In a recent soft skills zoom session where I was working with adults who were training to become personal care assistants, I covered my usual topic of self-care and self-compassion. Frequently, individuals who put themselves into a caring profession where they spend their days looking after the needs of others, forget to look after themselves. This is particularly true of women who, when they return home, also look after children or their own aging parents. Often spending time on your own needs and thoughts and feelings is seen as selfish or else the person’s life is just so busy that time for themselves does not seem to exist or even cross their mind.
Starting with the notion of the airplane metaphor regarding the instruction that when the oxygen mask drops down from the ceiling in an emergency you are told to put your own mask on first and not try to help others around you until after you have. You cannot help those who need assistance if you are passed out. Caregivers of any sort cannot help others if they do not take excellent care of themselves.
One of my favourite exercises to share is one which comes from Shauna Shapiro, PhD., where when you wake up in the morning the first thing which you do, before you even get out of bed, is greet your own self with: “Good morning (your name), I love you.” I then encourage students to go further and to give themselves a hug. If the ‘I love you’ and the hug are too much then start with just saying, ‘Good morning’ to yourself.
One of my students, a lovely woman recently emigrated from Zimbabwe, added to this ritual by then asking herself, “What do you need for a good day today?”, and I thought that was the perfect addition to the exercise and I would never have thought of it myself.
