Self-care for Single mums

Self-care, in my book, is more than just doing something nice for yourself when you can it is instead about taking your power back.

As single mothers, raising kids, running a household and being the sole income earner with financial obligations coming out of every orifice (pardon my French!) - on top of everything else going on in our world - we often give our power away by focussing solely on everyone else’s needs and ignore our own.

And I think we often know it too, but are at loss for how to change things for the better.

We are told in so many circles that we need to ‘do self-care’ by choosing something from a lovely list of things like going for a walk, hugging a tree, stretching, yoga, reading a book, having a bubble bath and more.

And these things are just fantastic and, by all means, choose one or more from those lists that call to you and do them as often as you can. I’m all for that!

A Deeper Perspective

In this blog however, I want to give a deeper perspective on the concept of self-care so that you can use it as something to truly reconnect with yourself and others, on your journey to rebuilding a life you are obsessed with rather than one you are just getting by in.

Every single mother knows, that when you are everything to everyone all the time and responsible for everything in your world on your own, things can get pretty out-of-control pretty quickly. Keeping all those little balls in the air alone so life with kids functions is no mean feat by any stretch of the imagination, and doing it for a length of time can take up a lot of head space and energy and leave you feeling exhausted.

And this, as we all know, and may have experienced, can lead quickly lead to burnout.

Stopping the busyness

It is essentially our body’s way of letting us know that we are doing too much or doing too many things that don’t light us up, and something has got to give.

And it is an urgent indication that it is high time to pause, recalibrate & come back to you.

And we are told that we need to slow down and stop doing so much all the time in so many circles, and that is exactly what we need to do. However, for the single mum who is ensconced in a life that requires her constant presence, input and hypervigilance in almost every aspect, it is almost impossible.

Stopping the busyness would be like trying to get off a running machine at the gym without slowing it down first. And when we finally do get off, it can feel like we are still running for a while. But that is a great analogy for another story for another time.

Band-aid solutions don't work

But ultimately, the chaos is the nature of the circumstances you are in, and all those self-care list things can feel like a bit of a band aid solution when what you really need is for someone else to come in and take over for a while so you can collapse in the corner.

And this isn’t possible either, because there is only you and no one else to pick up the slack or to pass the baton to when your capacity hits the skids.

But what you can do though, is to learn how to respond differently to the chaos by building emotional resilience to the stress of it all.

Because when you are able to use self-care to take you power back rather than be overrun by life, you can respond differently, and your experience of it can change and life can feel a whole lot better.

What Self-care is REALLY about

Self-care is all about developing, or perhaps rebuilding, a relationship with yourself, and taking your power back.

And that starts with opening up a dialogue with yourself. Not with your busy conscious mind and all the stories that swirl around in it about what you should be doing, what you need to do etc, but with your ever-present body that often gets ignored.

The Steps to true self-care

1. Check in with yourself every single day by pausing, putting a hand on your heart space and asking yourself, “How am I feeling?” and “What do I need”, and listen to the response from deep within you.
2. Do something that feels good for you and let your body really feel it and savour it. Then anchor it in.
3. Notice, acknowledge & allow what doesn’t feel good, and bring that sense of feeling good that you anchored in the previous step in to hold it and allow it to be ‘seen’ and ‘heard’.

Take the time to lean into this simple process, intentionally, step-by-step, and over time you will notice things start to shift in the way you handle things and feel about things.

The BEST part

This, my dears is self-care in the truest sense of the word and how you start a beautiful, loving relationship with yourself that will support your healing and unfolding from here.

And the best part is that when you do this for yourself, you model it for your children so they can learn to build a beautiful relationship with themselves too.

If you would like to know more, or get in touch with me visit my website at www.greteljanecoaching.com.au