Self care practices: What works for you?

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Self care is a matter of taking time to care for yourself. So, how do we do this? How do we determine what we need when we need it? All good questions and quite honestly there is no one right answer except it depends.

It depends on who we are and what toots our horn. What do we enjoy and makes us truly feel good organically. What do I mean by organic, some may ask. Organic in this respect is without the help of any substances such as alcohol. For some this takes some serious thought. I know I had to think long and hard about it. I began to figure this out when I was fighting for my life with breast cancer. I had realized I wanted to live and live I would.

Now that I have decided I am going to live, how do I do that and enjoy it. It was no longer enough to exist or just survive. I am going to live and this put me on the path to thriving. Part of thriving is performing self-care. It is not selfish at all to take care of oneself. As a matter of fact, it is very much the opposite and necessary to live a joyful life.

There is no one size fits all with self-care. What works for me won’t necessarily work for others. Also, what works for me now may not work for me a month or so down the road. I have found that self-care is constantly evolving for me. I am not a person that does monotony very well. Although, I do have a small simple routine.

My routine is kept to the morning. I give myself at least one

hour to wake up. The days of waking and rushing out the door to work or the next adventure are long gone. I spend the first hour of every day waking up gently and at my pace. Gathering my thoughts and thinking about my day. Drink my lemon water, prune juice with a dash of raw unfiltered apple cider vinegar and coffee or tea. Depending on the day I may exercise before getting out of bed or do about 30 mins of yoga or get on the elliptical for a bit.

The next hour is spent getting ready for the day. Taking care of elimination, showering and shining. Before heading out I make a nutritious smoothie or protein shake. Having this routine helps me spend time with myself every day. It allows me center myself before the chaos of the day is upon me. If I do not do any of this first thing in the morning, chances are it will not get done any other time during the day. So the first hour of each day is my daily gift to me. In turn it is a gift to the ones I love and those I encounter throughout the day.

Other ways I take care of myself is take trips with the people I love periodically. The people I travel with are positive minded encouraging and empowering people that I absolutely love. Some are family others are friends who have become family. 

One thing I really enjoy doing, and don’t do it as often as I would like is floating down the Salt River. I find this to be one of my great escapes. Phones don’t work so outside distractions are kept to a minimum. Feeling the warmth of the sun and the coolness

of the water on my back side as we slowly float down the river looking at the trees and plants around us. It is especially awesome to see the wild horses drinking or cooling off in the river. The birds are absolutely beautiful and seem to enjoy showing themselves off. I have to say immersed in nature is one of my favorite ways to spend time with me. I absolutely love the energy that comes from plants and that they willingly share the energy with us. We just have to be willing to receive it. Truly a blessing to enjoy. 

I sincerely hope this blog has given you some ideas about how to get your own self-care on. Until next time, Take care and Keep it Simple (KiS).