If you are juggling taking care of small children, giving attention to your relationship, caring for your home, rocking it at work or your business, and managing other responsibilities, you probably have a hard time finding time for yourself. Do you often feel like there is too much to do and not enough time in the day? Do you feel overwhelmed, exhausted and anxious? Do you lack proper support to boot? It is common for couples with young children to struggle finding time for self-care.
When the partners don’t take care of themselves:
1. Their nerves are frayed, become impatient, inflexible, hypersensitive, and closed minded
2. They have a hard time having productive conversations, making decisions, and solving problems
3. They are running on empty, their health and wellbeing deteriorate, and they don’t have the bandwidth or energy to meet each other’s needs
4. They become disenchanted with one another, they lack desire and even start losing attraction for the other
5. They have a harder time figuring out ways to support each other and collaborate
Partners find themselves in a vicious cycle that is very discouraging for the success of the relationship, and the partner’s overall life…
Lack of self-care has a huge impact on the wellbeing of the partners, the relationship and the family…
Implementing More Self-care
The partners’ lack of self-care has an overarching impact on different parts of the family. Some ways in which the lack of self-care manifests:
💫 Wellbeing of the partners – Individually the partners experience an impact to physical and mental health, resilience, vitality, appearance and fitness, productivity, performance, and zest for life
💫 Wellbeing of the relationship – There is an impasse and stuckness that permeates the relationship, poor communication and frequent disagreements and arguing, recurring issues, disconnection, lack of intimacy and suboptimal support and collaboration
💫 Wellbeing of the family – There is tension, chaos, disorganization, things falling through the cracks, difficulty keeping up with chores and preparing healthy meals, children with frequent health ailments, acting out, and/or poor grades
How can the partners do more self-care when they are already so strapped for time?
About time…
Our to-do list, responsibilities and demands seem to grow every day. Just the thought of having to find the time to add anything else to an already jammed packed day seems a laughable matter.
But it is not about finding the time, but about making the time… Making the time is a lot easier than it seems!
📣 Mindset – For starters, the way we choose to look at time, our responsibilities, our abilities, our lifestyle, our support, and so on influences how we gatekeep, prioritize and manage our time.
If we believe that we should be all things to all people, that being nurturing, loving and supportive means doing more and saying yes to everything, that we are the only ones that can take care of things the way we want them, and such, we are more likely to be burning the candle at both ends.
On the other hand, if we don’t need to prove our worth, value ourselves, play to our strengths, don’t need to micromanage, trust we can count on others, believe that others want to please us and do right by us, stay in our own circle, and such, we are more likely to not be spread too thin…
📣 Routine – When we don’t get in our own way with a funky mindset, we are a lot more likely to create an Ideal Day routine that supports our Best Life. We are able to design our day so what’s important to us gets our attention and our best selves. And it feels like we have all the time in the world…
We are able to create a routine and a flow to our days that enables us to tackle our responsibilities seamlessly and with ease. There is a time for everything… We are not overly scheduled, we are not crammed, and we are not running around like a chicken without a head. There is gracefulness to the day and transitions built-in to allow for staying present, grounded and attuned…
📣 Habits – And then, we add wellness, connection and success habits to the routine that allows us to take care of everything we want to take care of. When we intentionally set up leveraged habits, we get more milage out of our efforts. We become superhuman, we have more time, and we take care of a lot – seamlessly!
Being intentional in our approach to our days, buys us time!
Your Self-care Practice
Once you’ve shifted how you look at the importance of self-care and how to tackle the time concern, you can ease into integrating more self-care activities into your routine to build your rich self-care practice.
Below is a list of suggested items to sprinkle into your routine, creating habits of them to carry them out consistently:
• Meditation, Journaling, Affirmations
• Listening to inspiring content, motivation speeches, music
• HIIT, yoga, weight training, walking
• Nutritious eating, hydration, supplementation
• Connecting with loved ones
• Mani/pedi, bath, massage
• Tantric meditation visualization and practice
• Soothing nighttime routine
Investing in shifting your perspective on this topic, on creating time and prioritizing self-care, and integrating more self-care activities into your routine is a must to support you in your Journey…
APPLICATION: Take a moment. Yes, you have a moment – before you jump out of bed, while you brush your teeth, when you are on the toilet, when you are in the shower, when you are nursing or giving a bottle, while you are making food, while you are folding laundry, while you are driving, etc…
Hey, I know some moms feel they don’t even have this – they skip brushing their teeth, showering, and even eating. They go to the bathroom with little ones hanging onto them. I get it. If this is you, I’m sending you lots of love and encouragement to steel a moment from somewhere – if you look, you find…
Use the moment to make a commitment to make a change – it doesn’t have to be like this!
Think on the impact of not taking care of yourself, dare to look at time differently…, and dream about what self-care activities you’d like to enjoy…
Pick one self-care activity that you will integrate into your life in the next couple of days…
You get a gold star! 🌟
We create our own hell and promote our own demise sometimes… Let’s empower ourselves and approach self-care differently… Let’s give this a good shot, as if our life depends on it – for it does!!
Wishing you much joy, connection and love today and always…
With Much Love & Light!
Copyright (c) 2021 Emma K. Viglucci. All rights reserved.
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Emma K. Viglucci, LMFT is the Founder and Director of Metropolitan Marriage & Family Therapy, PLLC, a private practice that specializes in working with couples, she is the creator of the MetroRelationship™ philosophy and the Successful Couple Strategy™ that assist couples succeed at their relationship and their life. Stay Connected™ with Emma and receive weekly connection notes in your inbox with Personal Development and Relationship Enrichment insights and strategies, visit: www.metrorelationship.com
