Self Care September Day 17

Why self review is Self Care!

It's the weekend, you're thinking about the week gone by and the steps you've taken to implement your self care practice - what are you thinking?  "That went well!  I could have done better!  I did nothing!  I did great!  What Self Care!  I feel on top of the world!" 

Depending on our mood and perspective when we review our self care practice we can end up thinking in extremes.  This is why performing a self review is so important, and is just as much a part of self care as any physical, nutritional or practical self care techniques you put into place.  As an objective evaluation is much more balanced than our immediate thoughts.

These days self evaluation is an important part of life - employees are often asked to perform self assessment of their work; school children and learners are asked to perform self evaluation, and pilots, politicians and sports people use self evaluation as part of their career journey.

If you've ever been a member of weight watchers or slimming world, the first thing they get you to do is keep a food journal; similarly a lot of therapeutic practices include journaling.  Which allows you an honest take on your practice.  When we can evaluate our progress objectively; it gives us a much more balanced view of our journey and allows us to treat ourselves with more care and appreciate our efforts rather than giving in to biased self talk.

If you have been performing a self review each weekend, then hopefully this has helped you to improve and build upon your self care practice.  If not, there is no better time to start than now.  The idea behind self evaluation is that our judgment of what we think we are doing and what we actually are doing is not always the same.  Perhaps you could give yourself a score each week, to rate your effort. Then aim to go a little higher, and build upon your practice.

Some of the questions you could, for example, ask yourself practically are,

• How much effort did you put into your self care practice and how long did it take you?

• Where do you think you did very well and where do you think you could do better?

• What could you do to improve?

• What are the most important things you have learned from your self care practice?

Life is not about absolutes; it is about learning and growing. 

You cannot change what has gone before, but you can build upon it and start from here!

Warmest wishes,

Emily

xxx