Wholeness Healing Center

Self-care: the Importance to Everyone

As a therapist, when I see clients, often part of the goals we work towards includes self-care. Many of us get busy with kids and grandkids, work, friends and extended family, groups and organizations, often saying “yes” to others, and often “no” to ourselves. Self-care is important, important enough to be identified as a treatment goal, and important enough to be intentional and direct in our approach to that. ”WE” are important; “I” am important.

While I have written before about self-care, this article will be a little different, a little more personal, about
our great group of professionals at Wholeness Healing Center. The whole “practice what you preach” is true for us, too. If we, as professionals, are encouraging our clients to implement self-care, what does that look like for us? What does it look like personally,and what does it look like within our practice? Each of us has something we do “after hours”, with friends, family, or alone, that fills our bucket and allows us to relax. That might include hiking,riding horses, lounging on inflatables,boating, kayaking, running, quilting,baking, time with pets, reading, any number of various avenues possible.

For us as a group of individuals, all working toward the goal of helping others, we also have recognized a need to spend time together outside of our practice. Most of us have busy schedules during the work day so little time to connect with others within our practice. So in the past few years, we have scheduled “play dates” to get together and laugh and share and bond, with no work expectations. The most recent proved to be “just what the doctor ordered”. We were able to get several kayaks and access to a pontoon for those not as interested in paddling, and spent a glorious evening after work, paddling, floating,just enjoying nature, the calm waters,the brilliant sky as the sun set and the moon appeared, and being with each other in a different way. It provided us the opportunity, while floating our cares away, to also connect to those we pass in the halls, to those we share clients with, to those we only see in a professional way, adding depth and dimension to our relationships.

As we are in the helping field, we know how important it is to “fill your own cup” and being given opportunity to do that, while also connecting with those we work with, really allowed us to be intentional, directed, yet relaxed in a whole different way. The result of course was an evening of food and fun, laughter and love, and a deeper sense of united purpose. We all work from specialized modalities, all have different trainings and experiences, yet we all have a purpose to help others move into their healing. The great part of that is that we are also touched by that experience, moving forward also in our healing. To be able to share and care while connecting within our practice was a truly magical piece, and really underscored the importance of taking care of one’s self. Of course, we all had fun while doing that, which moves it even further up the scale of “team” unity. As we discover each other’s true selves, we become more united, and in the whole scheme of healing, we are all moving forward with the same purpose. Self-care at its highest level. Did I mention that it was fun, too?

Tags: filling your own cup, self care, taking time for fun