Sustainable Self Care:

It is scheduled – we have a weekly planner on our fridge that marks out self-care time for my husband and I. It also maps out regular weekly sporting commitments for the kids. For example on Tuesday and Thursday night my husband paddles, Wednesday night I go to Yoga and on Wednesday and Sunday mornings I run. I love this free weekly planner download as it has some lovely self-care prompts included just for Mums.

It can be short but sweet.  I used to get caught up in wanting the perfect version of ‘me time’. A weekly yoga class for example – it was three years after the birth of my third child before I actually managed that. When that felt too hard to achieve I thought that I couldn’t have ‘me time’. In reality I had to adjust how I perceived ‘me time’ and appreciate that 5 minutes to myself often was in fact more beneficial than an hour to myself once a month. With 5 minutes totally for myself I can … meditate, take a short walk, drink a cup of tea that is still hot when I finish it or read a chapter of my book in the garden. All of those things nourish my soul.

Commitment. It is so easy to let the madness of motherhood get the better of me. There are always so many things to juggle and it is so easy to let my self-care be the first ball that gets dropped. Self-care is a constant work in progress. It is rarely “perfect” but as long as I honour my commitment to regular, sustainable action I am a much happier woman.