How to Create Your Self Care Chart

Image by  Gerd Altman

Self care is something that everyone does. It is very subjective for most folks and can include indulgences like getting a manicure or pedicure. But real self care is more basic than that. In fact self care itself can be thought of as the umbrella that prevents us from getting wet on a rainy day. The protection we can use to prevent our stress, anger,or anxiety from interfering from our ability to complete tasks or assignments requiring our attention.

The best place to begin in creating a self care chart, is to identify those things that we do when we get stressed, angry or anxious to reduce those feelings. If you are the kind of person who uses music to calm you down, you might want to consider in which way music is helpful to you. Is it mental,physical , emotional or all three? This is an important step in the process of making a self care chart. Because, what works for one situation may not work for others.

If you find that music makes you relax when you are anxious, it may not have the same effect when you are angry. Growing up, my mother was not the best housekeeper. In fact I knew when she was really angry. Because she would take apart everything , clean and scrub and reorganize. Somehow the process of bringing order to things allowed her to gain a better perspective on why she was angry and possible solutions to the situation. She also used her faith as another self care activity. She would spend hours reading and praying. For those of you reading this blog, think about your belief system. Whatever that is, you can use it as a self care activity.

When considering what self care activities you use or can use, consider the following; candles, gardening,showering,taking a nap,wiggling your feet in the sand, writing in a journal, listening to music, organizing,exercise,yoga ... you get the idea. Now that you have identified your strategies, draw an umbrella and underneath it write in all of the activities you can use to manage your emotions. Place this paper in a place that you can access it readily.

 #self care,# emotions.# umbrella