keeping self care going

Self-Care Stories. #1. 7/51 #LifeThisWeek. 13/2020.

Welcome to the first in the series for 2020.

This optional prompt pops up every 7 weeks or so.

Today here’s mine!

Before kicking off: I have made two changes to my daily routine which is helping me:

One is to consider what I am grateful for each day. I tend to think about something or someone through the day and by even thinking that way I notice a change within. I blogged about it here. I am doing an instagram post each day here: @denysewhelan_blogs and no longer have my account private. I still have @denysewhelan going and no longer private...look at me taking a risk…

Two is I am listening to Calm meditation app twice a day. One session, the Daily Calm, before I get up from bed and last thing at night a session of whatever I need at the moment. I have just listened to 10 or so day of “relationship with self.”. Calm is free initially and then you can decided to buy. I got a lifetime price as a bargain in 2018 and am never sick of it. Sleep stories are ace too on nights when I am less than sleep-ready.

What Have I Been Doing?

remembering to follow my daily routine: get up, have breakfast, get dressed and go somewhere for a coffee….come home, blog, read, relax, cook, sleep…
this was, for the most part, pretty well kept.
however and it may have been something that affected others too, I became more anxious than usual when we had extremes of threats:

Bushfires
More fires
High temperatures
Continued fires
And then it rained.
Rainfall was excessive in some places and caused:
Flooding
Electricity to be cut
And NONE of this directly affected me.
Mmmmmm.
so I was most fortunate to have an in-house counsellor (aka my husband) but also that my previous years of learning how to self-care via means at my disposal actually helped..a great deal.
but being an avid follower of social media there were signs that my emotional health was being impacted when I stayed on news and updates for fires/disaster sites for long periods.
I realised even before I was “told” by my husband to stop. That was a good self-care measure in itself.

: Mid week locally. Some roads were cut. Lake at Gorokan.

: The ocean: first day I could get over to see it. Waves were up!

: Two days later: gentle lake. Blue sky and white clouds: so missed for 3 months

Why Have I Needed to Do This?

I know I thrive on being informed and also caring about and for others….BUT there has to be a limit placed.
I do this now by asking myself “what is it I can do that will help this person/those people etc?” If there is nothing really, I do send out a message of empathy where it’s appropriate and I might even do this.
The loving kindness messages are always a way for me to feel a greater connection with others.
I recalled with some hyped and stressed memories of the 5 days of the 2015 East Coast Low when we first moved to the Central Coast and I needed to talk a few of those memories through.
Once I had done that I also knew I am in (and still am in) a much better headspace some 5 years later thanks to all the work I have done to achieve greater emotional health.

Loving Kindness (Metta) can be said silently for yourself, for another or for many. These words above are just one group.

How Do I Integrate This Into My Life?

I continue to follow my routine as much as possible allowing for days (there were a couple!) where to go out of the house meant to be on unsafe roads in flooding rains so I stayed home
I managed to fill in those particular days with little and varied projects of mine.
I automatically come to my art desk when I need to zone out and concentrate on ONE thing and that worked well. In fact it has been something I have done before as well.
I love the variety of activities I now have at my disposal and made use of exploring more of the media too.
My husband was well-occupied with his in-house hobbies and some cabinet making in the garage so with no power lost, we really did well!

: Intricate patterns I create are very soothing

: Remembering this helped me

: A very detailed drawing I made, then coloured.

Afterwards. Onwards.

Self-care is on-going and it can change in its focus for me, depending on how I am.
This week (in fact today!) I am at Westmead seeing my prosthodontist for an update on my upper mouth. I used to get quite stressed about these visits “what will he see that I cannot” and last week I said “STOP”.
I had been living in fear that had no justification.
It was shifting the relaxed mood in our house (and relationship) to tense because I was experiencing some mouth pain (it IS always there, it just seemed worse)
I changed how I approached the pain. I stopped focussing on it by not mentioning it. I also took panadol as instructed.
Self-care is pretty well an on-going matter and recently on Bev Aisbett’s Facebook page (Living with “IT” Anxiety) she posted this, with permission to share:

Recently I took this selfie looking back to Norah Head Lighthouse in the background, the huge seas reaching the shore…to remind me of how well I am, grateful for all in my life and how far I have come. More to come too, of course!