Self-care is not a luxury, but a necessity for anyone who works in peer support. As a peer supporter, you help others cope with mental health challenges, trauma, addiction, or other issues. But who helps you? How do you avoid burnout, compassion fatigue, and stress? How do you communicate to your clients that self-care is important for both of you?
Self-care is any activity that helps you maintain or improve your physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual well-being, such as exercise, meditation, hobbies, socializing, or setting boundaries. Doing so can have numerous benefits, including reducing stress and improving mood, enhancing resilience and coping skills, preventing or managing burnout and compassion fatigue, boosting your immune system and preventing illness, increasing your energy and productivity, and improving your relationships and communication.
Despite the benefits of self-care, many peer supporters struggle to practice it regularly due to a variety of barriers. These can include lack of time or resources, guilt or shame for prioritizing oneself, feeling overwhelmed or exhausted, difficulty saying no or asking for help, cultural or social norms that discourage self-care, and the belief that self-care is selfish or indulgent.
People don't attach self-care to happiness. Recommended self-care tasks are often done alone, and people aren't comfortable being alone if they're supposed to be earning happiness. Many people grow up or grow into feeling like happiness has to be earned rather than what they are entitled to. There is a false belief, conscious or not, that they can be vicariously happy by giving to others. They over-reach. Maybe we need to shift the conversation to quality of life. Mind, body, and spirit alignment brings joy in the morning and peace at night on a consistent basis, which is happiness. Self-care is the strategy.
In order to overcome barriers to self-care, you should create a self-care plan that is tailored to your individual needs and preferences. This plan will help you recognize and carry out self-care activities. To make and adhere to your self-care plan, assess your current level of self-care, set realistic goals, choose activities that are enjoyable and fit into your schedule and finances, prioritize self-care time, ask for help from others, and review/adjust the plan as necessary. Following these strategies will help you achieve better self-care.
Communication is a key skill for peer support and self-care. To effectively communicate the importance of self-care, you should model self-care behavior and share your own practices and challenges. Additionally, it's important to educate your clients on the benefits and barriers of self-care, and how it can help them reach their goals. Moreover, empower your clients to create their own self-care plans and validate their feelings and experiences. Lastly, collaborate with your clients and other professionals to coordinate and integrate self-care into the overall support plan.
Communication can be difficult when it comes to self-care, especially when it involves your clients. You may face resistance or reluctance from them to engage in self-care or accept your boundaries. Additionally, there could be conflicting expectations or demands from your clients, yourself, or your organization. Misunderstandings or miscommunications about the meaning and purpose of self-care may arise, as well as ethical or cultural dilemmas or sensitivities. Emotional or interpersonal issues or conflicts can also have an impact on self-care.
To overcome these challenges, effective communication skills and strategies that foster trust, respect, and understanding are essential. Listening actively and empathically to your clients, expressing yourself clearly and assertively, negotiating and compromising to find mutually agreeable solutions, respecting diversity, and seeking feedback and supervision from peers are all important steps for communication self-care. By communicating self-care importance to your clients, you can improve your own well-being and effectiveness, as well as your clients' outcomes and satisfaction.