I now see that planning self-care is essential. It makes me feel good and helps me to be more organised. Making self-care a priority is important as I have exhausted myself almost to burnout in the past.
Heading for burnout
Some days I had multiple appointments, so I would set several reminders on my phone so that I stayed on track and on time.
On a busy day, I had so many alarms going off that I would then put warning alarms on 10 mins before those alarms, so I would never be late. It would confuse me what each alarm was for.
Just writing this sounds ridiculous, and it is.
Control the calendar
First thing was to straighten out my calendar – to not overbook and to balance out appointments. I had to realise that I am doing my best, that my quality is better than the quantity.
I’m still learning about technology, but I reached out on how to be more time-efficient without having alarms playing in my head all day. I was shown that I could label my alarms with what appointment it was for. This was totally mind-blowing for me.
I was then able to get rid of the reminders before my alarms. When I had my first alarm go off with the label on it, I felt so relieved.
Plan your routine – keep your wellbeing in mind.
Slow down and know you are doing your best.
Plan meals together
Each week I would get my family to tell me what meals they wanted, and I would put it up on the fridge.
This helped me know what to buy when shopping and made it easy for me to know what I was cooking when I got home. It also helped that, if I was late, someone at home could prepare some of that meal.
I had no complaints about what we were having for each meal, and it saved money.
Include those around you when coming up with ideas.
Save money by eating meals at home.
Create backup plans
I tried to give myself some time for catching up with friends and carrying out normal activities, but my sitter cancelled and I had no back up.
I am now working on getting back up plans so that I don’t miss out again.
I went to a family member’s house for a night away. It was so good just to be in a different space. We all turned off any technology and played cards and board games till late. I was so refreshed driving home the next morning. This is something that I can do with the whole family and will do again.
Self-care is worth it
I will continue to plan self-care because it makes me feel great.
Do something that you like.
Turn off the technology.
Take care of yourself and really look at what is best for you. Plan your self-care so that it is manageable to maintain and change it if needed.
Blogging STARS program
This Blog is a part of the Broken to Brilliant Blogging STARS self-care program, which supports domestic violence survivors to practise the self-care strategies of Sleep, Tapping, Activity, Regulation and Support, (STARS). As they practise the strategies, they blog about it. You can read their survivor STARS Blogs:
Sleep
Tapping
Activity
Regulation
coming soon
Support