Mindy’s Monday Motivation – Blog Post #10 – Take care of yourself before you care for others

As mentioned last Monday, today’s post is all about self-care and its importance. A lot of individuals, especially women, sacrifice themselves – their health, their time, their energy – to take care of their loved ones. It’s inherent in our human nature. However, before we work ourselves to exhaustion, please take a moment to reflect on how this path can be harmful to you and eventually your loved ones. Imagine if you get sick or worse, how will you be able to take care of them?

?I don’t remember when I first developed this principle, but I believe it took hold very early on in my life. And, time and time again, I am reminded of this very idea. Whenever I took a flight for work, the flight attendant would perfunctorily say these words of caution: should the cabin lose pressure, oxygen masks will drop from the overhead area. Please secure your own oxygen mask first before you assist others. Why? You know the answer. That’s because if you are no longer conscious, how are you able to assist anyone. The result would be quite the opposite because now you’ve become the one who’d needed the help. You might have helped your child, but how would your child help you?

?When I became a mom for the first time, almost all the mothers I knew gave the same advice: When the baby sleeps, you sleep. Why? Because you need the rest. You need to be able to physically and mentally recharged to take care of that little one who seems to constantly need you. Forget the housework. Yes, the kitchen sink would be full of dishes. The diaper pail might need emptying. You might not have showered in three days and there was a suspicious smell somewhere in the room, but you couldn’t seem to locate the origin. The animals might be barking, meowing for attention. Pay no attention to any of that! Just lay down and snuggle with your little one(s) if possible. Just close your eyes and rest. You need it to remain calm and without sleep and rest, your body will go into alert mode and destroy any ambience that would be beneficial to your child. Here’s a great?Forbes article that talks about the effect of the mother’s anxiety on the child .?https://www.forbes.com/sites/alicegwalton/2012/07/25/how-parents-stress-can-hurt-a-child-from-the-inside-out/?sh=46aac0f26b38 ?I love this one statement from David Code, who was interviewed for the article: “My goal with my own kids is not to tell them I love them every six minutes of the day and helicopter-parent them so they know I’m present. It’s to create calm around them so that they feel no sense of threat.” I highly recommend you read the article in its entirety as the author provides further interesting stories, especially about the wire monkey study. The main point of the article is to stay calm to help your baby develop well. So, how do you do that in face of all the things that you need and want to do? First and foremost, you need to rest. So, sleep as much as I can. Employ help whenever possible. Because in the long run, the best thing you do for your child is to invest in yourself.

?Many years ago, I volunteered to be a crisis counselor on a text hotline, one of the key training that the volunteers had to take was on self-care. As you can imagine, it’s very emotionally draining to be on these calls. We would try our very best and if we were able to ‘talk’ someone off the ledge, that’s a good day. However, often, we felt powerless. None of the problems discussed on the line were easily solvable. We were also not there to solve any problem. We were there to listen and help talk that individual from doing self-harm. We couldn’t call the authority unless certain criteria were met. I especially wished that I could reach across the line and hug that person, to cry alongside them, to help them see the brighter side of life. However, I had to maintain the calm, the voice of reason, helping them to find the reasons themselves, to pull them from their despair, to see the positives in a seemingly hopeless situation. The other thing about these volunteer services is that you could not talk about any of these individuals outside of the volunteer circle. So, for self-care, we are reminded to speak with our supervisor whenever needed or after a difficult call. When these calls would wear us down, or we feel a bit down ourselves, we could also re-read some of the guidance on self-care. Here’s a shortened?version that you can check out yourself :?https://www.crisistextline.org/blog/2017/07/19/beginners-guide-to-self-care/ . The article talks about the eight dimensions of wellness: physical, emotional, occupational, financial, intellectual, social, and spiritual as well as a few self-care practices. It’s worth a quick read just for the definition of self-care: the conscious effort we make to feel and do better by implementing proactive practices to improve our overall well-being.

?As you probably have noticed by now, self-care could be applied in many aspects of our lives. The eight dimensions mentioned in the article leads us to next week’s guest blog post, which comes from Kimberly Platten. Kimberly is our IQVIA Thought Leadership Center of Excellence Lead. Her post is specific to the financial dimension of wellness. I hope you have enjoyed this week’s post. It will be Kimberly’s first time blogging, so please give her some encouragement as well. In addition, if anyone is interested in guest posting, please feel free to reach out to me directly.

?Until next week,

?Mindy =D