Are you taking care of yourself? Are you giving yourself enough time during the day to rest, relax, restore or recharge? How do you know if you are? This is one of the most common questions I ask my clients during in our intake session, and throughout our therapeutic relationship. I also warn them ahead of time that this is a heavy question, because I generally feel like the answers are, “not really”, “I try, but it is hard”, “I need more but I don’t know how to change that”, or “no”. It almost seems unfair of me to ask them to actually change that. As a therapist, I also have to look inward and say, do I give myself a break? If I expect my clients to, do I actively ensure I include self-care in my day? And this is how my “Hot Coffee Check-in” came to be.

More often than not, women struggle with nourishing themselves because they are so busy nourishing others. Clients who seek guidance and want to make change in therapy, often hope to combat these struggles with force. As a therapist, it is my goal to help assist clients with that process by setting realistic goals and tasks to support changes that may need to occur. I, personally, dislike the question, “what do you do for self-care?”, because that term seems to have lost some of its meaning, but I always have to ask it anyway. What do you do to take care of you? More often than not, my clients laugh, sigh, cry, or become silent. How is that a fair question? I hesitate to ask it because I know the answer is often defeating. “Nothing”. Sometimes a hot shower, sometimes a yoga session, sometimes reading a book, but never on schedule, undivided or often enough. Sometimes there is nothing, and it feels they have come to accept that there is not way of making that happen. I hear clients say that they go through the day and as they lay in bed, they reflect, and think “wow, I was not able to do anything for myself today”. Then, their ‘to-do’ list comes to mind, and they think “I have so much to do, how could I possibly do something for myself? If I did, I would feel guilty.” Trust me, you are not alone in these thoughts. If you are someone who can sit and watch that show you’ve been binging in your free time, GUILT-FREE, I commend you. Please, keep doing it. But if you are someone who cannot let themselves do relax or when you do take the time to indulge in some self-care, you feel extreme guilt for it, this is a good area to work on in therapy. We will talk more about “productivity” and self-care in another post, because, this often impacts our ability to engage in self-care. Right now, I want to focus on how to ensure we are fitting in some “me time”.

MY SELF-CARE GAUGE

How do I check-in to make sure I am putting myself first at some part of the day? I gauge this based on my coffee. If I make myself a hot coffee, and take a sip and it is cold, then I am not taking enough time to myself during the day. If I get an iced-coffee, and take a sip, and it is watery, I know I am not taking enough time for myself. I know, that might sound absolutely ridiculous, but, it is a sense that does not fail me, and forces me to be present. If my coffee is cold, I am not impressed with the test and I have to check myself and say, “Lisha, did you actually allow this coffee to sit here and why didn’t you stop for a moment to sip it?”. Sometimes we go through the day in auto-pilot, and we end the day and think… did I drink water today? Did I nourish my body with food? Did I take a moment to be present in the moment and take a deep breath?

This can be applied to other things, not just coffee. Maybe you’d prefer tea? Same rules apply. What about breakfast, lunch or dinner? Use food if that is more applicable to your life. Is your hot meal cold when you’re eating it? Is your apple slices browning by the time you’re biting into it? Is your cheese sweating when you go to indulge in your charcuterie board? Whatever it is, put some kind of threshold in place as an indicator to remind you to take care of yourself.

What is the point?

Well, sometimes we need a reminder to take care of ourselves. It is easy to get carried away taking care of everyone else, cleaning, cooking, tidying, working. This check-in forces us to stop and be intentional for a moment, to notice our bodies and to say, “are we looking after ourselves?” It might even remind us to drink some water or eat some food. Without nourishment, we will not be able to nourish others, we will run on empty and that is not good for anyone, especially not you. So, this way, we have more indicators to say to us, “Hunnie, you need to eat, you need to drink, you need to rest, you need to take a moment for yourself, you need to recharge, enjoy that coffee, stand still, sit still, be present, be in the moment, breathe.” It goes far beyond coffee, it goes straight to your soul. Reconnect to the present moment. I really encourage you to sit in that moment & enjoy that sip. We know that taste and smell can bring us into the present moment, and so much of our day is spent running around, tidying, doing tasks, being productive and taking care of others.

WARNING

This can feel defeating at first. Do not expect yourself to be perfect, change takes time. I would say to implement baby step expectations. If you drink your coffee hot at least one day per week, that’s a start. Like everything else, this takes time. Life happens. The point of this exercise is to give yourself that grace. To allow that simple joy. A hot cup of coffee. You deserve so much more, but let’s start there.

EXERCISE

1. Find your gauge. what is it going to be? (Hot tea, coffee, hot bath, cold glass of wine, hot plate of food, etc.)
2. Notice, how often you stay in that moment and enjoy it prior to moving on to the next task, moving your body, being pulled from the present moment.
3. Notice, are you breathing? Are you in your head? Are you in the past, future or in the present moment?
4. Are you enjoying this time or rushing through it?
5. Do you need to reset? Reheat? How many times?

REMEMBER

Remind yourself that you deserve these present moments. You deserve the self-care. You are doing your best and it cannot always happen, but it should happen more often than not. It takes time, but we will get there. Simple joy, to bring more light into your life. To be human & the best version of yourself.

Take care,

Lisha Cash
MSW, RSW, Psychotherapist
Nest & Nurture Psychotherapy