The Foundation of a Woman’s Health is Self- Care…… But What is Self-Care?

The journey back to the deliciousness of health starts with learning how to actually care for ourselves. And in my observation and not so humble opinion, the exact moment of self care or not; lays in awareness.

We must be aware of what nourishes us, fills us, grows us and conversely what erodes, distresses and harms us. Honing our awareness to this discernment is essential. With out this discernment, we will always put ourselves into a dis-stressed state. And no matter what health actions you add to your life, you will be in constant stress…the opposite of health.

Most women have not honed this skill. They are entrenched in a model of not caring for themselves a model that has trained them to ignore their own bodies signaling and thus are kept away from self care and health. When I discuss this in practice, many women cannot understand what I mean by self-care  …..  they hear “I must do more or better to get healthy” and simply add to their load.

However, for most women the path to physical pain and exhaustion has been created by overload. So, adding more load is not going to improve their health…. but honing their awareness to the care of themselves will.

Most women live in overload.

Women’s overload has accumulated over a long term habit of putting ourselves after the external world…… after the rest of life, after other people, after the systems of society, after they have a breakdown…..

The pressure to give, to serve, and to prioritise external needs over our internal needs is so deeply ingrained and built into our society, that women have normalised it. And here is the problem;

1. the external world will always have demands, so a woman will actually never get to her internal or self needs.

2. the woman looses her awareness to recognise whether what is happening is a stress or nutrient to her.

Quickly, this external first overload model becomes a constant output with zero input model, where the key healing mechanism is lost. And, not only does this erode women, but, leaves them flailing without a connection to the path back to health.

You will know you are in this place because; Self-care feels like another part of the over load, another task to tick off the to do list and you can no longer recognise your own internal needs. Often women here say to me….I just need a break, but can’t gain any actual detail on what that actually means for them or any other of their internal needs.

Adding to your to do list is not an actual process of caring for you. You could indeed end up looking the part of health, what ever that social projection is at the time, but, true health, the place where the forces of life flow through a woman and she radiates her brilliance out into the world, that will never be known.  Because, chronic overload cannot coexist with health.

Even in a physics context, overload results in an unstable or potentially dangerous condition that exceeds the system's design specifications or capacity thresholds….ie breaking. If society can wrap its head around materials having an overload limit, surely it can cope if women do too?

Self-Care as a Process of Awareness.

To be in the care of ourselves we must have the awareness to minimise overload and maximise capacity. Also known as input equal to or greater than output. And what that actually looks like in daily life for a woman is dependent on where she is at in life and who she is.

The solution isn’t about totally rejecting the external world, running away, throwing your load off your shoulders and dropping the care for others. Instead, hone your awareness to what is in the care of you and what isn’t…..and begin to remodel your life around this.

I have found that the more I cultivate this awareness and action it by aligning my life with the care of me….the healthier and happier I have become and that the greatest barrier to women caring for them selves is their ability to recognise what the self care actually is for them and loving themselves enough to live that.

Body Wisdom for Woman Program includes Love as one of its four pillars,  because until a woman can recognise what is in the love and care of her and nourishes her, and what keeps her overloaded and broken, she will never experience health.

X Carla