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Self-Care. We all know it, want it, demand it and can't seem to ever get enough or any of it! From the very first day of our current grief support small group, women in the room agreed that carving out time and space to care for themselves was an area they struggled with. We discussed all the reasons why this is true for most women. We are parents, spouses, caretakers, providers, employees, drivers, and on and on. We took a few minutes to remind ourselves why self-care is important: - to ensure our bodies, mind and spirit are whole and healthy - to be fully present and available for ourselves - to be able to powerfully show-up in the lives of our loved ones - to create consistent habits that provide exceptional support everyday The best way to ensure all this happens is to take a bit of time to set a plan for your personal self-care. Here are steps we came up with: 1) Agree with yourself that you need/want a few simple self-care practices to improve your health. 2) Look through your current routine to see what options you are already using, eg: slow hot showers, evening nature walks, listening to music you love. 3) Give yourself credit for the self-care practices & actions you are already doing. 4) List out 2-3 additional reasonable options you want to incorporate into your life starting now. 5) Look over your weekly schedule and decide where (what day/time/place) you will pencil in each activity. Noting that some things may be monthly, eg: professional facial, massage session or a sound bath. 6) Also take a moment to address your prior usual excuses that you've used to not pursue your choices in the past and how will you push past them moving forward. 7) As you've completed the above steps, we agreed on one more thing, which was to give yourself grace, when you're unable to follow your plan, be kind to yourself and agree to pick up again the next day. We agreed that we all appreciated the company of the group to share and talk with each other for support and encouragement. Thus, the final step is to share you plan with a trusted caring friend who will help you stay committed and accountable to helping you develop these new supportive actions. Let us know your thoughts on these! We are all working toward caring for ourselves better but also more lovingly and kindly!