It’s time to care for yourself (as much as you care for others)
We can’t truly nurture others until we learn to nurture ourselves. It’s time for you to invest in some self-care and this is why.
by: E.B. Johnson
Caring for others is a beautiful skill and one that takes a lot of limitation and self-sacrifice It can also be a trap, however, and one that keeps us chained to the past or stuck in a rut of habits that no longer suit us. When you find yourself responsible for the life and happiness of another person, it can be a daunting task — no matter how it presents itself — and one that can consume us in a number of ways.
We have to get back to who we were, especially if we’re lost sight of our happiness beneath the onus of someone else’s care. If you’ve lost yourself, you can find your way back through establishing a new frame of mind and the self-care routines that help you to get back to who you were and what you want. From burnout to secondary trauma and compassion fatigue, you can come back with understanding, commitment and a little compassionate know-how.
Losing touch with your own needs.
Life moves swiftly. One day you’re enjoying your innocence, and the next day you’re harboring a family of your own — looking after children and doing the best you can to ensure everyone’s needs are met. We build our entire existences around partners, our careers. It seems (sometimes) like we’re spending all of our energy in the name of everyone else’s needs. What happens to us in those instances? When we stop looking after our own care, who’s there looking out for us…the givers?
If you’re dealing with burnout, secondary trauma, or just all-around compassion fatigue, it might be time for you to step back and take a good look at the energy you’re feeding yourself. We get so caught up in our responsibilities that we often forget that we too have a responsibility to look after our own needs. Just as you have a duty to your friends, your partner, or your children — you have a duty to care for self, and your physical and emotional body.
When you are responsible for the care of others, it’s easy to get consumed and lose yourself in the process. Little tasks add up, and before you know it you’ve completely lost touch with who you were and what you wanted from life. We’ve all been lost at some point in our lives, but that accelerates when responsibilities like friends and family come into play. If you’re lost, it’s possible to find yourself again, but it takes commitment and the understanding that you are just as important as anyone else on this planet.
Why we stop looking after ourselves.
Losing ourselves isn’t a choice we make consciously, more accurately, it’s a symptom of a bigger problem at play and (often), a skewed sense of self that is based more on lowered self-esteem than any real-world factors.
Self-centered state
In our society, hard-work and self-sacrifice are valued above everything else. Everyone wants to be a martyr until they are one and realize the pain and suffering that martyrdom entails. Self-care is often seen as selfish, but it isn’t. It’s critical to finding inner peace and contentment, as well as the energy to keep caring for and helping those in in need.
Codependency
If you’re someone who has only ever known codependent relationships or one-sided love affairs, you might frequently find yourself in needy relationships that see you losing your sense of self. The other person becomes the most important aspect, and soon, you no longer feel happy, content, or fulfilled — because you haven’t been seeing to your own personal needs. When we only know needy relationships, it can be an early indication of a life lived lost in others.
Reciprocal state of mind
Those who give too much are often under the (falsely) preconceived notion that those they give to will reciprocate. They believe that others will take care of them, just as they would take care of others, but that’s not how the world works. Sometimes, people just take, and there’s no one there to hold your hand when you need it at the end of the day. When we assume that others will take care of us, just as we take care of them, it can lead to a loss of self and a loss of outlook.
Skewed ideas of “caring”
Rescuing people is not the same thing as caring for people, though we often lose sight of this very honest truth. On an emotional and spiritual level, it’s impossible to save someone else. We are the only ones who can save ourselves. Many of us have been raised to believe the opposite, however, and have come to understand that we have to save the broken if we truly care for them at all. This untruth often leaves us unraveling, bleeding at the end of a relationship that was both toxic and unfulfilling.
Zero self-worth
Low self-esteem or feelings of low self-worth can lead us astray and cause us to offer ourselves up on an altar of self-sacrifice. We flog ourselves by exhausting ourselves and running ourselves so ragged that our bodies feel as pitiful as our souls. It’s unhealthy and — worse than that — it’s untrue. When we begin to see our strengths and beauty for what they are, we can find our way back to happiness and stop giving up all of our time, energy and wellbeing to others.
Weak boundaries
We often don’t always realize that we teach people how to treat us and give them permission to act however they like. Our boundaries are a critical component of who we are, and they are critical to living a happy life. When we’re feeling lost, or consumed, or overwhelmed by others, it’s often because we haven’t set boundaries and reaffirmed them; allowing others to wheedle in and take over our world little by little.
Critical warning signs it’s time to invest in you.
There are a number of signs that you’re not giving yourself the time you need, but they come down to 3 basic categories: burnout, secondary trauma, and compassion fatigue.
Burnout
Loss of drive, detachment, mental and physical decline are all part and parcel of burnout. We burn ourselves down by engaging too deeply in the emotional affairs of others. This emotional labor eats away at our own happiness, health and overall wellbeing until we are so mentally, physically and spiritually exhausted that we can’t function, make decisions or cope. It’s a dangerous way to live, and a common side-effect of internalizing the all-encompassing burden of others-before-self.
Secondary trauma
Secondary trauma occurs when we absorb the stress and trauma of the party we are caring for. Also known as vicarious trauma, this is a sharing of narratives that is both toxic and destructive. First responders, mental health clinicians, journalists and clergy alike can all suffer from this type of compassion fatigue. Within this symptom, there are a number of other telling symptoms, including flashbacks, nightmares, hyper-vigilance and hyper-arousal.
Compassion fatigue
Compassion fatigue, in general, is the emotional exhaustion that occurs when we become too intertwined in the suffering of others. This can happen over one single occurrence, but it can also happen gradually over long-term, repeated exposure. Even bad news on social media can have an impact, and this feeling compounds over time to cause issues such as risk shifts, feelings of overwhelm and hopelessness, and even difficulty managing emotions.
The best ways to care for yourself (as much as you care for others)
Many of us have found ourselves lost, but it’s possible to find our way back. By committing to establishing a self-care routine that works for us, and regularly checking in our mental, physical and emotional needs — we can find our way back to wellness one day at a time.
1. Look to resolve tricky behaviors
Over-committing ourselves to others is ultimately an unhealthy behavior and — like all unhealthy behaviors — it can be changed with some patience, compassion and know-how. Only when we bravely address these tendencies and change them can we find true happiness and the middle way that allows us to care for others while still caring for ourselves.
Resolving unhealthy behaviors starts with first identifying the behaviors you want to change. Have a heart to heart with your unconscious self, and get real about what it is you’re giving away, and what it is you’re denying yourself through others. Don’t beat yourself up, but be honest and don’t shy away from the nitty-gritty details.
Consider what you’re getting out of this one-sided relationship and what you’re not. Honor your wisdom, and honor the way you really, truly feel right there at the moment. Are you giving yourself away because you’re lost in a battle with low self-esteem? Start standing up for yourself and look for healthy ways to replace some of that time you spend giving yourself away.
2. Manage more solo time
The next step in getting back to yourself is to start managing your time for you. When we’re caring for others, it’s easy to get lost in what they need, but we have to look after our own needs if we have any hope of helping them meet theirs. Only when we take care of ourselves, can we tap into the strength and energy we need to help others thrive. But that takes a little understanding, and it takes a little know-how. Managing any time is hard, but juggling your own needs against the needs of others can be especially tricky.
Sit down and make a prioritized list of all the things you have to accomplish over the next week. Then consider how many of those things are for you and your wellbeing. For every 5 tasks we do for others, there should be at least 1 task that’s dedicated to our own personal happiness and fulfillment. For instance, while planning 5 soccer practices, book clubs, family dinners, etc — pencil in at least one 30 minute activity for yourself that allows you to relax, unplug and prepare for the next round of to-do’s.
Learning how to manage our own time ultimately comes down to learning how to prioritize and be more productive and efficient with the way we execute tasks. Whenever you find yourself making a task list, start with the things that have to get done, and end with the tasks that could be taken or left. Get the big stuff done at the start (when your energy is high) and take plenty of notes along the way. Digging into how we spend our time allows us to unlock better time-management skills in the future, thus giving more opportunities to build in a self-care routine that works for us.
3. Get interested in self-care goals
If you’ve never engaged in self-care before, it (by itself) can seem like a pretty daunting concept. Spending all your time caring for others can make you forget how to care for yourself, so it’s important to ease into the waters by setting some simple self-care goals that allow you to get the recharge you need. At its core, self-care is just about giving our mental and physical bodies a break. There’s no need for over the top, and there’s no need for complex. Keep it simple and goal-oriented.
Take a pit-stop with your physical health first and try to take control of how you feel within your body. Set some easy daily routines that help you take better care of your body and feel better about the skin you’re in. Next, move on to the way you speak to yourself. Part of self-care is learning how to be nice to yourself on the inside and the outside. Pull an aside with your inner critic and rework their negative thinking.
Limit the distractions and make sure that your self-care time is really all about you. Self-care isn’t about numbing out or dumbing-down. It’s about empowering yourself to be prepared for the emotional hardship of day-to-dau living. Engage in activities that give you the power to emotionally process the stress you experience in your real life, and look for pastimes or activities that encourage you to focus on your strengths, rather than your weaknesses.
4. Try breathing once in a while
A good place to turn when you’re feeling lost and overwhelmed is breathing. Sometimes, all we need is some space and time to clear our heads and reassess. This time can happen in just a few minutes each day, becoming a regular practice that allows you to hit pause and take some time to take a quick emotional assessment.Find yourself a quiet place each day where you will be uninterrupted for at least 10–15 minutes. Turn the lights down. Play some relaxing music.
Close your eyes and just breathe. Imagine your thoughts and your stress and your worry falling away from you (one-by-one) until your mind is clear and you can feel that tension in your shoulders ease off. At the end of the session, jot your thoughts down in a journal and not how you felt at the beginning versus how you felt at the end of the exercise.
Take a little time for yourself each day to engage in this practice and give yourself at least a few minutes each day to just be quiet and breathe. You don’t have to start a grand meditation practice, but you do have to start taking time for yourself. It can start here, with a few easy minutes in the quiet of your own bedroom. The stress of life is stress that can make us unwind. Start releasing that stress now so that you can get back to the root of who you are and what you want.
5. Figure out your emotional temperature
Our emotions are important, but when we lose ourselves, we often lose sight of them too. Emotions can be painful and even difficult, especially when we’re dealing with a lot of stress or the secondary trauma of a love, one for whom we are responsible for care. Taking our emotional temperature regularly allows us to successfully manage our emotions and organize a self-care routine that is truly fulfilling and tailored to us.
You can start by taking a few minutes each day to journal about how you’re feeling, or you can develop a regular meditation routine that allows you to unplug from the here-and-now and plug into your feelings. Creative pastimes like painting, writing and drawing are good too for allowing us to focus internally.
Ask yourself questions like, “how am I feeling right now and why am I feeling this way?” Be honest, and don’t shy away from the uncomfortable things.Once you’ve had some time and space to consider you, step back and consider what self-care adjustments might be needed in order to counteract the negative emotions or feelings you might be dealing with. Get as creative with your solutions as you were with your process. The type of self-care you engage in doesn’t matter. What matters is that you engage in it at all.
Putting it all together…
It’s easy to lose ourselves, especially when we are caring for those around us. Factors like societal pressure and low self-esteem can combine to create a toxic environment that causes us to sacrifice ourselves on the altar of our personal and professional relationships. This type of living, however, isn’t living at all. It’s toxic self destruction, the type of which can only be undone by a committed effort to personal care.
The first thing we often need to do when we find ourselves lost is just take a step back to breathe. Allow yourself to consider all the things that have brought you to where you are and consider too the things you need to get back to who you once were. Start managing your time for you and don’t forget to take care of your physical and emotional wellbeing. We can find happiness, even in the midst of caring for others, but it takes resolving unhealthy behaviors and outlooks, while setting some realistic self-care goals we can stick to. It’s easy to get lost, but it’s just as easy to find our way back once we truly commit to the process. Take your emotional temperature regularly and be honest about what you need from this life to feel happy and fulfilled — because no one else will guarantee you those things but yourself.
