By Brenna Fritz, MS
When challenged with prioritizing yourself, you may find your eyes rolling or even a laugh leaving your lips while you consult your agenda for the week or survey the toys strewn across the floor while a toddler tugs on your shirt. You might be thinking, “not anytime soon” or “that’s not for me.” I myself am no stranger to this valid skepticism.
Prioritizing yourself is deeply important. Perhaps you have heard this before. One of my favorite ways to emphasize the importance of prioritizing oneself is the simple phrase you cannot pour from an empty pitcher. This is particularly applicable for women and mothers, who are so often taught to set their needs aside to care for others. But, certainly, we all know what it feels like to try to provide for the ones we love, or achieve the goals we are trying to achieve, when we have completely expended ourselves and have nothing left to give.
Allow me to advocate for this importance once more, but through the lens of mental health, as a therapist. A lot of the time, we think of mental health care, therapy, and clinical treatment as resources to seek when something is wrong, or when things get to a difficult or painful place. This is crucial, and I encourage everyone to seek help not only when things get very difficult, but even beforehand, as what we call ‘preventative measures.’ Preventative measures are the steps we take to care for ourselves before our stressors propel us to an unpleasant place. The more work we put in towards preventative measures, the more unlikely we are to reach those more painful places or those overwhelming crescendos of anxiety.
I like to explain this to my clients as a barrier we create. We each have a barrier between our satisfied, well-functioning selves, and all of the stress, pain, and deeper difficulties under the surface. You may have heard the idiom, my patience is wearing thin, which I think illustrates well what can happen to that barrier. Many factors can affect the health and resiliency of your personal barrier. For example, when you have a bad night’s sleep, miss a meal, are fighting with your partner, or have received bad news, among countless other instances. This looks different for everyone, but the effect is the same. The thinner your barrier becomes, the less tolerance you have for the challenges you face.
If you had a great night’s sleep, a beautiful breakfast, started your day gently, and took time to care for yourself, maybe spilling coffee on your pants will remain just that. However, if your barrier is running thin and you spill coffee on your pants, the barrier can break and all of the factors under the surface will bubble up in an unpleasant way. Now it’s not just the pants, now an internal monologue has formed against yourself: “I’m so clumsy, I always ruin everything, I don’t have control of my life, I can’t manage anything, this is why I missed this opportunity or made this mistake in the past, etc.” We are all familiar with this vicious spiral of negative thought that overcomes us from time to time. This experience is very normal. However, the thinner your barrier of resiliency is, the more often you will enter into these negative thought cycles. The more often you enter into these places, the more opportunity these negative thoughts have to permeate your day-to-day experience and ultimately bring you down.
So how do you ensure a thick, healthy barrier to keep you resilient and better at managing the negative thoughts and stressors we are susceptible to? The answer is simply said: nurturing and making yourself a priority by intentionally setting aside time to care for yourself and your wellbeing in a meaningful way. A lot of us have some idea about self-care, but what I like to emphasize for myself and my clients is that self-care is really more encompassing than we may initially think. A lot of images are conjured up when self-care is mentioned: bubble baths, meditation, massage, and yoga. These are all excellent forms of self-care, but I believe it is important to recognize all the other ways our wellness could need nourishment. I personally like to draw from The Six Dimensions of Wellness model developed by Dr. Hettler. This tried-and-true model has since been adopted by psychologists and counselors in their quest to help their clients to develop stronger preventative measures, self-care, and coping skills.
What I love about this model is that it clearly contextualizes personal wellness in a way that encompasses six dimensions: occupational, physical, social, intellectual, spiritual, and emotional. Each one of these dimensions is important individually, but together they establish a wonderful way to think about holistic self-care. Perhaps consider this an opportunity to tune into your intuition and ask yourself what you might be needing more of. Is your self-care always in the same dimension? I’ll go through each dimension below to explain some questions you can use to explore your relationship with a particular dimension of wellness, and then offer some suggestions for the kind of self-care practices you can look to in order to nurture yourself in this specific area.
Occupational
Questions to ask: Is my work satisfying and enriching to me right now? Is work feeling too demanding or draining? Is work consistent with my values and goals?
Practicing self-care in this dimension can look like: setting boundaries to maintain a healthy work/life balance, advocating for yourself in the workplace, asking for help, giving yourself breaks, setting goals that are consistent with your values, finding ways to make work feel enriching to you.
Physical
Questions to ask: Am I taking care of my body? Am I exercising in a way that feels good for me right now (not too strenuous or demanding, but appropriate)? Am I getting enough sleep? Am I eating in a way that makes my body happy? Is my body trying to tell me anything?
Practicing self-care in this dimension can look like: relaxing, resting, incorporating appropriate exercise for your body, listening to your body, stretching, getting a massage, taking that trip to the dentist you’ve been putting off.
Social
(This one is so tough given the current situation. Try getting creative with some virtual suggestions I’ll include below!)
Questions to ask: Am I engaging socially with friends, family, or my community? Am I feeling disconnected from my social circles? How is the relationship with my partner?
Practicing self-care in this dimension can look like: setting up a virtual happy hour with friends, going on a socially-distanced walk through the park, joining an online discussion, group, or club, reconnecting with someone you have lost touch with, or venting to a close friend.
Intellectual
Questions to ask: When was the last time I did something intellectually challenging? When was the last time I did something creative? What is something I would enjoy learning more about? What is something creative I have always wanted to try?
Practicing self-care in this dimension can look like: finding a new podcast about a topic that interests you, starting an online class, finding a new book to challenge you, starting an art project, working in a coloring book, working on a puzzle, or listening to new music.
Spiritual
Questions to ask: Are my actions consistent with my beliefs about the world? What does happiness look like to me? When do I feel the most myself? When do I feel present? When do I feel at peace?
Practicing self-care in this dimension can look like: meditation, breathing exercises, yoga, deepening participation in a religious community, prayer, reading about the world, introspective journaling, or spending time in nature.
Emotional
Questions to ask: How connected do I feel to my emotions? Am I aware of my emotions? Are my emotions ever overwhelming? How have I been handling my emotions recently? Is one emotion prevailing or pressing right now? Is there an emotion I wish I was experiencing more of?
Practicing self-care in this dimension can look like: practicing emotional acceptance and awareness, journaling, resting, introspection, therapy, listening to music, accessing emotional outlets like music, exercise, or talking to someone.
Now that you have some idea of the various dimensions of wellness, let’s think a little bit about what stands in the way of you prioritizing yourself and making time for these practices. You may be thinking that the roadblocks are the lists in your planner or the ever-present responsibilities of a household and children. However, if you challenge yourself to dive a little deeper, you may find that the true roadblocks are often the emotions underneath these responsibilities. We may not have much control over the tasks that we face, as life challenges us with many, but what we can manage is our response to them. This is where your power lies! In setting boundaries and making choices that prioritize yourself.
For example, I think what so often lies beneath these more objective tasks is the guilt that overcomes us when they are not completed or given the full attention we feel they deserve. If you don’t check off all your tasks, tidy up the house, be the most attentive and patient mother, plan ahead, make elaborate meals—whatever it may be—you will be a failure. That damaging internal monologue starts again: ‘I’m not good enough, I’m not productive enough, I’m a bad mom.’ However, if you work on setting appropriate boundaries that permit time for nurturing yourself, you will be able to complete the challenges ahead of you. In fact, you will be able to face these challenges with a more positive outlook that is less hindered by your stressors and more supported by the resiliency you built with self-care.
Moving into this new year, take a look at the emotional blocks preventing you from truly making yourself a priority. Allow for some very well-deserved time and space to nurture yourself in new ways (try the Six Dimensions of Wellness discussed above!). Challenge that guilt, make yourself a priority, and pay attention to how you navigate life with a thicker barrier of resilience. Notice if you are encountering fewer breaking points and enjoying more patience. Discover new ways to love and nurture yourself and remember that you are a priority.
Brenna Fritz
Brenna has a Master's Degree in Professional Counseling from Carlow University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and is currently working as a therapist here in Munich. She has experience from the US working with diverse populations in non-profit organizations, private practice settings and in the county jail. Brenna practiced both individual and couples therapy in a non-profit organization in Pittsburgh specifically geared to provide resources to new moms. Brenna cultivates a safe, supportive space for clients that is free of judgment in order to promote healing, peace, self-acceptance and empowerment. Learn more about Brenna here.