The new meaning of self-care

If you follow me on Instagram, you’ve probably seen me talk about my health a lot over the last couple of months. I’ve tried to be pretty transparent about what I’ve experienced because I don’t think enough people are open about their mental health, especially in the business world.

If you’re wondering what the heck I’m talking about, the short version is this: A couple months ago, I started having shortness of breath and some really scary symptoms, like panic attacks and a racing resting heartbeat, which I’ve never dealt with before. After spending some time in the ER, seeing several different doctors, and lots of testing, we determined that what I'm struggling with is anxiety. Thankfully, I’m feeling so much better now that I know what it is and what I need to do about it.?

I want to talk about it here on the blog for a couple reasons: 1) I think there can be a stigma around any kind of mental health issue—anxiety included—and hearing others’ experiences can make people feel less alone. And 2) I think it's really important to talk about mental health at work. If we say we want to create spaces of empathy, compassion, and understanding, we need to embrace all health struggles, not just the ones people can see. So many of us quietly deal with mental health issues or invisible illnesses that come with us everywhere we go and affect everything we do. These last couple of months have taught me to have even more empathy for others because I know many people don't even talk about what they're struggling with, and that can feel really lonely. Of course, I would never force anyone to talk about anything they’re not comfortable sharing, especially at work; I just think that work can and should be the place where we feel supported and where we can talk about things like this.

A really important thing that this experience taught me is how superficial my definition of self-care was prior to this. For me, self-care used to mean going to the spa, getting a massage or a pedicure, watching Netflix, and taking time off of work. These are all things that I do regularly to take care of myself—and still will do them—but I thought prior to this that that was all I needed to do for self-care. What I'm learning, though, is that self-care goes so much deeper than a spa day. I'm thinking deeply about what the next level of self-care will look like for me, and I want to share some of the things that I'm working on for myself in the hopes that it will help you think differently about how you care for yourself.

Deeper connection with myself on an emotional and physical level. I think sometimes I'm just so go-go-go that I don't stop to really think about how I'm feeling and how I'm doing. I'm learning the importance of checking in with myself and really honoring my feelings instead of telling myself that I shouldn't or can't feel a certain way. I’m allowing myself to feel every emotion. One way that I'm connecting with my physical and emotional self is through breathwork. I'm working with a breathwork facilitator in Houston, and I'm learning how to release emotions and connect with how I'm physically feeling in a way that I have never done before. I’m also learning some tools to help me bring breathwork into my everyday life.

Setting boundaries that support my mental health. At the peak of my symptoms, I had an in-person event. The last thing I wanted to do was let people down or cancel something that had been planned for months, and I really struggled with what to do. I was open with my client about my health challenges and ultimately decided to reschedule the event. But you know who encouraged me the most to do that? My client! They were so kind and loving about it (Scott and team, if you are reading this, thank you from the bottom of my heart), and they wanted me to prioritize myself. We were able to find a new date, and I realized I built it up in my head to be so much bigger than it was. It was a wakeup call for me: What am I modeling as a leader if I don't prioritize my own health? I'm realizing that sometimes, in order to take care of ourselves, we have to let someone down. We only get one body and one life, and that has to come first. The people who care about you will understand. I teach this to others and realized I don’t always practice it myself.

Learning about my anxiety. I’m doing a lot of reading to learn more about anxiety and ways that I can support my mental health. It’s really helping me feel less alone and helping me see how I can support others, too. Here are some of my favorite books that I’ve read so far:?

1. Real Self-Care | 2. That's Bold of You | 3. Radical Compassion

4. Anxiety: Panicking about Panic | 5. Anxiety Rx

Working with a therapist. I’ve worked with therapists in the past, but it’s been awhile. I’ve been wanting to work with one again because I think it’s so healthy, so I found someone amazing in Houston. What she said in our first session really struck me: Her goal is to understand what it's like to be me. She wants to understand what I'm feeling, give me tools that can help me with whatever we uncover in our sessions, and walk alongside me. I’ve started having regular sessions with her, and it’s reminding me how nice it is to have a sounding board and a thought partner who isn’t connected to anything I do. I am that person for several people in my life, and I’ve realized that I really need that for myself.?

Sharing my experience with others. In addition to talking things through with a therapist, it’s also been really freeing and healing to talk about what I’m going through on stage, on social media, and even in this blog post. It helps release any shame I may have been feeling around it, reminds me I don’t have to hide it, and normalizes a topic that I think we need to talk about more as leaders. Even in meetings, just being open and telling people, “Hey, this is what I’m going through, and I just want to give you a heads up in case I don’t show up how I normally do today,” feels really freeing and empowering. The result has been amazing: It’s led to deeper levels of connection, more trust, and more support from the people in my life.

Finding peace in doing nothing. Sometimes, my new level of self-care means doing . . . nothing. When I was really focused on getting to the root of what was causing my symptoms, I took a pause on all my “self-care”: spa appointments, workouts, runs—the things that I would have considered crucial parts of my self-care routine. It felt so good to have a break from all of that and to give myself permission to just be.

I hope this post gets you thinking about what true self-care means to you. And, of course, if you also struggle with anxiety, I see you, I hear you, and I understand. You are not alone ??

If you want to learn more about the specific things I’m doing to prioritize my well-being and mental health, I hope you’ll sign up for my Life Outside of Work newsletter! This month's topic is a deeper-dive into this blog post. I’ll share more about the specific practices I'm doing and describe them in a lot more detail. If that’s something you're interested in, you can sign up for the newsletter here. It comes out on the fourth Friday of every month! Hope to see you there.

Big hugs,

Kristen