Strengthening my Foundation #1: An Introduction to a Self-Care Series

This Series

The purpose of this series of posts is to track my personal journey of self-care. My goal is to increase my energy and improve my mood. I’m also hoping to feel more productive. That might mean actually being more productive due to increased energy, but it could also mean decreasing my anxiety and learning to prioritize better. Most likely a combination! I will be posting updates with the self-care methods I am trying and the results of those methods using an evaluation system I designed. I will also post worksheets, lists and planners to help you improve your own self-care. I encourage you to follow along and share your journey in the comments to encourage myself and others.

The Inspiration

The idea for this series was inspired by a conversation I had with two people I consider good friends during a class called “Nourishing Resilience”. We were talking about good self-care practices and my friend was describing her current self-care/wellness regime as she went through some life-changing events. Her husband was actively supporting her self-care plan and encouraging the positive changes she was making. He would often say “a stronger foundation for a better future” to express his support. He was acknowledging that general wellness is the foundation for a positive future. Sometimes you need to put in the work now to make yourself healthy, happy and well so that in the future you can do more of the things you want to do.

Later in the conversation, we were discussing my current wellbeing. I was expressing my frustration in not having enough time or energy to move forward with all the things I wanted to do. I have a full-time job, a commute, responsibilities to my family and friends, and responsibilities to my five cats & one dog, but I still want to find time to blog and do my other hobbies. On top of that, I’m passionate about self-care. Not only do I want to blog about it, but I also want to be actively and consistently working on my own self-care. I was frustrated because I know better self-care would make me less tired, more joyful and ultimately able to achieve more of my goals.

My other friend (also my instructor for this class) suggested that I run my own little “experiment” on myself- she was speaking to my scientist side. She said I should consider figuring out a way to keep track of how I felt, slowly increase my self-care and blog about those changes. Tracking my progress would help show myself, and anyone else who was following along, the benefits of self-care. I thought this was a great idea. And my friend’s husband’s words inspired the title of the series.

Of course, life then got very busy...both the small things and a couple of rather life-changing things. I put off this idea for a few months waiting for a good time to start. Then I realized that delaying this post because I didn’t have enough time spoke to the heart of why I was doing this. I need to work on self-care now. It should be the first priority. In theory, putting it first will mean I ultimately get more done.

This little cutie is from a collection of self-care kitties that will be popping up around my blog now. I commissioned them from a wonderful artist and friend, Taaja Tucker, who also did my header. I will be doing a whole post on these later, but you can find more of her work here: https://www.etsy.com/shop/CuteSci .

The “Experiment”

I’m placing “experiment” in quotations because as a scientist I need to point out that this plan suffers from very poor experimental design. It’s really more anecdotal evidence based on my own experiences. It suffers from a low “n” meaning our number of samples is just one- me! We aren’t controlling for a number of variables such as all the things happening in the world around me. There is also a huge bias associated with self-reporting (I’m observing myself). No, this isn’t a true experiment. It is just me telling a story about my journey and experiences with self-care. Your mileage may vary and we won’t be publishing any papers.

How I’m Going to Evaluate my Progress

I’ve often used the paid version of the Daylio app to keep track of various things related to self-care, and I’m going to use it again here.

I’m keeping track of three things in Daylio:

• My Brain State (1 through 5): Brain state is a term used in the work of Laurel Mellin and I use it for my Nourishing Resilience class. It’s a reflection of how stressed you are and your emotional state. A “1” means you are feeling great and not stressed at all and a “5” means you are definitely stressed with feelings of being overwhelmed or abandoned. You can think of it just as an overall mood score.

• My Energy Level: Another five-point scale, but one I created, ranging from “exhausted” to “energized”. 

• How Productive I Feel: Yet another five-point scale of my creation ranging from “falling behind” (not productive at all) to “rocking it” (feeling highly productive).

Each update, I will report on what I’ve been recording and note if anything has changed.

My Current Baseline

In order to see improvement, it’s important to know where we are. I’ve been tracking things for a couple of weeks now, but I also have a sense as to where I was before I started tracking. 

In general, I would say:

• Brain State 3: I’ve done a lot of tracking of my brain state. When I started learning Emotional Brain Training a couple of years ago in order to combat anxiety and depression, my normal state was a 4 and I bounced around from 3 (on a good day) to 5. These days, my normal is a 3. I’m often at a 2 but also spend a lot of time in 4. I’m much better at climbing out of a 4 or 5 than I used to be, but I’m not where I want to be. Ideally, one would spend most of their time at a 1 or a 2, occasionally dipping to the other states at appropriate times. All brain states are normal and healthy, but you want to be able to get out of a 1 or a 2 quickly.

• Tired: I spend most of my life tired...sometimes I feel exhausted. Rarely do I ever feel truly awake or energized.

• Standing Still or Slowly Moving Forward: When it comes to productivity, I range between “falling behind” to “slowly moving forward”. I don’t feel like I’m making good progress all that often...my to-do list is too long!

Next Actionable Steps

• Fill out the worksheet I created to get started (see below)

• Continue tracking my brain state, energy and productivity

• Try out some of the things I mention in my worksheet

• Continue doing my normal self-care routine

I created a worksheet for this first step in my journey. It uses the information provided in my “Basics of Self-Care” post: https://www.crazycatnerd.com/blog/the-basics-of-self-care

I plan to do the worksheet myself and use that to inform my next self-care steps. You can download the worksheet below by clicking on it. At least, you should be able to, but I’m new to this whole downloadable thing, so let me know if it doesn’t work!

Let me know your thoughts in the comments below!