“Put on your own oxygen mask first."
How many times have we heard this message? We all know how important self-care is to our health and well-being. And we all understand intuitively that we are no good to anyone else if we’re gasping for air.
But in reality, tending to ourselves first - and sometimes tending to ourselves at all - feels a lot harder to pull off, doesn’t it?
Most of us claim “There’s not enough time” but what we often really mean is “I feel responsible for too much!”
In a world that feels like an erratic, dangerous, unpredictable place with no one in charge, it feels like it must fall to us to ‘save it’. And when we’re already weighed down from all the roles and responsibilities in our own lives, it can feel downright overwhelming to add on the urgent mission of working to ease or end the chaos ‘out there’.
Yet, much of this burden of responsibility we carry is outside of our control!
The hard truth is this: we can’t control the people and circumstances of our lives, we can only hope to influence them.
And sadly, we can't make much of an influence - on raising the next generation of leaders, or creating justice and equality for all, or cooling the planet - when we are exhausted, depleted, and (let’s be honest) terrified. So many of us suffer from what Emily and Amelia Nagoski call “Human Giver Syndrome” where we give, give, give without taking time to fill the well first.
The only thing we can truly control is ourselves.
Our focus needs to shift to taking care of our needs first…so we feel better, show up better, and are more effective in influencing positive change in the people and world around us.
We ultimately get to control how we feel, how we show up, and how effectively we influence… by choosing how we treat our bodies, our time, our energy, our thoughts, our feelings, our voices, etc. When we decide to nurture and nourish our minds, bodies and spirits, we feel at our best, ready to bring our talents, skills, experience, passion and energy to the conversations, situations we find ourselves in.
Let's show what's possible when tend to our minds, bodies and spirits first.
I know so many of us (me included!) have been conditioned to believe that self-care is self-indulgent, time-consuming, a sign of privilege, or a "reward" for after all the hard work is done and every one else's needs are met...
The purpose of this project is to reframe self-care as the most necessary, practical, unselfish and impactful thing we can do in our day to create change because of the powerful ripple effects it has... and to provide examples of just how simple, accessible and achievable it can really be.
I want to empower and inspire you to show up for yourself first. To give yourself permission to matter by tending to your mind, body and spirit. To help you discover countless ways to "reset" that fit easily in your day.
I want to help you feel less alone, less tired, and less defeated while you're trying to influence positive change in your relationships, work, communities and society.
This project is for the exhausted caregivers and changemakers, and anyone else struggling to be effective in their lives. It’s time for us to support one other in caring for ourselves...so we all have access to the energy, focus, perseverance, creativity and compassion required to create the change we long to see in our world!
Ready to Join the Community Project?
This is an online community project designed to achieve three things:
Demystify how caregivers and changemakers support themselves to show up at their best and increase their impact in their relationships and work.
Share stories and ideas about what it means to take responsibility for self-care and the actions these caregivers and changemakers took to meet their needs.
Cultivate a community to cheer each other on our individual and collective journeys to prioritize self-care.
