Ah, change.  Whether they are ‘good’ changes or ‘bad’, they conjure up some dis-ease.

I know because I’m living through one right now, as I do every year at this time.  I’m fortunate to have a beautiful house on the coast of Maine that I escape to every July.  This change of venue and its accompanying change of pace is a wonderful break from my normal, hectic routine.  It is a special kind of self care that leaves me feeling refreshed and renewed.

So, why, then, am I feeling so anxious?  Why am I uncomfortable and stressed, now and for the first few days after I get there?

Because any change means not only the beginning of something new and different, but the ending of something old and familiar.  It means leaving friends I’m used to seeing almost every day, temporarily leaving clients who I enjoy connecting with, and feeling more than a little guilty about it.  It means the end to my routine, as I know it.  It means slowing down, an aspect I welcome but often struggle to be comfortable doing.

Even smokers who quit, experience a sense of loss when they cut off their relationship with cigarettes.  What ends for them?  Their routine of taking ‘smoking breaks’ during the day, their social relationship with other smokers, their comfortable habit of doing something with their hands, the psychological need that was met by smoking, the physical relief of the body’s need for nicotine.  Even though what begins when one quits a self-destructive habit or routine is wonderful, it is difficult to say good-bye to the things they must leave behind.

William Bridges, in his brilliant writing about change and transitions explains that change is the ‘what happens’:  I’m going to Maine.  Transition is how I process the thing that is happening:  my guilt, anxiety, feelings about going away for a month.

He further explains that all successful transitions begin, not with what starts as a result of the change but  with what ends… acknowledging what will cease to be, honoring it, completing it, putting closure on it.  That done, we move into the Neutral zone, the time when the old is done but the new hasn’t yet taken hold.  For me, it is those first few days of vacation when I have not yet connected with my friends near my summer home, haven’t been woven into the tennis rotation and fallen into the comfortable slower routine of life there.  I haven’t unpacked and put away my things, filled the refrigerator with my favorite summer foods.  Things as simple as making the coffee in the morning requires more thought, making a meal in a kitchen that is laid out differently than my kitchen at home  takes a little more concentration and often more time.  This is a time of discomfort, when I sometimes question whether I should have come this year and think maybe I should pack my things back up and head home.

Finally, I can work through that period of uneasiness and settle in to the new beginning.  I can relax and enjoy and be fully present to the wonder of my surroundings, to the restfulness of the new routine and I can begin my vacation in earnest!

It always seems odd that such a great and positive change can cause such angst.  Before I understood change from Bridge’s perspective, it took me longer to make the transition and I beat myself up for feeling as I did, asking myself, “What’s wrong with you that such a positive change can create such negative feelings?”

It’s comforting to know that no matter what the change, whether positive, negative or neutral, these feelings are a ‘normal’, healthy and necessary part of change.

The other day, I had a to do list a mile long.  (so, what else is new?)  I felt overwhelmed and when I feel overwhelmed, I get stuck.  Sound familiar?  One of the things on my to do list was weeding my small vegetable garden.  Other things included: write a blog post, complete a final coaching report for a client, write a marketing piece for my upcoming group coaching program, return some phone calls.  These are things I refer to as ‘work work’ as opposed to non-work chores.    Weeding kept coming up to the top of my mental list.  And, I kept thinking that wasn’t ‘work’.  “I should be doing ‘work, work’.”  But,  I was uninspired by my ‘work work’ tasks at the moment.  So, I decided that doing something was better than continuing to debate with myself about the perfect thing to do and not get started on anything.  So, out to the garden I went.  I pulled and dug and sweat and got really dirty.  And, while I was doing that, my mind wandered.  And suddenly, I had ideas for 3 blog entries and had mentally drafted parts of the coaching report.  Ideas flowed into my head with ease after days of laboring to ‘figure out’ what I might write.  It was great: easy, natural, painless.  And, it was productive.  I looked at my weed free garden with pride and a great sense of accomplishment all afternoon.  Once done with my non-work work and inspired, I sat down at my desk and moved through the rest of my to do list with ease.

I’m not saying that putting off important tasks is always the answer but I am suggesting that taking a mental break, turning down the volume on the ‘shoulds’ and allowing ideas to bubble up can be very helpful and increase both the quantity and quality of what ultimately gets done.

Don’t have a garden to weed?  If you live nearby, you can come do mine… it’s never ending; or, try cleaning out a closet or a messy drawer, taking a dog for a walk, going to the gym for a workout.  Just do something positive and healthy!  It is better than trying to choose the perfect right thing to do but never getting started doing anything!

Why is it so hard for us to take care of ourselves?

Even when we give ourselves permission to take better care of ourselves, it can be a challenge.   There are many reasons for this.  Many of us claim we don’t have time.  In my last post, I suggested giving up somethings to free up some of your precious time.  Easier said than done, you might have found…  why is that?  Here are 3 reasons I see people bump up against.

Self-Care Roadblock #1: Control. OK, I know you aren’t a control freak.  Neither am I.  I just want things done when I want them done and I want them done right (aka, my way.)  That’s not controlling, that’s just good common sense, right?  Hmmm.   Ask your significant other or your kids.  They may see it a bit differently.  But until you are willing to let go and let others step in, do things their way, and yes, maybe even make a mistake or two, you will be bound to your obligation to ‘do it all’ and blocked from your desire to practice self-care.  If you let one load of pink underwear keep you tethered to the washing machine, you will be doing yourself a grave disservice.

Self-Care Roadblock #2:  Habits. We live so much of our lives on autopilot.  The things we do, the routines we follow have become habit.  When someone calls and asks us to do something for them or with them, something that we’ve always done, we often say yes out of habit.  We don’t even stop to think if it is something that we really want to do or that serves us to do, or if we even have an option.  I just experienced the perfect example.  My youngest son was at lacrosse practice and needed a ride home.  My husband was out and I was exhausted after a long day.  I dragged myself off the couch and got in the car and drove  to pick up my son.  No big deal.  It’s what mothers do, right?  Well, for many years, it’s what I’ve done, but now I have a son (my oldest) who has a newly acquired driver’s license and is perfectly capable of driving to the field to pick up his brother.  If only it had occurred to me to ask him to do it.  But I am in the habit of chauffering my kids around and so, on this night, like so many before it, out of sheer habit,  I grabbed the keys and did my duty.  Habit, an acquired behavior pattern regularly followed until it has become almost involuntary (Random House).  I am a creature of habit.  To some degree we all are.  And our habits, cause us to consume time we could be spending on self-care doing things we wish we didn’t have to do, don’t need to do, could stop doing!

Self-care roadblock #3:  Lack of accountability. We stink  at holding ourselves accountable.  We declare our intention and then, when something else comes up, or we just don’t feel like it, we let ourselves off the hook.  We, in effect, blow ourselves off in deference to some other demand.

I have a lot of clients who tell me they were going to go to the gym or they were going to meditate, but someone called and asked to see them during that block of time,   so they had to go and couldn’t do their intended self-care practice.  Here’s my response to that:  If you had an appointment scheduled with your boss, your doctor,  or your coach and someone else asked you to do something during that time,  would you rearrange your schedule?  Probably not.  I have a rule of thumb for those things:  if you don’t see smoke, blood or tears, it can probably wait!   Your commitments to yourself are as important as your commitments to others.  But that’s what they have to be:  commitments.   Not dalliances, not if it’s convenient… non-negotiable, stake in the ground promises to yourself, to be kept at all cost!

Often, having a buddy to support you helps.  You are much more likely to honor your commitment to yourself if you know that someone else is going to check in with you or if someone is waiting for you at the gym.  Tell someone your plans to practice self-care and ask him or her to join you, if it is an activity, or to encourage you and  check in with you to make sure you are doing it.

Another common self-care derailer is the practices of checking in with ourselves to see if we ‘feel like it.’  I have a client who had been pretty regular about exercising and she loved it… it was her form of self care, always feeling so much better after she was done.  She injured her foot and had to stop exercising for a while.  When she started up again, she had a really hard time… she had changed her routine and was now struggling getting back into her old rhythm.  Her mistake?  When she heard the little voice in her head say, “I don’t feel like it today.  I’ll go tomorrow”  she actually listened to herself.  Again, I ask, if you had an appointment to meet with your teacher, your child’s teacher or anyone else and you didn’t feel like it, would you still go?  Probably you would.  When it comes to holding yourself accountable for something, whether you feel like it or not is none of your business!  When you hear yourself weighing in on whether you feel like it or not,  the correct response is,  “thanks for sharing.  Now get in the car.”

So, in order to overcome 3 of the biggest barriers to making self-care a personal habit follow these guidelines:

1. Give up control
2. Identify what you are currently doing out of habit and replace those ineffective habits with new self-care habits
3. Make a commitment to yourself and hold yourself accountable.

I did a brief survey a while ago and I asked women to tell me their favorite forms of self-care.  The top 3 answers were (in no particular order):

• Massage
• Manicure/pedicure
• Exercise

It’s no wonder then that when I mention self-care to my clients, many of them think of these things and tell me they’d love to be able to take better care of themselves but they can’t afford to or don’t have time.   There is an assumption that self-care has to require time and money and that just isn’t so.

Self-care doesn’t have to be expensive and it doesn’t have to take a lot of time.  In fact, here are 2 great no cost/no time ways of taking care of yourself.  The first one is actually a time saver!

1.  Just say ‘no.’ When we say we don’t have time to take care of ourselves, what we are really saying is that we are saying ‘yes’ to everyone else and have allowed our boundaries to be invaded.   A huge, cost-free, time saving self-care strategy is to decline requests and offers. We need to learn not to say yes to every request for volunteer involvement, and not to accept every invitation and opportunity.

Step back and take stock of the things you really enjoy doing, the things you do that are fulfilling, energizing and that make a contribution.  Hang on to those.  Then take an inventory of the things that you are doing that are draining you, that you do out of habit or obligation.  Find ways to shed those things… resign from volunteer boards, find a replacement for yourself for things,  or at the very least, do things less often.

2. Speak gently to yourself. The second no cost/no time strategy focuses around self-talk, a frequent topic on this blog.
A great method of cost- free self-care is speaking kindly and gently to yourself.  We are often really tough on ourselves.   We send ourselves a lot of negative messages.  We tell ourselves that we are ‘bad’ if we don’t do this,  we feel guilty if we don’t do that, we worry that others will get angry if we don’t participate. We have all sorts of conversations going on in our heads about what we should and shouldn’t do, rules about what good husbands/wives, sisters/brothers, friends, daughters/sons do.  And, if we aren’t doing it… we’re BAD.  Who made up those rules?  Who says they are right?  And who will be doing it all when we collapse from exhaustion?

I have a client who is a wife and mother of 2 young children and daughter of parents who are well into their 80’s.  She’s active in her community doing various volunteer activities.  Whenever she doesn’t do all of the things she thinks she’s supposed to be doing, she beats herself up.  She thinks of herself as disorganized, a bad mother, a neglectful daughter.  She says things like “I should go to that meeting”  “I should be making a good dinner for my family.”  “A good mother, a good daughter, a good wife does X.”  She was so busy responding to everyone else’s needs and meeting everyone else’s expectations, that one day, she just collapsed and ended up in the hospital.  Diagnosis:  exhaustion and anemia.  She was so focused on everyone else, she didn’t notice what was going on with her own body.

The irony here, and the lesson to be learned from this is:  If you are so busy taking care of everyone else, you burn yourself out and then you are of no use to anyone.  So you create exactly what you are trying to avoid.

In the next few weeks, notice what you are doing that is draining you of energy, and find ways to gently back off from some of them.  Give it up all together, find a replacement for yourself, suggest meeting less often, find a different, more fulfilling way of doing things.  And do all of this without guilt and negative self-talk.  Remind yourself that your well-being is important.  Without your attention to it,  you can not be your best!

Our bodies, minds and spirits are like complex high performance sports cars. They need regular care and maintenance in order to run smoothly and at their best.  But, too often, we take better care of our cars than we do of ourselves.  In the next few posts, I’m going to provide some information and inspiration to support and encourage you to make yourself a priority by making self-care a personal habit.
The list of self-care activities is endless and what works for you is based on  personal awareness and choice. You need to know what fuels you, what takes care of your mind, body and soul. For some, it is time alone, for others it is time with others.  Often for me, a 30 minute walk with my dog allows me to clear my head and resolve an issue that I might otherwise spend hours struggling with at my desk.  I have a client who swears by her weekly massage, others who couldn’t survive without regular exercise, still others who are devoted to their meditation practice.

There is no prescription for when or how often you should engage in self-care, but it is most useful when it is built in to your life as a regular practice, vs. an auxiliary event to be scheduled into your already over scheduled life.    Think of it as preventative medicine.  When you feel thirsty, you’ve already begun to be dehydrated… when you are feeling the need for self-care, you’ve already started down the path to stress and burn out.  Filling the tank before  you feel drained by  life’s challenges:  those difficult aspects of your job,  rocky moments in your relationships, hiccups in your daily routines,  makes you more resilient in these situations, much more able to handle the bumps in the road.

The cost of not taking good care of yourself can be high.  I know so many brilliant, successful
people who burn out.  They’ve been saying for years that they know they should take better care of themselves but they just don’t have time… then, they crash and burn and are no use to anyone.  Stress related diseases, short tempers, damaged relationships, poor work performance are all symptoms of lack of self-care.

What you do doesn’t matter…That you do something is what’s so important.

To identify effective self-care practices for yourself, think about things you’ve done or places
you’ve gone in your life that have renewed you, fed your body, mind and soul.  Listen to yourself when you say things like, if I only had time, I’d…  or I wish I could… and do that.  Experiment with different approaches until you find things that work for you.