I think that when most people think about self-care this is what first comes to mind. Pampering yourself, looking after yourself and making yourself feel special and beautiful and wonderful. And you should, every body should. So todays self-care task is to spend a while doing this.
Here are a few ideas of ways you can pamper yourself.Cont…
I had a wonderful message the other day from one of my readers, she had a bad day with a lot of stress from outside influences beyond her control and decided to delve into the ‘bag of tricks’ to feel more balanced and calm heres what she said;
‘I had the most horrendous migraine yesterday with it all and I realised my neck and shoulders were tense. This made me think about the things you have said so I put everything on hold and jumped into a nice hot bubble bath and came up with an action plan. It worked!!!! Thank you! You should be so proud of everything you are doing for yourself and other people.’
I’ll be honest now it brought a tear to my eye. I love to know, on a personal level that the tricks and tips I write are being used and are working. I mean, I know they work because I do it myself but it’s so good to hear this.
And very importantly-Dear Lady, you should be soo proud of yourself too for noticing the signs and for looking after yourself. I am so proud of you and happy for you!
Remembering to take care of yourself when it feels like the world is falling apart is hard to do. But it works, it puts things into perspective and it makes you stronger for when these things do arise.
Have you been delving in to my bag of tricks? What do you feel is working for you?
Don’t forget to sign up for self-care month emails. A self-care task to your inbox everyday throughout June for FREEEEE!!
And the Ebook Balance Your Life Today is available worldwide on Amazon for £1.99 or free on kindle unlimited. It is a practical guide to creating balance in your life and is choca-blok with tips and hints.
Hope you all have a wonderful weekend,
Love & joy,
Imogen x
In my Leonie Dawson workbook that I filled out at the beginning of this year there was a page called
12 Zen Habits (From Leo Babuta at Zen habits.net)
They are all pretty useful and zen and go as follows
I think we can all pretty much agree that these ‘Zen Habits’ are worth thinking about as we go through our days. In fact I have them stuck on the wall in front of me right this very second look
My favourite one is number 1. I actually do use this one every day now. Having 3 MIT’s is great because it isn’t overwhelming. It its an endless to do list. It is just what actually matters to you the most on that day. Sometimes there is time for more. Some days I have achieved my MIT’s by 11am and I have the rest of the day to frolic..or whatever. I take 5 minutes every morning to figure out what the 3 tasks are for that day that i definitely need to do. If i think of 4 i have to choose which ones are the most necessary to my day.
Todays MIT’s for example are
Today is pretty standard actually. Often my 3 MIT’s have something to do with self-care (appointment-actually for hypnotherapy) something for my business (today-write blog post) and often something to do with studying because there is basically always something I really need to do for that.
Other days, I know immediately that My number 1 priority is self care. Sometimes my MIT is actually to find time for a quick nap, or a bath, or just to read alone for a while. On days when I’m not feeling that great I know that that needs to be taken care of first.
Some days it is to do something fun with my family, to visit my grandma, to clean something, to business plan, to organise something for charity, to find time for yoga or a walk or to write in my journal if I haven’t done that for a while, to create something if i haven’t done that for a while.
You get the picture. I need to sit down each morning and actually give myself a few minutes to think about what the day holds in store for me and how I can work out when to do my MIT’s.
Why don’t you try it? Could you list 3 MIT’s today?
Peace out,
Imogen x
P.S.
Have you signed up for self-care month? Free daily emails throughout June with self care tasks in for every day! Sign up here
Sometimes when you get a little off track and are struggling to create life balance you don’t see it coming. You burnout, stress out and you can’t think why. Everybody has their own warning signs when this happens, yours might be different to mine. I know mine because when I was diagnosed with anxiety I realised that all the things that I had begun to feel every day were not normal. When you are in the midst of it though you may not know what is normal, you may not know what your warning signs are. Mine are
Some of these warning signs come straight away some of them come as the stress builds up over time. The big one for me is the shoulder pain. I know that if I am really sore up there then I haven’t been looking after myself properly and I need to stop and figure out why and how I can correct it as soon as possible, by scheduling some time for myself to relax and recover and to use my bag of tricks so I can get my life balance back to what it should be. It doesn’t happen as often anymore because I am used to balancing my life every day. But I won’t ever say that it will never happen, of course it will. We all lose track and we all get overwhelmed and we all forget to look after ourselves sometimes but now I know that I can see it coming. As it edges towards me I can tell myself that something has gone wrong and I need to reassess what I am doing in my every day life.
Do you know your warning signs? Perhaps you share some of mine. If not, do you know how to work yours out? Drop me an email at imogenjhope@gmail.com if you need help figuring it out.
Peace & joy,
Imogen x
I declare a day off!
A day off packing. A day off cleaning. A day off decluttering. A day off writing (anymore than this post). A day off constantly needing to entertain the children (hello dvd day). A day off cooking (chippy tea anyone?). A day off washing (let it pile up, it won’t hurt).
Today’s to do list;
~Find some alone time
~Read
~Do yoga
~Meditate
~Nap
Some days it’s all I can do to get through the day without going crazy.
Imogen x
imogen j hope 