I first wrote this article in 2017 and revisited it in 2020, just before the chaos hit us all! I think it still stands so I have again given it a little update and I share it with you once more, as we make our way through the first month of this new year.

Half way through January, is often the time that an initial burst of enthusiasm starts to wane. It is still dark and, in the UK at least, it has been very wet and grey and some days have seemed to barely get light at all. Even for the UK it has been a little unusual. 

If your thoughts have been turning to ideas of making changes and setting goals I'd be curious to know how that is going? The beginning of the year may often be the time that you decide, indeed we are encouraged to decide, to finally get round to getting fitter, losing weight, starting to looking for a new job, learning a new skill or making a myriad of other changes. Even if you have long-since decided that setting New Year’s resolutions is a pointless activity it is hard to be completely immune to the idea that you should have things, 'goals', that you are going to aim to achieve this year. There can also be a tendency to aim unrealistically high, (an attempt to kick-start yourself off the back of the festive overindulgence perhaps?). Sustaining that enthusiasm can be a very different ball game and you may find you fall off the wagon of working towards those goals pretty quickly.

Maybe that ‘New Year feeling’ hasn't quite kicked in yet....?
 

 
I wrote a version of this article four years ago after I had been off work for a while following what turned out to be a fairly big, albeit planned, operation. Taking time away from my business and being much more reliant on others for help, physically, emotionally and financially, even for a short time, was a very new and challenging experience, as it often is if you are someone who is used to being independent and self-sufficient.

When I first started to contemplate what was ahead of me it felt very overwhelming. It was the first time I had experienced something that so physically stopped me in my tracks. My body simply wouldn’t let me push on through or rush my recovery in ways I had done in the past. I had to be patient and not do many of the things that I was used to doing for myself and that would normally help me find balance. I had to surrender to stopping and give my body the time it needed to heal.

I came to realise that it was an opportunity for me to consider different ways that I care for myself on a deeper level. It is easy to feel that you are letting others down if you become ill or need help. You may feel you have failed in some way because you’re not in fact invincible and there can be a sense of deep shame in this. It can make you feel very vulnerable and exposed to rejection if you need to ask for help. This can mean you may not ask for the help you need and end up compromising your own health and healing. There can be conflict between what your mind thinks you should do, alongside real or imagined pressure from others, and what your precious body needs from you.

This time of year, during the festive season, can be a time when self-care drops even further down the priority list. Alongside my surgery, the idea for this article was also prompted by a conversation I had with my good friend and teacher, Chyna Honey, (author of Understanding Reiki: From Self Care to Energy Medicine). I had wanted to find a way to share some of the things I had been thinking about and learning in a presentation I was due to give at a forthcoming business women’s networking group, (Women on Wednesdays in Salisbury).

My Clinical Psychology training, way back when, discouraged practitioners from sharing anything about their own experience but it was becoming increasingly important to me to try to be as authentic as I can be in my work. This is something I have endeavoured to build upon and continue over the last four years. There is no point recommending that my clients drink more water to keep themselves adequately hydrated, for example, if this isn’t something I am striving to do for myself.

Together, Chyna and I came up with the idea of, (rather than The 12 Days of Christmas), The 12 Days of Self-Care and I once again share the essence of this with you here.
 
Before you read through the next section you might want to grab a pen and a piece of paper...
 

I wonder how often, as a child, you were told to “cheer up”, “to be a good girl or a good boy”, to “forget about it” or something along those lines? These comments are often very well intentioned and, whilst they may have their place at times, might well have left you feeling dismissed, wrong to feel the way you did, ridiculed even and certainly that your feelings were not very important.

As a human it is natural for you to have emotional responses to things and the better you get at supressing your feelings the more you can end up storing up trouble for later. The busyness of modern life only serves to encourage this as we move at high speed from one experience to the next.
 

Today I ran a half marathon, although, to be truthful, there was quite a bit of walking involved. This is the fourth time I have run this distance, (and my third at an official event), and it was my slowest time so far! Interestingly, it was also the most enjoyable. 

I began running back in March 2020, at the beginning of the first lockdown. Like many people, not being able to work and moving into such a strange world of extreme restrictions was rather an adjustment. I'd never run before; I hated running at school and I never imagined that I even could run further than a quick jog for a bus. I will never be breaking any speed records but it has become something I very much enjoy. I love heading out on the trails with a friend, and sometimes with our dogs. We plod along at a steady pace whilst we chat away and put the world to rights.