Are You Living in a Self Care Prison?
Qi Gong teachers often get asked questions of how long, how frequently, what time of day, what direction to face in your practice. When asked, my qi gong teacher Liu He says:
You don't live in a qi gong prison.
Like most wisdom my teacher shares, this is transferable to other things in our lives. If you find you are should-ing yourself about your self care, your job, your responsibilities, take a look at them. Maybe you're locking yourself into a self care prison.
Here are some ways you might know you need to liberate yourself from your self care regime:
You feel mad or ashamed at yourself if you don't "keep up" with your self care.
You're deriving little pleasure from what you think is your self care.
You are taking care of yourself but you aren't having an impact on your life that you wanted. This could be anything from not meeting your health goals, to underperforming at work, to not being inspired or inspiring others.
You feel alone.
My favorite ways to get unlocked from a self care prison are:
Think about how you want to feel or be. I call this making a "to be list."
If you know what you want to be, consider activities that you already do that make you feel this way.
Don't have activities that make you feel the way you want to feel? Start acquiring them or infuse activities that you do with the feelings you want to generate. I call this ceremonializing your habits.
Create a structure and rhythm to your self care that follows your motivational tendencies.
Tap into a support network to keep you accountable.
Don't know how to access or create the above? Start with something simple like taking a qi gong or yoga class or come to a Seasonal Celebration + Smelling with me.
Even better, check out Grow Your Glow, a Self Care Program where ALL OF THIS is built into the program.
In Grow Your Glow, we chart a course together that is mindful of what works for your specific situation and brings you joy. You'll learn all the tools you need to unlock your intuition, find your center and return to it with ease when you feel derailed. And our supportive community keeps you accountable without feeling stuck.
