Self-Care Stories (#4) in COVID19 Times. 28/51 #LifeThisWeek. 56/2020.
I went looking for my Self-Care Story #3 and found I did not write one! What?! No, it was because “I” decided to get another of my Telling My Story chapters published. So, even if I did not do #3, I am back to write what the latest is for me and self-care.
Self-Care: Regular Routines.
As many know, my routines post-head and neck cancer surgeries and treatments have been to help me re-connect with the world out there, socially and physically. This was something I began about 3 months post-operatively in 2017.
I was getting used to a different body. I had always hidden it as there was too much fat…my words. So, when anxiety and head and neck cancer helped me lose a lot of that fat, then I found C L O T H E S a very attractive way to spend my time…looking, trying on…and wearing.
It was a huge boost to my ego and generally to my health over all.
I coupled ‘getting dressed with purpose’ to going out for a daily coffee, where I would interact with others and despite no teeth on top for 14 months, I made friends where I went as I had conversations.
There is no way my reconstructed mouth was going to stop me talking!!
Then in 2020 Self-Care Got a Shock.
From around March, self-care the way I used to do this every day had to stop. The shock for me is that I wondered how I would deal with the restrictions that came with self-isolation, COVID-19 thank you not.
I was understanding cognitively what I had to do, like everyone else, and that was stay home most of the time and only go out for essentials. I remembered my shock as the first day of real change came because I went to my local shops for some groceries, and everything was being locked up, closed off, taped off….sad to see. Then I thought of all those people and their employment (sad) and of the people whose daily routine was to go to those shops and now they could not (sad again).
I also found, as time went on, that I needed to change my attitude and thinking about what was happening. Yes, we had a virus somewhere in the air that no-one could see or touch, and yes, it had to change the way we went about our daily lives. I recall that I got a shock/surprise at the restrictions placed upon us even to visit the chemist and the doctor. I needed time to process what was in fact, good safety measures.
Changing My Thinking During COVID19 Times Helps Self-Care.
So, over time, I built-in some new ways of integrating self-care for me with what we had and had not. These three quotes, source is in image, have probably best summed up how ‘life is now for me’.
Telling the Self-Care Stories in Images. March – June 2020.
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- Right Eye Cataract Done.
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- Left Eye Cataract Done
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- Mindful colouring helps me.
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- My first Sunday ‘not going to a cafe’.
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- Complicated patterns help me, the rules of COVID & chocolate craziness for Easter.
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- This was confronting. March.
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- Iso Baking for me. Helped!
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- More Life as it is…I didn’t continue series.
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- Driving home, I had to stop & capture this: The Entrance.
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- Doing my ‘best’ to self care & walk at local beach.
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- More iso-baking. Too much trouble!
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- Self-care: COVID test. Negative.
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- Easter Sunday. I got a book at BigW & this was local centre.
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- “Doing my best” to self care: hair cut & physio
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- Not lying: with my IBS & more I do need these!
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- Another shot of a very deserted centre.
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- Thanks for the gloves & facemasks Shauna.
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- Out into the WIND ….helps clear those cobwebs.
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- A stall by the road…& a piccolo to go.
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- Making marks and colouring. My design.
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- Self-care. 12 month skin check.
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- Yay: coffee shop in Wyong opened. So good to see owner who is now a friend.
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- Some days ‘this is what I do’ to be mindful.
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- Selfie by the water. Doing my best to achieve equilibrium.
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- First time back here: another coffee spot. Lots of distancing.
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- And my fave place, never stopped but it was good to sit once more.
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- My bridge, for thinking gratitude, after self-care at podiatrist
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- Another challenge set by me.
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- THIS was so good. A visitor. One GD.
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- Post flu-vax, the garden refresh…all helps.
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- This is what I continued once I could sit again for coffee.
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- How well I am cared for at my local places.
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- A very mindful drawing by me.
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- Finally got to see Dad for which he was grateful.
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- Mother’s Day at our daughter’s.
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- This is self-care…to come.
How is your self-care these days?
Maybe you’d enjoy this 18 seconds…
Denyse.
Link Up #197.
Life This Week. Link Up #197.
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