Introducing the Sage self-care project
Prioritising your self-care gives you stamina and resilience to cope with adversity. Self-care practices provide us with skills to recognise feelings and behavioural patterns. They create a kete of tools to help us adapt, hold our own, and pivot in response to stressful situations we encounter.
Many people confuse self-care with extrinsic activities such as going on holiday, having a monthly massage, going to the movies or spending the afternoon curled up on the couch with a book. While all these activities certainly help us feel better and can temporarily boost our morale, they do not get to the heart of the issues that may be causing discomfort and impacting our wellbeing.
Sage Practices defines self-care as personal wellbeing management – the ongoing practice of self-examination and the art of looking after ourselves. The Sage Self Care project is here to support you with monthly offerings of self-care practices. The intention of the project is to actively encourage you to be proactive about taking responsibility for your health.
Appropriate self-care practices vary for all of us. We all have different schedules, stressors, priorities and commitments. However, no matter how busy you may be, in today’s world, prioritising your wellbeing is a non-negotiable. If we don’t get better at looking after ourselves, we will, almost surely, run out of energy and potentially burn out.
Regular self-care practices can help regulate the nervous system and can reduce common symptoms such as:
- Overactive mind and racing thoughts
- Difficulty getting to sleep and/or staying asleep
- Racing heart
- Tiredness and fatigue
- Changes in breathing patterns – such as shortness of breath
- Mood swings
Sage’s self care project will offer you a range of suggestions aimed to support you in your healing process. This is not a one size fits all package so please take what is useful and discard what is not. The way you respond to the suggested strategies will depend on your current situation and life experiences. For this reason – it is always important is seek personal advice of a trusted teacher or medical professional.
Each month, Sage will offer a new practice as an option for you to integrate into your daily routine. The monthly offerings will be a range of tools and techniques such as breathing, relaxation and meditation exercises, personal awareness practices, mental wellness and community engagement activities.
The aim of the project is to help you become more aware of your regular patterns of behaviour. Offering tools to give you greater insight into the way that you relate to yourself and those around you (both at home and at work). As you become more adept at recognising patterns, you may begin to notice changes in your mental, emotional and physical health. This in turn can help you support the people around. Together, we can all navigate our way through the ongoing challenges of personal and professional life.
This month’s self-care practice
I invite you to choose one thing to change up in you life. Pick an action that is simple – something that you enjoy and is easy to integrate. Consciously introduce one component of self care into your day that makes you feel good. Something tangible and achievable that you relate to, that you know is an act of kindness for yourself.
What ever you decide, the less momentous the better as you are more likely to remember to do your new ‘thing’. See if you can commit to doing it everyday for a month and notice what happens…
Examples could be to:
- Take a short pause first thing in the morning when you wake up – before you get out of bed
- Go outside before breakfast and take a few slow deep breaths in and out your nose
- Drink a glass of water first thing in the morning when you wake up
- Have breakfast every morning sitting down – before you start work
- Go outside for at least a few minutes every day – regardless of the weather
- Read a book for 10 – 15 minutes every night before sleep
- Sit quietly (uninterrupted) for 5 minutes everyday
- Anything you think of that brings you joy and that you can realistically incorporate into your day
