It is important in times of stress or crisis that balanced multi faceted self care practices be increased to become more powerful than the effects of the situational experience.In the course of my work I realize that people use the words self care frequently as understanding that it helps to create a positive lifestyle but rarely do others dip into the a fuller understanding of what self care is, when and how much is necessary, to create an inner state of wellness, no matter the circumstances of of our lives.Self care, when mentioned in the context of clinicians, are therapeutic practices. In other words, they are not selfish, self centred or ways to create fun, they are prescriptions to directly influence positively the mind, mood and body states that are negatively effected in times of stress.

The self care practices to allow for effectiveness and balance should be a tool kit of practices that work with emotions, cognition, physicality and spiritual states. Each and every day needs to consists of some actionable evidence that a person is caring for themselves in a positive way, in all the spheres of human functioning, to allow for a state of well being. In times of difficulty, transitions, maturation, stress or crisis it is imperative that we increase these practices daily to combat the negativity internally, that will arise from the circumstances at hand.

Two things, I have noticed over the last 15 years of teaching stress management and stress reduction, have been that people do not develop balanced multi faceted self care practices. They tend to only work in the areas that they are good at or get the most pleasure from and ignore the other realms of functioning. This type of self care template will obviously lead to decompensation and difficulty at some point in time, in the areas that are not attended to on a regular basis. Eventually leading to an overall state of being unwell, despite the narrow template of self care that was enacted.

The second thing that I have noticed is that in times of stress, negativity and crisis people tend to drop their self care practices and do less of them. Which results in being taken over by the circumstances at hand. It is imperative that during these times we absolutely increase our self care practices to compensate for the situational effects on our mind, mood, body and spirit during challenging times. There is no accumulated practice that can be let go of in any time of our lives that will last in any effective way.

Today, is the only day that we have to do self care and counter the effects of circumstances in our lives.

Don’t put it off. Build your tool kit of self care today and be sure that it focuses on all areas of human functioning, increasing it in times of difficulty.

Lori Ellis-McKinney RSW ~Owner