devices regularly.
Emotional Self Care
Emotional self care refers to our mental health and wellbeing. Self care activities in this category could include going to therapy, journaling, meditating, walking outside, having positive self talk, using affirmations and creating space to do things you enjoy.
Financial Self Care
This is a topic that we don’t talk about much, but it’s a fact that our financial health impacts our overall health and wellbeing. So we’ve got to talk about it! Financial self care encompasses our feelings about money, our ability to live within our means, paying off debt quickly or with a plan, communicating with our partner/significant other about money and spending money on things that you enjoy without guilt. It’s a pretty big topic and there are so many stories and emotions that we have wrapped up in our finances. This can be a great thing to talk through with a therapist or money coach if you feel like you need support in this area!
Relational Self Care
Relational self care is all about how we are engaging and feeling about our relationships. This includes friendships, family, partnerships and our relationships with our children. This also includes relationships with co-workers if you have them. Ways to practice relational self care are to spend quality time with people you enjoy in your life. This topic also includes setting healthy boundaries, feeling loved and accepted by people in our life, having a spiritual practice (if this is important to you), having quality time with your kids and time away from your kids!
Pleasurable Self Care
This one is probably the one that gets talked about the most online - but it’s actually less impactful overall if you don’t have foundations in the other four areas. This includes things like getting a pedicure, taking that bubble bath, doing things you enjoy, having a 24 hour period (or more) of no work each week, engaging in pleasurable sexual activity with someone you trust and using your senses to have a pleasurable experience drinking tea, eating chocolate, etc. Put all the fun things in this category!
One thing you may have noticed while reading through these is that some things feel like they could go in multiple categories - and you’re right! Self care isn’t a one size fits all thing and it doesn’t fit neatly into a little box. But, I hope this post gives you some ideas of a way you’d like to incorporate more self care into your life!
If you’d like to dive in a bit deeper I invite you to download my Busy Mama Self Care Guide. We cover each topic in depth and include an assessment and journal prompts to help you create your own personalized self care plan.