Knowing Your Self-Care Story

Knowing Your Self-Care Story ~

What story do you have about self-care? What did self-care look like when you were growing up? These are really important questions to ask yourself and know the answers to.

If you've never given yourself time to explore this topic before, I highly recommend that you do. You see, the way you currently feel about self-care has come, in large part, from your past. Your past has helped create your self-care story.

What you experienced when you were a little girl has helped create the woman you are today. Everything that you ever heard or saw about self-care has been imprinted within you. Often, we unconsciously repeat our past. Acknowledging and giving words to your past experiences will help you to better understand the patterns and beliefs that you're living today.

Clarity of your past helps open the door of new possibilities for your future.

Over the years, I've learned what life was like for the women in my family. Having this knowledge has been incredibly influential for me. I credit knowing where I've come from as being one of the reasons, I've been able to create lasting self-care practices in my life.

I encourage you to gather information and understanding of the women who influenced you as you were growing into a woman. Who you are today doesn't have to be a replicate of them and it most certainly doesn't have to be who you were yesterday.

Some of the questions you might consider asking yourself are:

What examples of self-care was I shown from the influential women in my life?

Was self-care talked about when I was growing up? What, if anything, was said about it?

When I think about self-care, what feelings come up?

The two words I hear most often in response to the last question are, shame and guilt. Do those feelings come up for you?

Without judgment, acknowledge what you were taught about self-care. Keeping in mind that even if you were taught nothing, you were taught something. Meaning, even if you never experienced a woman in your life practice, or talk about, self-care, that still taught you about self-care.

Are you currently repeating history?

Are you living with habits that don't serve you?

Have you been holding onto beliefs that you're now ready to let go of?

Having this awareness will help you shift out of the old and embrace the new. These are the first steps required to helping you develop self-care practices that last a lifetime, not just a short time.

Here's A Few Related Posts:

Back to Basics

Ease Doesn't = Easy

Achieving Your Goals

What have you learned from this post? Let me know in the comments, I'd love to hear from you!

If you've enjoyed this blog, I'd greatly appreciate you sharing it so that others can benefit from reading it as well. Thank you.

Looking for more tips to help you live well? Check out Your Live Well Journey - The Podcast, every episode offers ways to help you improve your self-care.