A Self-Care Education in the Making:

I was about to get an education in  self-care, but didn’t know it. I was working two jobs-my first, a full time staff pastor and a second job as a staff chaplain at a large hospital. Most of my life I had set high standards for myself. I was the kid in school who was a cheerleader, band geek, dance team member, church and community volunteer, symphony orchestra musician, and I also worked a part time job. I was a classic overachiever and perfectionist.

As I approached my mid-thirties, I was raising two small children, doing bookkeeping for a family business and had started my own Christian bookstore and gift shop. In the midst of all of this, my husband and I built our own home by hand over the course of two years. My bookstore became a bustling ministry for all of the wounded people in the area and was operating as such. It was amazingly invigorating but my body started showing signs of decline.

While on staff at the hospital, my director asked me to give a presentation to my peers about “The Importance of Self-Care.” This was really the first time anyone had ever spoken to me about self-care. I had a vague notion that it was all about doing nice things for my body. This assignment began an awakening in me. Many years later, I am still learning what it means to practice the discipline of self-care. My director had given me a great gift by asking me to do this presentation. This was the start of new and unforeseen chapters in my life, and I would call upon this  wisdom and learn new understandings.

God has a beautiful way of ordering the steps of our lives – putting people in place to help us through challenges. Had I never learned about the disciple of self-care, I am not sure how the years to follow would have looked. It was a highly intuitive action on the part of my director to ask me to do research on the subject of self-care and present it to my peers. He later took it another step further and asked me to do the same presentation for his classes at seminary.

What I didn’t know then was that I was to go through seasons of really difficult life challenges, such as the disappearance of my father-in-law and subsequent unresolved grief and suffering that it caused our family. Our daughter was diagnosed with an incurable illness. My mother in-law was involved in an accident which left her hospitalized and in nursing care the last few years of her life. My mother had a stroke and is now suffering with dementia. These are just some of the life events that I have weathered since I started my learning journey.

I have learned more about self-care in this long season of suffering, than ever before:

1.  Self-Care is a discipline. It doesn’t always come naturally. It’s something we must develop and grow into and keep growing, as the care that we need is always changing.
2. There are no mistakes or failed attempts. Everything we do on this journey is a victory. We all start small, but as we learn and begin to feel and see the rewards of a more balanced life, it gets easier.
3. Self-Care requires implementing and prioritizing daily, weekly, monthly, yearly routines. There’s no way around it. You have to somehow fit it into your daily living.
4. Self-Care takes time and commitment. It’s easy to get derailed and go for a few days without doing your routine. Commit to staying on track. Devote the time that it takes to do what is necessary for the care and keeping of YOU – mind, body, and spirit.
5. You have intrinsic worth. You are so much more valuable than what you are able to produce in the world.

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Stay tuned next week for another Self-Care Wednesday, where I will be discussing different areas of self-care and tips for implementing more self-care into your life. There is so much yet to be discovered about this aspect of caring for the body, the mind and the spirit that God has given each of us.

Self-Care is doing what must be done for the care and keeping of the whole person.