We Declare: January is now Self Care Month
3 Pillars Parent Newsletter #44
By: Catherine Lynch and Glenn Collins
Dear Awesome Parents,
Well we’ve just had back-to-back holidays, kidney stones, and Covid. Are we feeling up for some New Year’s resolution conversation? Oh no we are not! Not this year. This year we’re feeling like it’s time to concentrate on self care. If you’re doing the New Year’s Resolution thing, great! More power to you! We hope you’ve set realistic goals, have a good system to make consistent progress, and have a great group of friends to help you stick with it. We are not that group. 😂 This year, we’re the “January sounds like a great month to take care of ourselves” group. Please enjoy the first of our 5 posts about taking good care of yourself. Sounds like a great way to start the year!
Join us as we start a new tradition - January is for self care, not new resolutions!
Parents are the linchpins of their families - the leaders. When you’re at the top of our game, you can be the parent your kid needs you to be. The one you planned on being, before you had kids and life got crazy. This month, we’ll explore some of the many facets of taking the best care of ourselves so we can take the best care of our precious kids. Also - because we matter! The hectic pace of the last two months just isn’t sustainable. Self care isn’t frivolous - it’s absolutely necessary.
Self-soothing is the foundation of caring for yourself.
Who’s in charge of taking care of you? Hopefully, an entire village. Hopefully, your partner. Ultimately though, the buck stops with you. You’re the one.
When we’re feeling calm and stable we live by our values, we see the bigger picture, we make better decisions, and don’t say things we’ll regret. It puts us in a position to help our kids manage their own big feelings. All of this adds up to healthier, happier relationships, which helps us move steadily toward our End in Mind: that our kids become healthy, happy and successful adults.
When there’s stress, worry or fear, or just too much going on, the body reacts with adrenaline - the fight, flight, or freeze response. When this happens the body goes into survival mode, the brain shuts down the pathway to the prefrontal cortex and complex decision making goes offline.
We don’t make our best decisions when we’re in survival mode. Our kids pick up on our stress and become stressed themselves. One of the biggest bangs we can get for our buck is to learn how to quickly and consistently return to emotional equilibrium and get the thinking part of our brains working again.
What needs to be soothed - the body, mind or spirit? Knowing which one is most out-of-sorts will help you decide which method to use. Thus - the more tools in the toolbox, the better.
Our current favorites include: Walking in nature, bike riding, running, warm showers, and breathing techniques for soothing the body. Cheerful fiction, meditation, and funny or deeply engaging videos for soothing the mind. Inspirational literature or upbeat music for soothing the spirit.
Questions for Reflection:
What are your favorite self-soothing techniques?
Which ones work the fastest?
Which ones work most consistently?
Which ones can you do in public, without attracting attention to yourself?
What are your kid’s self soothing techniques? Which ones can they do by themselves, and which ones do they need help with? Make a list with your kid and help them practice regularly before the need arises so that you’ll both be ready to put them in to practice when the time comes.
Winter Sky
Excellent idea. Wishing you esch a speedy recovery