Self-Care for Meaningful Change
Creating space for yourself when life is coming at you hard can feel like a luxury. It feels like there is no time or space for you in any equation. This is precisely the time to take a moment for yourself! By calming yourself and taking a moment to breathe, you can better assess all that is happening around you.
If you find yourself always busy but going nowhere, not seeming to get anything done, you are not alone. We take on so many responsibilities to ensure that our life is filled, if not fulfilled, with activity and ‘purpose’. But this is just busy work, not true purpose filled action. It’s something to fill our lives until that moment we look up and say, “Is this it?”
Self-care for meaningful change starts with space
In order to find that true purpose filled action, you must take some time out of that ‘busy’ schedule to create the space to breathe and assess. This is sacred time, sacred space, for you to really take care of yourself and determine your right next step.
This can look like going and having a spa day where you relax with a massage, facial, and a little self-decadence. But it can also look like getting an Airbnb when traveling to visit family or friends that zap your energy, taking a walk when emotions run high, putting everything else on hold and diving into your creative hobby to give your mind a rest, or going to the roller-skating rink for an hour or two.
These moments of time that you carve out for yourself allow you to let your mind wander an gain clarity of what works and what doesn’t. When you’re in the thick of things you can’t see the forest through the trees. You just keep hacking at branches, hoping to find your way.
Supporting your energy during meaningful change
When you take this sacred time, you allow yourself to look at the BIG Picture, to see the road you’re travelling down and ensure that you’re headed in the right direction. So often when you finally look up, you discover that you’re so far off the path you thought you were on that you don’t even recognize yourself. It’s in this moment that you start to shift your direction and focus back on your BIG Dream.
This ‘mid-life crisis’ is not really a crisis after all…it’s a realization that you’ve been on a path you didn’t really choose. You stand up, dust yourself off, and start moving in the direction of your choice. Your world shifts. The world of those around you shifts. And those pesky Shift-Storms™ show up to help you clear out what no longer works and nourish the new growth. But it is up to you to nurture and feed that new growth by taking care of yourself and your BIG Dream.
Create your own self-care rhythm
Find what works for you, your own personal recipe of self-care, sacred time and space, and nurturing. Whether that be long drawn out bubble baths or heading to the mash pit and screaming your head off, make it yours, make it safe, make it sacred.
The clarity you will find and the things you’ll release will make your journey just that much easier and give you your true purpose. Your BIG Dream is waiting for you to take care of yourself, to put yourself and your energy first, so that you can provide amazing things for those you love and cherish the most. This is your oxygen mask.
Real self-care for meaningful change is not about checking out of your life, it’s about supporting yourself well enough to stay connected to what matters most. Meaningful change asks a lot of you, emotionally, mentally, and energetically. You do not need to run yourself into the ground to create a life you love. Real self-care is about learning how to support yourself in a way that helps you keep going with clarity, steadiness, and self-trust.
If you’re realizing that pushing harder isn’t the answer, and you want to learn how to protect your energy while still moving forward, download my Sustainable Momentum guide. It will help you explore what real self-care looks like so you can stay grounded, regain clarity, and keep moving toward your BIG Dream without burning out.