5 Ways I’m Taking Care of Myself These Days

Good morning from my favorite coffee shop in TriBeCa! I love these days when I schedule nothing but writing and get to share little pieces of my life with you.

Life lately has been interesting. I’ve been going through some challenging and humbling times in my business and personal life, but somehow, throughout it all, I feel so alive, grateful and deep-down joyful on a daily basis. I think this comes from the way that I relate to challenges in my life. I used to avoid them and feel extremely uncomfortable with them – always trying to “fix” a situation and when I couldn’t, I would turn to gallons of ice cream to numb out.

Now, I see challenges as a normal and expected part of life. They exist to make my life more rich. They give my life depth. They cause me to learn something new, to dig deeper, to evolve. There’s something so grounding about fighting for something, or having a fear you didn’t know you had stare you in the face and saying “hello, I see you, let me work with you”, or failing and picking yourself back up.

So yes, life has been crazy lately as usual, and certainly not all beautiful highs, but I’ve been loving my crazy little life.

One of the reasons I’ve been able to endure all the highs and lows with a decent level of grace is because of how I’m taking care of myself. My own self-care, and what that looks like, is always evolving and changing, but here are a few things I’ve been doing lately that have really been helping me thrive:

1. SLEEP: A few months ago, I wasn’t sleeping that well, and it was drastically affecting my ability to deal with life. I was cranky, irritable and I had little patience. Not a good situation! Noticing how different I felt depending on how good of a night sleep I got, I decided I really needed to improve my sleep if I wanted to have energy and get the things done in my life I wanted to. I have completely revamped my pre-bedtime routine (let’s be honest, I had zero routine before) and now I sleep like a baby every night. It has had a HUGE impact on my ability to handle things that happen during the day and my overall mood. A true game changer. I’ll be writing a full post on this coming up, so stay tuned!
2. SELF CARE WITH DATING: Woah. People sometimes ask me what’s next for me, what I’m working on in my own life, and this is one of those areas. Relationships are our biggest teacher, and I’m learning lots and lots of important lessons right now. After going through a rough breakup last year, I eventually got back out on the dating scene. Honestly, it’s been awesome, it’s been challenging, and it’s been illuminating. It’s within this context that I’ve been forced to look at a lot of my fears, areas where I’m not comfortable with being vulnerable, and have been really growing more and more into myself. Because dating inevitably has so many ups and downs, I’ve really had to deepen my self-care in order to support and care for myself through all of it.
3. FINE TUNING MY PRODUCTIVITY: Every year that my business goes on, I find that my levels of overwhelm become higher and higher. There is always so much to do, so many things happening, and all of it rests on my shoulders to figure out. I am so intrigued by productivity, organization and efficiency – if there are systems, tools, or methods to reduce my overwhelm and help me get things done in a sane, efficient way, I am all for it! A few months ago, Beth Penn came into my life and has been my productivity guru. She helped me completely revamp my email / to-do / daily scheduling system and it’s totally changed the way I work. Nothing ever (well maybe sometimes 🙂 ) falls through the cracks anymore, I have a much better sense of what I have capacity to take on and what I don’t, and my brain just feels more at ease knowing how much more organized things are. I’ll be writing a longer post on this coming up too, so stay tuned!
4. SELF CARE WITH SOCIAL MEDIA: I could talk about this one till the cows come home. I really believe that social media can be awesome for us, and it can be harmful for us. Here’s the thing: if a friend of yours was going through a hard time in her life, or she had a sensitivity to something (like, she didn’t feel great in her body, or she was confused about her career), would you show up and hold up photos in her face of everyone else’s highlight reels? Would you show her pics of girls in bikinis on the beach? Would you read her stories about other women sharing how much money they’re making in their businesses? Probably not. Instead, you’d be sensitive toward what she’s struggling with. But why do we do this to ourselves, then? If you’re having a hard day or you’re feeling down or confused or uncertain, protect yourself. Going on instagram and looking at how awesome everyone else is seemingly doing is like putting salt on an open wound. I’ve been caring for myself during my ups and downs by choosing who to follow and when to even log on. When I choose not to logon, it’s like saying to myself “i love you honey, and you’re sensitive right now, there’s no need to look at what everyone else is doing, let’s focus on you.”. That’s love!
5. HAVING FUN: No matter how busy I get or how much needs to get done, I never stop prioritizing pleasure. I’ve learned from my past that a life with a lack of pleasure leads to a lot of things I don’t want. My creativity feels dull, my joy is no where to be found, my food cravings go nuts, and things just feel stuck and sludgy. Prioritizing pleasure during a super busy time may look really different for me than it does during less busy times, but it still happens. These days I’m getting pleasure from: lots of time in Central Park, deep conversations with friends, being outside a lot, wine, exciting and fun collaborations for work, Soul Cycle, music, burgers, reading, being silly and laughing whenever possible – especially when I’m stressed.

I believe so much in the power of Self-Care. It’s something that’s always changing – some days / weeks / months you may need completely different things than the next, but it’s a beautiful practice to stay close to yourself and give yourself what you need in any moment.

I don’t always know what I need. Sometimes I flail around, totally lost and ungrounded, and I see that as a good thing. It’s those moments that cause you to get even closer to yourself, to develop your self-care practices even more, to get clear on what you want and need, to edit your life so you can keep creating one that you love.

And when you know how to take care of yourself, you have courage to keep going. To keep being brave and open and vulnerable. To keep going for the things you want.

When you know you have your own back and that you’re supported, you can engage fully with your life.

I’m curious, what are a few ways you’re taking care of yourself right now? I’d love to hear in the comments below!

Sending you so much love,