Nurturing Yourself
Nurturing is defined as “to care for and encourage the growth or development of or to cherish”. Nurturing yourself is one of the most important things anyone can do as a caregiver. Nurturing yourself is more than just the notion of self-care.
Self-care is often thought of as a luxurious act of pampering. Some examples would be a long soak in the tub, or a pedicure, or a massage. The problem is this version of self-care takes a lot of time, energy, and sometimes money. It can often be more work than it is worth.
We do not need fancy things to nurture ourselves. We simply need to actively engage in activities for our own benefit. Nurturing yourself is important and can be anything that improves your mental, emotional, spiritual, or physical health. Sometimes it is a big thing, but other times it is a small thing.
We often adopt a push-through-it mentality. We often feel like we must work hard, be strong, and overcome weakness. The problem is, when we numb ourselves from listening to our own needs, we lose the ability to connect with our hearts, our minds, and our bodies. This makes nurturing yourself a challenge. How can we take care of ourselves when we don’t know what parts of us need taken care of?
Nurturing yourself means learning to connect, respect, and build a relationship with our feelings. Over time, acknowledging our feelings no longer feels like a weakness. It is data, or information, telling us what part of us needs attention. You will hear it if you just listen.
If you do not nurture yourself, you might struggle to take care of others to the best of your ability. Nurturing yourself means you can give others the best version of you, not less of you, because you are taking care of yourself.
Building Resiliency
What is resilience? Resilience is learning to adapt in the face of adversity, trauma, tragedy, and other significant sources of stress. Because, let’s face it, life can be stressful!
Resilience isn’t a personality trait only some people possess. On the contrary, resilience involves behaviors, thoughts, and actions that anyone can learn and develop. Increasing your resilience takes time and intentionality.
Some people think being strong means you are rigid and unchanging, like a mighty oak tree. But powerful winds can bring down the biggest, strongest oak trees. Consider instead the characteristics of a willow tree. They learn to bend and flow with the wind. They adapt to the weather around them, and thus can endure the most powerful winds without falling.
Tips for Building Resiliency:
- Build connections – Prioritize relationships in your life, accept help and support from others even when it is difficult, and be a part of something bigger than yourself by connecting with your community.
- Cultivate wellness – Take good care of your mind, body, and health, practice mindfulness, try to avoid negative outlets to cope with strong emotions.
- Find your purpose – Make a regular effort to help others, set goals for yourself, and reflect on your growth along the way.
- Practice healthy thinking – Put things in perspective, accept change when it happens, maintain a hopeful outlook, and make an effort to learn new things as you go.
- Express gratitude – Regularly expressing gratitude results in more positive emotions, sleeping better, helps you show more compassion and kindness, and strengthens the immune systems.
As much as resilience involves getting through difficult experiences, it can also involve tremendous personal growth. As hard as life can be, adverse events do not determine the outcome of your life. While there are things we can’t control about our lives, there are things we can influence, modify, and grow with.
Parent Tip!
The learning curve is often steep when your child is first diagnosed. You are usually trying to learn a lot of new information at the same time you are caring for your child (or children!) Be kind to yourself and others. You can’t (and won’t) learn it all at once. Don’t waste precious energy on beating yourself up if you make a mistake. Expect some growing pains.