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Journaling and meditation are two practices that can serve as the cornerstones of your self-care regimen. But they can also help you get in touch with who you are and what you want.
I love journaling. In fact, I may be obsessed with it. Like most folks, I kept a diary when I was younger filled with teen angst. But as I grew older, I realized journaling could be used for so much more than ranting and raving. Journaling is my superpower!
Meditation — not so much!
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“Caring for myself is not self-indulgence,
it is self-preservation, and that is an act of political warfare.” – Audre Lorde
It’s the first day of the month and thus the day I usually share my goals and plans for the month. But I’m doing things differently for February.
Inspired by See Jane Write member Jessica Furniss of Spiffy Eats & Giggle Water, this month I will be focusing on self-care. During the monthly virtual group coaching session that I offer members, Jessica mentioned that it would be great to challenge the Janes to treat themselves to at least one act of self-care every day for 28 days. I loved the idea!
My word for 2017 was “grace” and I’ve mentioned before that my word for this year is “faith,” a word I chose after reading a post by entrepreneur Maya Elious in which she wrote: “They say faith without works is dead but work without faith is dead, too. Too often we WORK for love and WORK for success and WORK WORK WORK. But unless we BELIEVE and have FAITH that God truly wants to see us win, we will always lose.”
It will take faith to give myself grace this month. It will take faith to believe that I can make time for self-care every single day and still somehow find time to work on my book, my blog, and my business and prepare for my TED Talk. But I believe I can and I believe I am worth it.
And so are you.
I invite you to join me in 28 Days of Grace: A Self-Care Challenge. Together we will commit to at least one act of self-care every day for 28 days.
Here are 28 ideas to get you started:
“Caring for myself is not self-indulgence, it is self-preservation, and that is an act of political warfare.” – Audre Lorde
Last year See Jane Write almost killed me.
I put so much time and effort into building See Jane Write into a business — while still teaching full time and taking care of family matters — that I often sacrificed sleeping, eating, and exercising for the sake of work.
And, of course, I got sick. Very sick. My body is still healing from all the damage done. But I’ve promised my body I will never hurt it that way again.
This year I promise to take care of myself and I’ve realized that to do so is a feminist act.
Disclosure: This post is brought to you by LightWorks Chair Massage, but all opinions are my own.
If you’re like me, you’re a juggling your blogging and writing pursuits with a full-time job plus responsibilities to family and friends and community commitments. This leaves very little time to just take care of yourself, and so you don’t. But it’s time to change that and you can start Saturday by simply getting a free chair massage at the Bloganista Mini-Con presented by Laura Vincent Printing and Design. LightWorks Chair Massage will be on site offering free massages to us bloganistas.
Here are three reasons you need to get a massage Saturday and beyond.
Because we women writers and bloggers are so busy working our day jobs and taking care of our families, we usually have very little time to actually work on our writing. So when we do we need to be as productive as possible. Jo Anderson of LightWorks Chair Massage says that research shows that chair massage in the workplace significantly reduces stress and increases focus and productivity.
“Our corporate clients tell us that their 15-minute sessions have made a big impact on employee morale and sick days,” Anderson said.
So chances are massage — whether you get an hour-long full body massage or just a quick chair massage from the folks at LightWorks — will help you be more productive when working on your own projects as well.
“There is no doubt that in order to be healthy we have to keep our stress levels low,” Anderson said. “That’s not always an easy task, but knowing that stress increases the risk of heart disease 40 percent and stroke 50 percent can be a great motivator.”
Anderson added that massage improves sleep, soothes anxiety and depression, boosts immunity and relieves headaches.
“Those are huge health benefits since at least 60 percent of all disease is stress related,” Anderson said.
If getting an hour-long massage is just out of the question with your budget right now, try convincing your boss to invite LightWorks Chair Massage to your workplace.
“Many people think they have to get an hour massage to reap the benefits but that isn’t so,” Anderson said. “Even a 10-15 minute massage contributes markedly to one’s health and well being, making it a good fit for the business community.”
At the start of the year I made a resolution to get a massage every month. We’re now at the end of July and you know how many massages I’ve had — NONE! Self-care is an area in which I constantly come up short and chances are you probably struggle with this too. Chances are you too vowed to take better care of yourself this year and yet you keep pushing self-care to the side for work or the needs of others.
If you’re coming to the Bloganista Mini-Con Saturday I hope you will take advantage of a free chair massage. And I hope that on August 1, the start of a new month and thus a new chance to get things right, we all will vow again to take better care of ourselves and remember that self-care is not a luxury.