The Importance of Spiritual Self-Care

I'm one for advocating the importance of self-care in the work that I do. I always recommend or advise clients that I see in my therapy room daily to focus more on their self-care.

When life gets busy and stressful, it's very easy to look outside of us for someone, something or anything that will make us feel better. Such as a partner, friend, therapist, a quick high such as a coffee or alcohol or to eat something that is unhealthy such as that cake. It's also very easy to pop a pill to make us feel good and feel better.

These are all temporary fixes and never truly fix the root cause of the problem or issue you are in.

What we really need to do is to fully accept ourselves as we are in all our unique strange and mysterious ways. Once you fully accept yourself, it's much easier to love and appreciate yourself and when you love and appreciate yourself, you naturally find ways to care for yourself in much healthier, nurturing ways that are longstanding. You begin to choose what's best for you. Especially when life is getting on top of you.

What is Self-care I hear you ask?

Well, self-care is where you are doing acts of taking care of yourself ideally on a daily basis.

The types of self-care can range from Physical, Emotional, Social, Mental, Spiritual, Personal, Your space, Financial and your Work/Career/Business.

Ideally we should be striving towards all of these areas in our lives, ideally daily to have optimum health, wellbeing and life fulfilment.

Self-care forms an essential part of a lifestyle that keeps us healthy, happy, and more in tune with our minds and bodies.

When we take good care of ourselves in all areas of our life, we're likely to see an improvement in many aspects of our lives, including our physical health and our relationships.

Self-care encourages you to maintain a healthy relationship with yourself.

It's about being as kind to yourself as you would be to others.

It produces positive happy feelings and boosts your confidence and self-esteem.

Which we can all benefit more from right now. To feel good about ourselves and how we take care of ourselves. Allowing us to feel empowered and leading a healthy life and lifestyle.

Plus if you have children, it's a great way to teach this to your children; children watch what there parents do on a daily basis; so seeing mum or dad taking loving and kind care to themselves daily, can have many profound benefits for their future and seeing it as an essential part of life and looking after this human body that we live in. That allows us to have a healthy and fulfilling life all round.

Benefits of Self Care:

• Enhances self-esteem - When you regularly carve out some time for yourself which is all about being good to yourself and meeting you own needs, you send a positive message to your subconscious. Treating yourself like you matter and that you have value and that you are important. Such as your energy, your time, your body and your health and how you feel about yourself. This can really help with self-esteem and feeling good about yourself. Helping to reduce negative self talk and your critical inner voice.

• Helps sharpen our mental and physical health - helps us to become much clearer on our life path and where we want to be going with our life. And it improves our physical health and longevity of our body. Allowing us to live a more fulfilling and healthier life.

• Increased self-knowledge - Practising self-care requires thinking about what you really love to do and what you really enjoy in life. It can help you to understand yourself better and improve your relationship with yourself and improve your life in many ways. It can also help you focus on a previously abandoned hobby or a change in career.

• Better Stress-Management - Your able to deal with stress and stressful situations much better and more easily than you did before. You feel more in control of your emotions and reactions and are able to find ways to make thing better and easier for you long term. This helps with your residence to stress and stressful situations and your mental wellbeing.

• Better productivity - When you start making time for things that matter more. Goals become more focused and helps you to concentrate on what you are doing in the moment. You become more organised and dedicated to your life and your wellbeing. Which is great for your health and mental health as well.

• Better physical health and overall wellbeing - When you take care of yourself much more with self-care practises, you often have fewer colds, cases of flu. Less stress and a better immune system which can help to keep you healthy and well, through challenging times and make you feel more physically stronger and able to cope better.

• You have more to give to others - Self-care gives you the resources you need to be compassionate and caring to others as well. When you give yourself self-care and the respect and value that you deserve and owe to yourself, you fill up your own cup, you can't fill someone else if you don't have enough of your own. This includes energy, love, care, compassion, motivation, empathy, understanding etc... if you don't have enough of these yourself. You only end up draining your own rescues even more and this can lead to burnout, exhaustion, irritability, frustration and anger issues later on.

If you have a regular self-care practice in place in your life you will have an abundant supply of energy, love, care, compassion, motivation, empathy, understanding to name but a few. It's about replenishing these when they inevitably run low, especially if we are looking after family, small children, jaggedly home life, work, business, relationships and health related issues.

That is why self-care is so important to our human selves to manage our everyday lives more effectively, without the need of burn out and exhaustion...

If you take time everyday to do something for yourself, such as any of these below ideally daily, weekly or even hourly - whatever feels best for you.

Spiritual Self-Care:

Many people associate spiritual self-care and practises and activities with religion. This is not always the case. Religion and Spirituality are not the same things.

Spirituality is putting emphasis on the well-being of the mind, body and spirit, which includes holistic activities such as Yoga or Meditation.

Spiritual self-care is just as important as all the other types of self-care that is needed to stay healthy and well, mentally, physically and emotionally.

Spiritual self-care is about taking care of your spiritual side of yourself such as being more connected to the present moment, being aware of what is and isn't important in life, connecting to others in meaningful ways, being connected and guided by a greater meaning and purpose in life. And allowing you to connect more deeply with your soul.

In order to live a happy and thriving life, all aspects of ourselves such as mental, physical, emotional and spiritual must be acknowledged in order for us to maintain overall well-being and health.

It is actions we take to deepen our connection with ourselves and our higher self, which is who we really are.

Spiritual self-care can be anything that is meaningful and kindles a sense of sacredness. It's a personal practice, such as a need for connection, purpose and happiness. It is a practise of any ritual that connects you to your true self, the real you. To your soul.

It's energising, inspiring and feels right within you.

Why is Spiritual Self-Care Important?

Emotional and spiritual well-being have a deep influence on the mental and physical body. Taking time for your spiritual self-care is soul fulfilling and important for your mental and physical health. It encourages introspection, clarity and comfort to your life. It helps to quieten the mind, calms the emotions, experience more inner peace, deeper connections with others, diminishes feelings of isolation and loneliness and deepens relationship with yourself and others, as well as helping to feel more aligned with our core values.

Try some of these Spiritual Self-Care activities to help you to strengthen your spiritual connection with yourself and improving your overall health and well-being. Everyone can begin today!

• Practice Yoga - Yoga is a Spiritual practice as well as physical, helping you to connect with your body, mind and spirit. It's a journey into the soul connection.

• Meditate - Meditation is a spiritual practice (not a religious practice) that connects you to your higher self. It allows us to slow down and tune into our souls wants and needs on a deeper level. Helping us to strengthen our intuition and inner knowing. Helping us to live in more alignment with our soul self.

• Mindful walking

• Journalling - your thoughts, feelings and ideas about yourself and your life.

• Read inspiring material

• Contemplate over something that is worthwhile and important to you. Creating a life of meaning and understanding

• Reflective activities that allow you to ponder and think about a deeper meaning that is fulfilling and helpful in life.

• Practice the art of non-judgement. Not assigning labels or creating positives and negatives. Everything is seen for it's own inherent beauty. When you free yourself from judging, you create a spirituality that is freeing. You feel calm and peaceful.

• The act of compassion regularly to yourself and others.

• Practice gratitude - helps us to send out positive energy out into the universe that spreads out to ourselves and to others.

• Spend time in nature and fully immerse yourself in your senses and being in solitude

• Practice forgiveness

• Honor yourself and your self worth, do things that make you feel good, cook yourself an indulgent meal that makes you feel good.

• Practice the art of silence and connecting to the inner part of you.

• Cleanse your space, environments in which you spend the most time in, such as your home or bedroom. Using cleansing sprays, sage sticks or bundles, palo santo sticks or using tibetan singing bowels or crystal bowels to help cleanse and clear your space of any residual energy is great for your spiritual self-care and general energy of your home. Regularly tidy away any clutter and keep your space in order. When you are in a cleansed and cleared space your energy and soul will feel much more at ease.

• Nourish your soul with new knowledge and room to learn and expand. Reading spiritual books and new information allows your soul to expand and grow.

• Reduce the amount of time that you use technology, such as your phone and the internet. Give yourself and your soul time to breathe and have some time out as much as you can.

• Travel - Go away to some amazing places in the world to broarden your mind and your understanding of life in general. Travelling can be amazing for your spiritual self-care and growth of your soul. Visiting temples, spiritual countries, visiting cultural cities and places can help to transform the way that you see life.

• Take a class on Spirituality - betterlisten is a great resource for spiritual self-care topics in mindfulness and meditation.

• Go on a yearly retreat to fully immerse yourself in spiritual activities that allow you to become fully present and one with your body, mind and soul.

If you would like any help and advice on any spiritual self-care, as a fully qualified holistic spiritual therapist and Holistic Spiritual Development Coach and qualified Yoga and Meditation Teacher I could help you on your journey of Spiritual understanding and ways that you can incorporate more spirituality in your life. Just contact me to find out more or book any of my spiritual sessions or therapies.