Navigating Self care 

Self-care is incredibly important and doesn’t just have to look like having a bath surrounded by candles and rose petals. It looks different to each person.

This has taken me ages to write. Because although I want to talk about ways to look after ourselves, it is not always something I am very good at myself. I dread being asked ‘are you taking care of yourself?’ because I’ll say “yes”, but I’m usually lying. And even if I’m honest and say no, the advice is usually that I should ‘take a walk, have a bath, get an early night’. 

In my role as a peer support worker, it is a question I’ve asked and given out tips on knowing full well I don’t always follow my own advice.

I didn’t want this to just be a list of what you should be doing.

Chances are you already know what you should or want to be doing to look after yourself better. So, someone telling you to do it isnt going to suddenly make you be able to do it. I wanted this to also be about how to make time for yourself. To look at myself and see how I could make positive changes to pass on to you. 

Self-care is something that we talk about all the time. It is so important to look after ourselves. I would even go as far as saying for myself it is the most important thing. Because if I do not look after myself or feel well, I’m not in the best place to take care of my children, work or do the day-to-day things I need to do. And I can be irritable and tired and horrible to be around. 

If I’m honest I’m not always bad at looking after myself. Sometimes I will have a good routine in place. I will eat at least 1 healthy balanced meal a day, drink water, and stretch. I’ll look after my skin, take relaxing baths and read a book. 

The next few days I’ll get three hours sleep because my life feels in chaos, and I sit up watching the same TV shows I’ve been watching for ten years because I need something familiar and reliable at a time when I’m feeling stressed or worried. I’ll feel too rushed to sit down and eat properly and forget the last time I washed my hair!

Where to start?

I’m going to go through things I’ve done over the last few weeks to help give me a bit more time and just feel less stressed. But before I start, I also want you to know that everything I’ve written doesn’t always happen. Some days go great, some are so-so and some I wish I’d not bothered getting up lol. And sometimes it’s ok to do nothing. For all our good intentions sometimes, we are going to get overwhelmed. 

It’s ok that the breakfast things are still on the table at midday because this morning’s routine went completely wrong. Because mine are! I’ve literally sat down amongst half chewed bits of toast to write this! 

The worst thing about the pile of washing that I’m currently staring at is that it was washed, dried and folded by my mum at her house! She could see I was overwhelmed and it was her way of supporting me. 

Although I’ve made some positive changes that doesn’t mean everything is suddenly perfect, but I have made some free time for myself, and I can see improvements. 

So, I started by setting myself some small goals and looked at ways of supporting my own wellbeing to get myself started. 

Firstly, I wanted to eat healthier, I am a terrible eater. I hate cooking. I hate trying to figure out what to eat and I’ve got very stuck eating the same things. 

Secondly, I wanted to get to bed earlier. I’m fed up with cleaning or still doing dishes at 10pm. And then once I’m finished, I want to sit down for a while to unwind so I won’t get into bed until midnight, or later. Alongside this I wanted to get up earlier, I am far more productive in the morning but because I go to bed late, I tend to get up with my boys. What I’d really like is an hour before they wake up to get myself set for the day. Even if it’s just having a cup of tea in peace. 

Thirdly, I want to spend more quality time with my boys. Time when I know everything is up to date, so I’m not distracted or having to catch up with housework or worrying if a task isn’t completed. Time that we can read together, play a game or watch a film. 

Lastly, put down my phone! I don’t know why I do it but I seem to have become very reliant on having my phone in my hand and scrolling through rubbish. It doesn’t make me feel good, it’s not having a positive impact on my life or my mental health. 

Pulling it all together:

To help with all of this, I recognised I also needed to focus on organisation. I forget everything! So, I write everything down! I have a calendar and then a weekly organiser on the fridge. Being more organised has helped clear my head and relieve some stress. 

Making lists has been helpful. Not just for myself but for the kids as well, (but I’ll come to them in a bit). I found I needed to make my lists accessible and realistic, so there wasn’t too much pressure to get everything done at once.

I started prioritising things on the list to things that need doing today, no more than three, and things that can wait or someone else could do. Although sometimes I find it a good idea to do the small or easy jobs first.

There’s nothing more satisfying than crossing jobs off quickly and feeling a sense of achievement. The sad truth is I’m always adding to the list, so I’ve never actually completed it! But it has helped me stay focused and on task. 

I’m learning to delegate;

I try to do everything myself and it’s just not working in my home. As a single parent I always feel a lot of pressure to do everything.  My eldest son (age 10) is pretty good at helping when being asked, but he’s at an age where he can definitely help more.

We had a chat and I explained I needed more help with things, and this would free me up for us to do more things together. Putting in place good routines and outlining my expectations has helped so much. He has a checklist reminding him of what he needs to do, and it works really well. I did Google “what are age-appropriate chores” as I didn’t want to be unrealistic but things like:

• Changing the bedsheets (this is also very funny to watch lol)

• Hoovering

• Clearing dishes away

• Taking out the rubbish

• Playing with his younger brother

He is also responsible for making sure his bag is packed for school. Some people offer incentives for doing chores such as money, but I decided not to. 

Cleaning. I’m an all or nothing girl. I will leave it and leave it and then have to dedicate a whole day to it. So I broke it down into daily jobs, so it didn’t build up. One room a day. Having my son help around the house more has definitely helped with the buildup of mess as well. And he’s already noticing by himself when things need doing which has really surprised me. He’s taking a lot of pride in what he does. Although the other day after dinner I saw him looking at the washing up and when I asked him if he was ok, he replied “yes, but I did the dishes earlier and now there are more!”

I laughed! Welcome to my world kid!!

So did these things help with my goals? To start with it was a bit on and off, I had good days but would still fall into old habits quickly. 

The morning routine has definitely become easier. Although we have left home a couple of times and my son has carried an empty bag out with him! It took him a couple of days to really get the idea that it was his responsibility to remember what he needed!

There is much more of a sense of calm, I used to rush around trying to get everything done and start to feel very frustrated that I was constantly having to ask over and over again for help or simple things to get done. Now that we have a routine I don’t feel the same sense of frustration as things (mostly) get done when they need to. It’s not perfect but we’re getting there. I’m sticking to my cleaning schedule and learning to lean into the mess a little. There are two small humans helping create the mess and I really wouldn’t want it any other way. 

Being more organised has helped me plan meals better and we all congregate in the kitchen together whilst I cook. The boys will sit at the table and do their reading for school. It’s a two birds with one stone situation. I’m making sure I sit down with the boys and eat with them both in the morning for breakfast (which I never did) and in the evening. Working on getting those little bits of quality time with them. 

I’m still not so good at swapping out my unhealthy snacks for healthy ones, but baby steps!

There are a couple of things going on in my life right now which are having an impact on my sleep, but I am slowly finding things that are working for me to help me relax.

I also think I was unrealistic; I’d been getting into bed well after midnight some nights so to suddenly start going to bed at 9pm probably wasn’t achievable to start with.

I’m currently aiming for 11pm and will then start going 15 minutes earlier every few days.  

Introducing new habits

One of the things I’ve tried to reintroduce into my lifestyle is exercise. I’ve had my bike repaired so me and the boys can get out on some bike rides. The school and nursery drop offs and pick ups take about an hour and a half so I’m hoping if we start biking that will take half that time. 

But we’ve not actually been out on them yet!! 

I’ve started stretching more. I used to really enjoy yoga. I did it through my pregnancies and used to take the boys to a class when they were babies. I gave it up because it was something I couldn’t afford anymore. But it’s free to do at home! I just needed to find some motivation.

It’s actually been really lovely, and I am feeling better for doing it. I’d like to fit it in in the morning before the boys wake up but that’s not happened yet. So, I’m trying to fit it in every other evening.

Is there an exercise that you really enjoy? Running or swimming maybe? Exercise or physical activity is so good for our mental health. Releasing feel-good hormones to help with things like stress, anxiety or depression.

Maybe there’s an exercise class in your area?

In my next blog I will continue to share my experiences of making changes to my routines to try and free up some more time for myself and share with you some ideas on what we could be filling that time with.

Until next time!

Louise