All posts tagged: selfcare

What a month and a bit away from Instagram taught me.

Published by Rachael

I remember when I first became aware of Instagram. A friend of mine was showing me all these beautiful little squares on her phone. I have always been a teeny tiny bit behind the curve. I’ve never even purchased a smart phone. My phone is a kindly gifted hand me down from my much more tech savvy mother-in-law. Nevertheless, I was enchanted by the concept of Instagram: A gallery in my pocket. I’m a very visual person and found the artistry and creative input on each of these little squares to be really engaging and charming. Sometimes I still need to remind myself of that love-at-first-sight reaction I had to the platform. Sometimes it’s nice to remember that there is so much creativity and interesting conversations or new perspectives to be found on Instagram. However, this December, I wasn’t feeling like that about Instagram. At all. In fact, I was on the verge of deleting the whole caboodle. Instagram was making me unhappy. And I know I’m not the only person who might be feeling …

Vision Boards and Some Words of Encouragement for 2022

Published by Rachael

January is well and truly on the way isn’t it? I’m sure I’m not the only one, but I always have the lingering feeling of being ‘behind the curve’ with each New Year. I seem to still have one foot in the year before and am not quite ready to step fully into this one. This year that feels especially true. I’m now home in Sheffield after 17 months of living in New Zealand. January feels as if it is flying past me as I settle back into my home and reconnect with friends and family. Honestly, its been at times a bit of a bumpy transition. I’ve gone from an NZ summer into the UK’s deep dark winter. For the first few days of being back home I felt as if I’d fallen into a black and white movie. All the colours seemed dull and grey and my eyes struggled to adjust to the change. I’ve also had the sensation of landing in a country that has had to deal with the stormy effects …

The best piece of self-care advice I’ve ever been given and something invaluable I’ve learnt in New Zealand.

Published by Rachael

One stormy day my supervisor and I were ping ponging back and forth with our frustration about how challenging it is to look after ourselves when our cup is empty. I remember the little attic room which we always met in and the sway of a huge oak tree outside the window that was getting battered by the rain outside. My supervisor noticed me looking out of the window and joined me in watching the tree getting lashed with wind, it’s branches getting bent backwards, it’s delicate spring leaves getting tattered before my eyes. Then I said, ‘I feel a bit like that tree right now.’ ‘Hmmmm.’ She replied, she would rarely rescue me from my discomfort and today was no different. ‘I suppose the storm isn’t the best place to plan from, when you’re in it… you’ve just got to be in it.’ I’ve thought about this conversation a lot over the years. It’s a theme that comes up again and again in my work. When you’re in the storm of a mental health …

Procrastination: The socially acceptable Mean Girl.

Published by Rachael

For the longest time I would joke about my procrastination tendencies. Again and again throughout my twenties I have laughed off my decision fatigue, my doubt and most frequently my fear for the sake of the cutie pie girl next door: Procrastination. A little like Procrastination’s mean big sister Perfectionism (she needs a whole blog post of her own!) Procrastination can be played off as an asset. She’s funny and lighthearted, relatable in a meme, she gives you license to put off today what you can do tomorrow. After all…that’s future me’s problem, right? (playful wink) Now, I’m all for letting ourselves off the hook when we need to. If you’ve read anything else I’ve ever written on this blog, then you know I’d be the last person to shake my head at someone taking rest and slowing down. It is vital for our well being. However, this is where procrastination can be so insidious. Procrastination can look like rest to the external eye, it can look like self-care, like productive de-cluttering sprees, scrolling and …

What does Success look like?

Published by Rachael

Yesterday I had one of those days. I sat down to write this blog and had a carefully curated to-do-list of ‘grown up and responsible person’ things to accompany it. This list had time slots for optimising my productivity, bullet points and carefully written out notes to remind me of my ‘intention’ for the day. Then my laptop (which is over ten years old) and has seen me through two degrees and a Masters decided to have a monumental freak out. It seemingly had a mind of its own. Tabs opened at random, the screen blackened out and flickered back to life like it was trying its best to be faithful and trustworthy – but the strain just made it all the more unreliable. Most bizarrely (and frustratingly) the numbers on my keypad decided that it would only show their symbolic counterparts. I spent over two hours down YouTube rabbit holes trying to fix my ailing robot who I am actually very sentimental about. I did it, but it involved a lot of screaming at …

Favourite Five Calming Reads

Published by Rachael

Books have always been a constant source of comfort and inspiration in my life. I think books are the reason I even found myself becoming a therapist. I’ve always loved narrative, I’ve always valued that glimpse into another person’s world view. Books have often been one of the most helpful companions to me in times of worry or distress. A cup of tea and a few minutes in a book can make a huge difference sometimes. The books I’ve listed below are just that; five of my favourite books to dip into if I’m needing a little grounding or a reminder to slow down. I’ve read A LOT of well being books in the last five years; these titles have stood the test of time and still bring me a lot of comfort and inspiration. ‘The Things You Can See Only When You Slow Down’ by Haemin Sunim Haemin is a Zen Buddhist Teacher and Monk from South Korea. I picked this book up from the National Trust on a drizzly walk on holiday as …

Values Work: Creating Your Own Cornerstones

Published by Rachael

Spending time reflecting will look different for all of us. I find looking at art in books or from galleries I’ve visited calms my mind and allows space to reflect. This beauty is from the York Gallery Collection. After a week of reflection I’ve come to the conclusion that the change that needs to happen within me has to be anchored in me. If I want to seed change outwardly and be part of a movement of change it must first start at home. This is where working with our core values comes in. Living in accordance with our values can help us find a way to living authentically and feeling justified in our decisions by surrounding ourselves by what matters most to us. Values can act as anchors that we can draw strength from when we are in need of stabilising. One of the ways that we can unearth our values is by finding key words that speak to you and then create your own definition for your values. So grab a note book …

Some Thoughts on Setting Boundaries

Published by Rachael

“The only people who get upset about you setting boundaries are the ones who were benefiting from you having none” On Instagram several times a day! When I think of the word ‘boundary’ I have to say the connotations that come up for me are universally wary and cautious. I know I’m not the only one who feels this way about boundaries. For many people setting boundaries can feel deeply uncomfortable. I actually on some level disagree with the quote above. Change is difficult, it’s difficult for us as individuals to gain the self-awareness to change and then to action this outwardly. Often when change does occur it can lead to those closest to us feeling unsure, skeptical or even angry. It’s not a black and white situation of ‘us and them’, it’s nuanced and complex. I think this is why a lot of people avoid setting boundaries in the first place. This is especially true for those of us who are recovering people-pleasers or sensitive souls. It can mean exerting a lot of emotional …

Getting Started with Self-Care

Published by Rachael

‘Learning self-care is like building your own lifeboat, plank by plank. Once you’ve got your boat, you’ll still be rocked by the waves of life, but you’ll have a feeling of safety, and a stability that means you can pick other people up on your way.’ Quote from ‘Self -care for the Real World’ by Nadia Narain & Katia Narain Phillips One of the most common things that comes up in conversations I have about self-care is the idea of selfishness. That spending a portion of our most precious resource: our time, to nurture ourselves somehow means that we are neglecting other’s and our responsibilities to them. The second most common theme that seems to come up is time (and a supreme lack of it) to spend on self-care. I used to feel this way too. I used to feel self-indulgent and guilty if I sat in the garden reading or daydreaming. In busier seasons of my life I perpetually ‘prioritised’ other’s needs before my own and rarely had time for myself by the end …

Finding Calm Before Bed

Published by Rachael

I have never been a ‘good’ sleeper, I’m definitely a night owl. Roald Dahl put it beautifully in The BFG: “The witching hour, somebody had once whispered to her, was a special moment in the middle of the night when every child and every grown-up was in a deep deep sleep, and all the dark things came out from hiding and had the world all to themselves.” The BFG by Roald Dahl I used to love that feeling; of having the world all to myself. I would regularly sit up til two in the morning reading. I would tip toe downstairs to the kitchen and watch the foxes from the backdoor ferry their young across the garden by the scruff of their necks. I adored the stillness of the night. The soft murmur of the wind on the roof, the dart of a bat in the corner of my eye. For some reason it energised me, my imagination would zip into life. Wired, wide awake. Alive, when everyone else was away. This is still very …