The 12 Steps of Self-Care

A lot of people, when they decide they are going to quit something – pigging out, cigarettes, drinking, etc. – make a calculated decision to have a final binge, sort of like a person on Death Row has their Last Supper on the eve of their execution. (At least, according to movies they do).  That’s sort of how this time of year feels to me in some ways.  We are all so busy getting stuff done, with the final deadline of Last Day of School/Christmas Eve/New Year’s Eve looming over us.  Gotta get all the shopping, wrapping, baking, cleaning, Elf-moving, card-sending done, while at the same time keeping commitments to holiday parties, Nutcracker performances, religious services, charitable causes.  It’s exhausting.  And the first thing to go is our self-care.  Who has time for yoga, decent bedtime, 10 minute meditations, preparing meals from real food?  So, we are running around like wild turkeys with our heads cut off and eating all kinds of sugary treats and sipping on (or gulping down) “well-deserved” cocktails, and then, when we get sick, we blame it on the fact that the flu shot doesn’t work this year, or “it’s that time of year” so obviously, it was inevitable.
 
And then January 1 hits us and we say, I need to detox.  I need to get healthy.
 
Hopefully, I am preaching to the choir here and this post will be a validation of everything you are doing.  Most of us, though, are probably not quite choir material, at least not in action.  We may know something needs to change, but either it’s too overwhelming, or we really don’t know what to do. 
 
These are the 12 steps I recommend following – as part of a solid self-care plan.  And if you are too busy to do them, then you need to REALLY do them.  Someone asked the Dalai Lama once, “How long do you recommend I meditate each day?”  He answered, “20 minutes is good.”  So then the person said, “But I am too busy for that.”  And the Dalai Lama said, “Well, then you need to meditate for 2 hours.”
 

1. Eat real food.  As in, stuff you could grow in a garden.  Yeah, I know cleaning and chopping vegetables is more work than opening a package, but trust me, your body and brain need stuff that is grown in the soil, and that absorbs sunlight.  There are all sorts of dogmatic experts out there, and they are all super convincing, but I think the most important thing you can do is eat a LOT of plants (preferably organic).  If you are trying to lose weight, what you eat and drink is around 90% of the success formula.  If you are healing or preventing disease, eating healthy whole foods will make your body a healing powerhouse.  Stop eating and drinking shit.  If you are tired, bloated, prone to viruses and infections, not sleeping well, “hormonal,” gaining weight, losing your appetite – pay attention to what you are eating and drinking.  Your body and brain are amazing and they are begging for you to listen.
2. Drink a lot.  No, not alcohol.  Water, and healthy versions of it.  If you have headaches, fatigue, constipation, soreness – chances are, you aren’t sufficiently hydrated.  If your pee is light yellow or clear, you’re doing well.  The other recommendation is to drink half your weight in ounces.  So, if you weigh 120 lbs, drink 60 oz per day (and more if you’re a regular exerciser).  As far as alcohol goes, if you follow my blog, you know that it has been just over a year since I quit drinking – and based on all of the research I have done, I can tell you with absolute certainty – alcohol sucks your energy, your immunity, your envious waist size.  It metabolizes as sugar, and there is nothing good about that.  If you are currently drinking pretty regularly (i.e. every week), then letting go of alcohol is one of the best things you can do for your wellness. Quite honestly, when I hear of nutritionists and diet plans and yoga instructors and coaches who say it's okay to drink while doing whatever challenge, I suspect they either love drinking (problematically) or they don't want to piss people off.  I know, the thought of not drinking, especially this time of year, sucks.  That’s why it took me so long. But let me tell you, I do not miss it at all. Sober is f-ing cool!  No middle-of-the night anxiety, no bloating, sinus, skin, vision, digestive issues all have a way of disappearing in sobriety.
3. Get your sleep.  My mom always said, the hours before midnight are the ones that count the most.  I think she was right, because I definitely feel better if I sleep from 10pm-5am than from 1am-9am.  There are all kinds of experts out there saying you need at least 7-8 hours of sleep a night, and others saying, a lot of people don’t need that much.  Again, trust your body.  It knows, and it is trying to tell you.  I think sometimes we get into these patterns and don’t realize how exhausted and toxic we have become, until we get healthy.  Go to bed a few hours before midnight and get up 7-8 hours later, and after doing this for a few days, see if you feel more focused and patient.  Keep in mind it may take a while to adjust.  And let go of the stuff you absolutely HAD to get done at 11pm. Life will go on (see Step 12).
4. Move your ass!  Ideally, take your ass outside and move in the fresh air.  But if it’s icy out or you have asthma, then do the indoor workout thing. And you don’t have to carve out an hour every day at the gym, if that is unsustainable or impossible in your schedule.  Get the 7 minute workout app on your smartphone.  Do a yoga or pilates YouTube video.  Get the SWORKIT app.  It’s recommended we take at least 10,000 steps per day (you can track on your FitBit or your iPhone Health app).  The main thing is to move throughout the day.  If you take a 6am spinning class and then spend 8 hours sitting in front of a screen in a cubicle, totally sedentary, you are on the fast track to heart disease and depression.  Change jobs or at least schedule in a 5-minute sun salutations session every hour.
5. Meditate.  The key is consistency over quantity.  Ideally, you will build up to 15 minutes or more per day.  But I get it – when our To Do List is longer than Santa’s Naughty List, it seems completely pointless to sit on the floor and count our breaths. So, start small.  Start with 5 minutes before crawling into bed, using the Insight Timer or Headspace app.  And trust me – this is a powerful practice to start TODAY, especially if you really don’t have time for it.  Just do it. 
6. Connect.  I don’t mean, via screens, I mean in real life (IRL).  Make time for your friends, whether it’s a phone call, a lunch date, a group run.  There is nothing more healing and centering than spending time with our tribe.  If we are in support groups, now is the time to draw close to them.  If we are in group exercise classes, now is the time to make them a priority. 
7. Practice gratitude.  All too often, we tend to get caught up in what is lacking in our life, be it money, time, loved ones, sunshine.  When we make a conscious effort, through prayer, journaling, saying grace before meals, thanking those who serve us and our family – suddenly, the mindset shifts.  We may even start to realize that our first world problems are pretty stupid.  Become a Badass Gratitude Warrior and watch the world get better.  As a dear friend who is an Army Veteran likes to say, when she is putting things in perspective, "At least it’s not Libya" (and she was in Libya, so she knows).
8. Get creative.  We are all creative beings but somehow a lot of that got lost when we were too tired from diaper fiascos and 3am feedings.  We may not be a piano or sculpting genius, but we all have an innate creative spirit that craves to be nurtured.  Play with recipes, knit a hat, make a photo book, make some jewelry, write a blog, take a dance class, make a movie on your iPhone and show it to our loved ones.  When we are doing something that seems to put time on hold, because we are so engrossed in it, then we know we have found something.  Our soul NEEDS this something. On a regular basis.
9. Take supplements.  Hopefully, you are eating nutritious whole foods, but the reality is that our soil is depleted, so even organic vegetables don’t have everything we need.  And, the fact that our lives are so hectic and our environment toxic, means we really need to be on top of getting enough nutrients to support our badass bodies and brains.  In general, I always recommend supplementing the following:  magnesium, vitamin D, calcium, B vitamins, omega 3’s, antioxidants, probiotics.  (If you have certain conditions or issues, such as depression, anxiety, autoimmune disorders, etc, I highly recommend you consult with a professional such as a naturopath, functional medicine doctor, Chinese medicine doctor). Ideally, your stuff will come in a liquid or powder form, so they are more bioavailable (i.e. your body absorbs the nutrients instead of peeing it out).  I love the FuXion stuff (full disclosure: I am a distributor and this is my site) because they are in the form of functional beverages, so they are easy and delicious and effective.
10. Play!!!!  Stop taking yourself and your life so seriously!  If something or someone is boring, my skin starts to crawl and I want to run away.  I am pretty sure you don’t like boring either.  No wonder we want to escape!  Cookies, alcohol, social media – they are so appealing when our current moment is boring.  So let’s play more.  Go out for a naked run.  As in, no watch, no GPS app, just run (please put some clothes on). Notice nature around us and within us. Maybe wear a Santa hat (and clothes, please).  Make holiday cookies and go a little crazy with the icing.  Perfection is so last year.  If holiday cards are undoing you, send them in January and tell people you wanted to get a head start on 2017’s cards.  When standing in line at Kmart (my idea of purgatory), suggest everyone do the mannequin challenge.
11.  Read something inspiring and enriching.  If you don’t like to read, listen to inspiring podcasts or audiobooks.  Even if it’s just 5 minutes at bedtime (after your 10 minute meditation at 9:45pm).  Your brain is like the CEO of your body and life, and it needs some healthy, helpful guidance, especially as in today’s crazy media world, it gets input from all kinds of toxic sources.  Pick up stuff from Wayne Dyer, Marianne Williamson, Tony Robbins, Anne Lamott, Brene Brown, Pema Chodron, Rick Warren, Randy Gage, Eckhart Tolle, Daniel Amen, Don Miguel Ruiz. Some of my favorite podcasts are The Sessions (Sean Croxton), Another Mother Runner, Natural MD Radio (Dr. Aviva Romm), The Quote of the Day Show, The Rich Roll Podcast, The RobCast, Good Life Project, HOME, The Bubble Hour, Underground Wellness, Happier With Gretchen Rubin.
12.  Simplify.  Purge the To Do’s, the friends’ lists, the volunteer commitments, the stuff you sign up for, the amount of pets, the clutter, the extracurricular commitments.  I will be the first to say that this item is currently my biggest challenge.  When I let go of alcohol, I decided to dive into what became my recovery plan, and one of the results of doing this is that my life this year has become far more simple.  Yes, I still have the crazy mileage I put on my car driving kids around.  But for the most part, I have said “no” before saying “yes.”  Or, “not now” or “not yet.”  My top priority this year was sobriety, so everything was put through the Sobriety First filter.  This meant that certain activities, commitments, connections, didn’t happen, or were let go.  And it’s all good.  People and things go on, whether or not I am part of them.  There is a certain freedom in this way of living.

 
Today is the beginning of the rest of your life.  Not January 1.  Today.  Right now, this very breath.  Why wait until you have hit your version of rock bottom?  A heart attack, a panic attack, a horrible hangover, an affair, a breast lump, a blood sugar level, a financial meltdown, 30 pounds of overweight, a child in crisis (because they are our best mirrors, but their little bodies and brains aren’t able to absorb as much – so pay attention!) – these are all signs that we are living an unbalanced life.  Follow these 12 steps and chances are, things will fall into place.