Do you often feel slightly off? Not quite sick. But not fully well?
Is your body stuck in Fatigue? Exhaustion?
Are you burnt out?
Is your mind racing at a thousand miles an hour?
It’s as though your stomach, your whole body and your mind are conspiring against you. Trying to tell you something.
But. No. You’re just not listening. You’re too busy to take care of yourself. Being perfect. Setting goals. Going for that ideal life. The life of a successful professional person?
You have to press on. Push, push, push. Who else will get this done for you?
Have you ever thought about taking better care of yourself?
No?
look at what’s happening here? Why do you keep ignoring the signs and symptoms of sickness, Avoid burnout and exhaustion? And.
What you can do about it, starting with the simplest and easiest step first for personal success and personal growth.
Let’s get into the best self-care tips.
What is Happening here to: Possible Symptoms of Avoid Burnout and Exhaustion
You’ve felt the niggles. The early symptoms. The minor disruptions to your daily, hectic schedule.
You’ve probably applied the over-the-counter remedies: the headache pills, the digestive liquids, extra coffee, sugary things and energy drinks.
Has it worked? Probably. Short term. However. Why do those symptoms return?
Your body/mind is trying to tell you that it is unhappy. It is also trying to warn you that these symptoms signify deeper, more serious and disruptive causes.
Causes that will keep re-surfacing on some level until they are dealt with. In order to heal you have to find out the real, underlying cause of your sickness, burnout or exhaustion, first.
Why do you keep ignoring the signs and symptoms of sickness, exhaustion and burnout?
One of the main reasons is that you do not recognize that these early symptoms can tell you anything.
You don’t perceive them as being important. And. Mostly you are just too busy.
This all leads to the overriding issue: you have simply disconnected from your body and its’ sensations; your core; your true purpose.
This disconnection or disassociation leads to the mental override of your conditions. You tell yourself that all will be well and that it is no big deal.
What is self-care then?
Self-care means listening to those signals and taking time to put into practice, mental, emotional and physical tools, strategies, and techniques that will lead you to maintain your health and wellbeing.
It’s about looking after self before others. If you don’t do this, won’t or can’t, then looking after someone else will be futile.
What is the underlying, real, cause/s of your lack of self-care issues?
At our core we all have some negative beliefs that govern our attitudes, emotions, our experiences and our interpretations of those experiences, how we perceive the world, and how others perceive us.
If we do not take care of ourselves in a meaningful way, it means that one of our core negative beliefs is: “I am not good enough.”
Everyone has experienced “not being good enough” on some level throughout their lives. And.
Unfortunately, if we haven’t done some work about releasing these underlying issues, then they will continue to plague our lives, shutting down our immune systems, creating illness and infections, thus leading us to exhaustion. And. For some, burnout.
My approach, is that we look at what comprises our Stress Barrel – what we keep doing to ourselves when we feel stressed, threatened, feel mentally constrained, or feel physically and emotionally distressed.
All dis-ease is stress-based. Any issues that we are unable to overcome and which leads us to repeating inappropriate behaviours and habits are stress-based. It can arise out of self-neglect.
We keep building up our barrel – what our body/minds can cope with before the symptoms of stress manifest – and we keep abusing our body/minds until the barrel starts to overflow or burst. This leads to the symptoms. If we keep ignoring the symptoms, we get sick.
How? We continue to abuse our body/minds with junk food, negative thoughts and negative emotions, and all manner of self-punishing behaviours.
So, the objective in a self-care regime for beginners, is to take things out of the Stress Barrel, in order to heal.
1.Take one thing out of your Stress Barrel
There are two approaches to this. Do this by yourself. Or. Gain the help of a therapist.
You need to examine what you do when you feel stressed. Do you: Eat junk food? Drink extra coffee? Have more energy drinks? Drink excess alcohol? Take pain medication or drugs?
The approach is: just stop doing one of those things, those self-punishing behaviours or habits, and see how you feel.
With food or drink, stop for four days. Why? Because it takes that long for the body to process and eliminate them.
The other self-care approach is, to engage a therapist who deals with releasing negative beliefs that keep you stuck.
These negative beliefs allow you to keep repeating debilitating behaviours and habits that bring you down.
So, take one thing out. Either by yourself or with the help of a therapist. A negative belief and/or a self-destructive habit.
2.How correct breathing helps
Correct breathing is about retraining your body/mind from shallow breathing to deep belly, or diaphragmatic breathing.
The immediate effects are, increased oxygen and the many health benefits attached. The non-obvious effects are that this retrains how you respond to stressful events or stressor triggers.
When that happens, you slow down your reaction time. You regain control over your emotions. You become a better communicator because you make considered responses.
You become a better listener. And. All from breathing correctly. (See this video I have made on how to breathe correctly.) N.B. It takes about six weeks to retrain this new breathing habit.
3.Expressing self-forgiveness (and therefore self-love)
As mentioned earlier, at our core is a negative belief that we are “not good enough”. This ultimately means we do not express or show ourselves love or self-care to any large extent, especially if we allow ourselves to step into sickness, exhaustion and burnout.
Why don’t we express self-love?
One of the reasons is that we can have unrealistic expectations of what we “should” be doing, what we “should” be achieving, what we “should” be seen as.
When we “should” on ourselves, we express lack of self-love. When we achieve something less than perfection in what tasks we have set ourselves, then necessarily, this leads to shame, guilt and self-blame.
When this happens, we berate ourselves on some level. Then this sets up a wall of unforgiveness for our lack of perfection.
When we cannot forgive ourselves, we project this onto others and do the same to them.
So, one of the three primary actions of self-care for beginners, is, to instigate a ritual of daily self-care, via self-forgiveness.
I use this prayer. The effects of this prayer, the Ho’oponopono Prayer are mind-blowing. You can read the research by Dr. Hew Len and the effects such prayer had on hospital inmates. Its’ strength lies in the power of love.
Ho’oponopono Spiritual Prayer
These sentences are:
“I love you
I’m sorry
Please forgive me
I forgive you
Thank you.”
So, what we are doing here is seeking to love ourselves, first – which is at the basis of most issues – our lack of self-love for ourselves. Then we say we are sorry for whatever hurts we have perpetrated on ourselves, and others.
Then we ask for forgiveness of ourselves for being so hard on ourselves. At the same time, we are asking others to forgive us.
Because everyone is connected energetically on many levels, there are hurts perpetrated by our ancestors and families and vice versa that influence how we are today.
So, we need to be released from that energetically. Then we assume that you, and others, are actually forgiving us.
It is about believing that when you send the love, it will come back to you. Why? Because love has untold power.
In the end we say “thank you” because we are assuming we will be forgiven, and that we too, will, at some stage, forgive those who have hurt us.
This is a magical prayer.
If you can get into the habit of saying these sentences as you walk around, daily, you will find that your mood changes. Your life seems better.
You seem happier. That’s what I have found. (See the Ultimate Guide on Letting Go here for a more detailed description of the self-care of letting go on many levels.)
The interesting thing about this prayer is that it is so simple. Yet, the ripple effects can be enormous.
Why? Because everything matters. Every little thing. And. Never underestimate the power of love to heal.
The power of self-love and the power that transfers to others when you express it often. In yourself and others.
Summary of Simple Self Tips for Beginners
Self-Care Your Way to Freedom
Let me know what you do and leave a comment below.
You can do this!
It’s not forty steps or tips.
They are the three most important self-care tips for beginners you can do for yourself, that will give you the greatest impact.
Do you want to feel better, on any level? Do you want to overcome sickness, exhaustion or burnout?
If you answered “yes” to any one of these, then I challenge you to take the first step.
Here’s to your success.
Blessings.
