As the seasons change, so do we. We learn to adjust to the colder weather, less sunshine and we often find ourselves staying home more than we have been. These changes often have an impact on our mood, perhaps we encounter feelings of sadness, loneliness or isolation. I want to emphasize that it’s normal to have all these feelings. So what can we do?
This might look like redirecting our attention and efforts to our daily self-care. An article on Psychology Today provides a great definition… “Self-love and care (n.)(v.):
1. To intentionally and actively offer kindness, support, enhancement, thoughtfulness, patience, restoration, grace, appreciation, and respect toward yourself.
2. To intentionally devote attention and efforts to enhancing and protecting your personal wellbeing” Now that we have this definition.
What does your self-care look like? How often are you engaging in self-care? Are there things that you need to incorporate back into your self-care routine? What are the obstacles that are making it hard to engage in self-care? Do we need to look at our boundaries? “Boundaries are rules that protect you from behaviors of outside others that could potentially reduce your quality of life (intentionally or unintentionally). Boundaries inform others of what’s okay for you and what is not okay for you”. As we think about all these questions maybe we have the answers and maybe we don’t. Maybe you’ve been thinking about therapy for a while, it might be a great tool to enhance or reinforce your self-care.