Prioritizing Self-Care Opened the Door to Healing

By: Jessica Fatih. Published November 1, 2022

How can a self-care routine support your healing?

This section is all about how my self-care helped me love myself. I’d love to help you find a routine that works for YOU! Every person needs something different that speaks to them and their personal needs.

My friend and I were walking; I explained that a massive part of my healing process began by “loving myself.” She made me laugh by telling me she prefers to practice self-acceptance, which includes accepting her ass in its current form. Self-acceptance is definitely part of loving yourself, but in my experience, it was even more profound.

Previously, “love yourself” didn’t mean all that much to me. It was just a phrase. I mean, everywhere you look, you’ll see quotes or references to loving yourself. I believed in its importance, but I didn’t live it. After my healing journey began, I discovered what loving myself meant for ME. I also learned how having a daily self-care routine helps to support loving myself.

I began my healing journey unexpectedly in the late summer of 2021. I did the work by going inward and began to heal some ancient wounds I had been carrying around. Those wounds were like a badge of honor for the price of love, a large and heavy badge carried in my heart. Except carrying sorrow isn’t a badge of honor. Healing is a genuine badge of honor. I truly believe self-care is the starting point of any healing process. They go hand in hand.

By letting go of the sorrow, I opened my heart to love. I’ll save that thought for another time, however. So here it was, the end of August, and my grief returned to be with me. I hadn’t felt my grief this intense since 1996. I was 42, a stay-at-home mom of three young children, and a wife. It didn’t seem like an appropriate time to deal with grief from twenty-five years ago. I had no clue why the sorrow was so intense. I knew I had to heal it.

Before I could get into the heavy work of walking through the sorrow, I knew I needed to take care of myself. I needed to love myself so that I could do the healing work. I began a new self-care routine. Over a year later, I am still practicing this self-care routine. I am still loving myself daily.

Here is what I did:

Time Outside

Being outside and walking was the first act of loving myself. It’s easy to be outdoors with my kids, so we spend much time playing outside on those final days of summer. When my husband got home, I would walk in the evenings. It was during those evening walks that I could be with my grief. I could walk through it. Tears flowed down my face (thank goodness for sunglasses), and my feet were hitting the pavement. I knew each step was helping. I also knew the walk would end, and the tears would dry.

Music

My husband had given me Airpods. To this day, I feel like those were one of the best gifts he has ever given me. I realized that music was so helpful. My house is busy, and my kids are loud. If I had music playing in the room, I wouldn’t hear it most of the time, so putting in one air pod meant I could listen to music anytime I wanted. On a side note, I don’t think Apple would recommend one Airpod, but I need to hear what is happening in my house. Music, for me, is healing. It matched my mood and could conjure up the emotions that I wanted to express, and like all emotions, the song ends, and a new one begins.

Making Time for Myself

In August of 2021, the pandemic was one year and five months old. Any parent knows that the pandemic made alone time almost impossible because everyone was home together- all the time! Learning to carve out time for myself became important. So, I decided to get up one or two hours earlier than the rest of my house. This was a commitment, but one I needed. I love quiet early mornings, sunrises, and coffee. I began waking up early and sitting with my thoughts. During this time, I brought back an old practice I hadn’t used in about twelve years, meditation.

Meditation

In graduate school, I was big into yoga and meditation. I wrote papers about how helpful it was as an adjunct to therapy and for stress relief. I practiced it regularly at the time. So in those early morning hours, I opened the door to my meditation practice. I started with guided meditations and then meditated on my own, using them as a vehicle to go inward. I lovingly took my time and created my daily meditation practice.

Healthy foods

During this time, I took more loving care of myself. I didn’t have much of an appetite at first. I took a little more care in planning my meals. I brought in new and old recipes I hadn’t tried in a while—like treating myself. I cut down my caffeine in half. I felt off all the time because I was dealing with such heavy emotions, and I knew the caffeine wasn’t helping me. It added an anxious feeling. I also added some special decaf teas that felt like a treat. I have never been much of a drinker, but I was extra cautious with alcohol. If I did have a glass of wine, I only drank one.

Loving myself started by taking more care of myself. It was bringing in self-care methods to say I love myself. We all have a love language, and I practiced acts of service for myself. To take care of myself. To love me. This helped to open the door to my healing. I apologize for all those quotes about loving yourself that I previously ignored. I am officially on board and will forever be in love with loving myself.

Whether you are just beginning your healing process or in a healthy, happy place already, I suggest you continue to ask yourself if you are giving enough time for just YOU. Are you treating yourself as good as you treat others? Are you putting enough time into your personal well-being? There are so many days that revolve around our tasks, work, and family that it can seem “selfish” to spend time on ourselves. However, you cannot honestly give back to others unless you take care of yourself first. Think of this like an airplane safety briefing…Put your oxygen mask on first before helping others! The flight attendants preach this procedure, so we don’t pass out while trying to save others. We cannot find love for ourselves and others unless we start internally caring for our mind, body, and spirit. Are you practicing enough self-care in your life? What is working, and what do you want to start including in your life?

I’d love to hear from you! Please share your thoughts below.