Nurturing other people has always been my passion, whether that was working in my capacity as a psychologist, yoga teacher or personal trainer. It wasn’t until motherhood collided with the terminal illness of my father that I truly realised how vital it is to nourish myself, too. I learned what happens when we discard self-care and that experience of energetic bankruptcy showed me that there’s nothing selfish or luxurious about it. I had to step up and care for myself, so that I could best care for my daughter. Running myself ragged served no one.
In clawing my way back to health and wholeness, I developed a framework of self-care called the Vitality Wheel, to help connect me with a mood-boosting, stress-busting or coping tool when I needed it the most. When we’re feeling overwhelmed, we are at our least creative and resourceful, so the Vitality Wheel is designed to cut through the emotional flap, and get us back on track. Now, in addition to my abiding calling to help people heal from stress, loss and change, my mission is to empower them with the skills to nurture themselves, too. Self-care is more than just a fluffy concept – it is the future of preventative medicine, building our resilience to help us manage, and bounce back from the inevitable curveballs of life.
While we all know what we need to do to feel healthy, it’s another thing to make it happen. It’s easy to feel like it’s just another thing to add to our already heaving to-do list. There’s also a lot of confusion about what self-care means. To keep it simple, I think of self-care as nourishment. Self-care is health care. It’s a life-giving act that tends to your needs in this moment and nurtures, too, the person you are becoming – this is an important distinction to make.