What the hell is self care really?
Self care is not just washing your face every night, folding your clothes, or getting a regular massage.
Although self care might include those things, it may not actually be what you need.
The true definition of self care is:
Are you DOING (taking action) everything that is required to get yourself back into alignment with your true self? Click To TweetSelf care truly means discovering what you need in order to feel good about yourself. It’s about discovering what your shame cycles are, acknowledging them, being aware of them, and being able to stop them when they start.
Do you even know who your true self is?
If you were to dive deeply inside of yourself, would you find that you are in Integrity with yourself?
By Integrity I mean,
- what you say,
- what you think,
- what you feel, and
- how you act
are all in alignment?
Or are you wearing a mask? Are you “people pleasing”? Are you trying to make other people happy? Are you willing to give up who you are in order to fit in?
Shame hates its name.
Shame keeps us from being vulnerable and from creating intimacy. Shame has us act out of alignment with who we know we are. Click To Tweet
When we’re operating out of Shame, we are looking to make ourselves better. Because somehow we think we are broken, bad, or wrong.
No one is broken, bad or wrong. If you find yourself hearing yourself saying that “there’s something wrong with you,” you picked that up from somewhere. I am sure, there is nothing wrong with you. You’re Perfect Just the Way You Are.
When you don’t believe you’re Perfect Just the Way You Are, you don’t act in alignment with your true self. You act in order to people please to escape the fear of rejection or abandonment. You let yourself be controlled, manipulated and used.
When you discover the things that truly make you feel in alignment with yourself, self care is actually doing those things, taking the action, to get yourself into alignment.
I’m Heather Hundhausen, and I’ve created the Work Life Balance Buckets to support people in discovering how to become aware of and clear blockages in their mind, body and spirit in order to achieve peace, healthy relationships, joy and success.
- The first bucket is to become aware of what your body is saying to you.
- The second bucket teaches you about the power of your mind, and mindfulness.
- The third bucket is about becoming your own loving parent through self love and inner child work.
- It’s about AWARENESS. SELF CARE, today’s topic, is bucket #4 and is about TAKING THE ACTION required to love yourself.
- Bucket #5 is also an ACTION bucket, and is about setting boundaries, and discovering your worthiness. The first 5 buckets are the foundational work to begin creating thriving relationships, and a balanced life.
Go Up The Mountain To The Promise
I Lost Myself people pleasing, and Then Found Myself Through Self Care.
Maybe YOU can relate to these places that I LOST MYSELF BY GIVING UP TAKING CARE OF MYSELF?
I lost myself in business
For instance, I want to spread a message of healing to the world. When I was 11 years old and I learned that Jesus could heal people with his hands, I wanted to be able to do it. I didn’t think there was anything separating me from being Jesus, all I needed was more training and more connection to God. This is truly what I thought.
At some point, I had experiences that made me think, I better hide all of this, because I wanted to fit in. I was just too weird. (Healers often feel other people’s feelings, or can hear other people’s thoughts, and it can be very challenging when you don’t fit in).
When I started hiding myself, I started losing myself. It’s been a long journey of getting back to me.
Because I know I have such a big message to spread, and so many people that I want to still heal, it’s important to me to do work in the world and be a contribution. If I don’t do marketing or marketing research or calling in connecting with potential clients, I don’t feel like I’m in alignment with my purpose here. If I’m not seeing clients, I’m looking for clients, because I don’t feel in alignment with my purpose.
I have to TAKE ACTION to be who I want to be. I cannot just sit around wishing I could heal people. I had to take classes, and find people to work on. This is self care.
I lost myself as a parent
When I’m ignoring my children, I don’t feel like I’m in alignment with my purpose as a parent. When I spend too much time focusing on work, during the time that I have them, I feel bad. The feeling bad is the shame. If I let the shame take over, I would just keep working and ignoring my kids.
But self care is learning how to balance, making sure I get the work done that I want to do, and spending time with my kids.
I lost myself in my relationship
When I’m not spending time with my boyfriend, or I’m not supporting him the way I like to, I feel out of alignment with my purpose.
I want to be the soil for him to grow and thrive. Click To TweetI want him to grow and thrive so he can protect me and provide for me. If I don’t spend time taking care of myself in a way that makes me feel powerful enough to be soil for him, then I’m not fulfilling my purpose and I don’t feel good about myself.
So self care is learning how to balance making sure I do my work, spending time with my kids, and empowering myself to be able to be soil my boyfriend.
I lost my health
I know that my health is incredibly important. It doesn’t matter how much money I make, or how much my boyfriend loves me, or what a good mother I am, they can’t make me healthy. I’m the only one who can make me healthy. When I don’t choose healthy foods, or exercise, I feel bad about myself. If I let the shame cycle take over, I won’t exercise.
So self care is learning how to balance making sure I do my work, spending time with my kids, and powering myself to be soil for my boyfriend, and exercising and eating right.
I lost my spirituality
When I try to control the world that I live in, nothing goes well. I’ve learned that I get to surrender to my higher self. I’ve also learned that surrendering to my higher self takes practice, a habit of meditation and journaling. If I don’t spend time meditating in journaling, I feel bad about myself.
So self care for me, is balancing work, spending time with my kids and my boyfriend, exercising and eating right, and making sure to meditate and journal.
Self care doesn’t mean I wash my face. Although at one point in my life I decided that I wanted to use that really nice face cream, and that that would be an act of self love, so I’m also using the face cream everyday.
So for me self care does mean I wash my face!
- What does self care mean for you?
- How are you out of alignment with who you really are and what your purpose is? Are you even aware of what being an alignment feels like?
- Are you even dropped down into your body?
I have a lot of clients who don’t even know what it feels like to be in their own bodies. How the heck are you supposed to know what you need if you don’t even know what it feels like to be in your own body? If that’s you, self-care starts with dropping down into your own body and finding out what you need.
If you’re having trouble with self care, are you don’t know what I’m talking about, do yourself a favor, and reach out for a free breakthrough session with me. It doesn’t cost you anything, and it may change your life in the best way possible. I look forward to hearing from you.
Thank You
READ MORE FROM ME
Over the years, I have been a serial learner and practitioner, taking in information about psychology, religion, spirituality, science, medicine, quantum physics, relationships, parenting, and overall, general happiness and work-life balance. I’ve been fascinated in what it takes to and have created my life of pure joy, happiness, balance and peace. It is my mission to spread what I have learned and practiced to you in ways that are simple, easy to understand AND implement. I have served people in achieving realignment in their bodies, relationships and purpose for over 20 years. If you liked this article about how to get sex right now, and you want to read more, please visit one of the links below:
- Watch my YouTube Channel: Heather Hundhausen
- Email: Receive my daily, inspirational emails to stay motivated, aligned, and loving yourself.
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- Breakthrough: If you are in pain or struggling in life, please schedule a free consultation.
Heather Hundhausen, a mind/body/spirit healer and facilitator, works with heart centered individuals who are ready to release their physical and emotional pain and reconnect their minds with their bodies so they can start living a life of passion and purpose. She assists people in making decisions in their lives by following their heart, mind, intuition and soul, from a place of being whole and in integrity.
With over fifteen years as a licensed massage therapist, Heather understands the connection between how someone's emotions can show up as physical pain. Using a variety of massage techniques, including neuromuscular therapy and structural realignment, she now does her ground breaking work by helping her clients to reach back through the pain and remember who they are to create wholeness and fullness.
During her years practicing traditional massage therapy, and while an intern working on her Masters Degree in Mental Health Counseling, she realized that people responded strongly when addressing their feelings and not just their thoughts. Working with this knowledge, she began to create an experiential environment for her clients, having them focus less on what they were thinking and more on what they were feeling. She discovered that when people began to release their emotions, they also released their physical pain. Heather is now passionate about helping people do just this so they hear their inner voice and then act upon their intuition so they create a new physical, mental and emotional life for themselves.
Heather’s authenticity, integrity, honor, commitment to her clients, and ability to create trust ensures that client's have a safe space to experience the exploration and release of their pain. Her clients say she is skilled at spiritual and emotional healing and is a great partner to have on the journey to contentment. As one particular client stated, “She opened my heart so the grief could emerge and then joy was able to fill that space.”
Heather is a popular speaker and workshop leader and facilitator, with one of her most popular workshops, “Connect on Purpose: Interpreting Your Body's Signals for Greater Wisdom and Empowerment” helping guide people to live their purpose, which Heather describes as “being able to take your talents and gifts and put them into action.” She is currently authoring a book and developing additional workshops, including a meditation group.
A licensed massage therapist, specializing in Thai Massage, Neuromuscular Therapy and Myo-skeletal Alignment Technique, she has a Masters Degree in Mental Health Counseling, is certified in Redirecting Children’s Behavior as a facilitator and coach.
