In order to raise your voice for others, you have to take care of yourself first. That’s where self care comes in. If you like this tip, be sure to sign up for the Raise Your Voice newsletter to receive your copy of The Revolution Starts with Me! self care zine for more tips and self care resources.

Being comfortable with saying NO is a great to practice self care, but it’s often easier said than done. When we say NO  to someone or to an opportunity, we can feel guilty, and it can also make us feel as though we’re be missing out on something if we say NO.

Singer-songwriter and entrepreneur Christine Kane says, “One of the reasons saying NO can be so challenging to us is that we force ourselves to make decisions in the moment. We wait until we’re put on the spot…we often end up making a Reactive Decision, rather than a Proactive Decision. Reactive Decisions often involve listening to our emotional self, or our guilt, or our old patterns of wanting approval.”

To fix this, Christine developed a great exercise called the Proactive NO.

What is a Proactive NO? Think of it this way: Most businesses have what’s called a policies & procedures manual, listing how the business runs and what employees should do in the event that something happens and a swift decision needs to be made.

Here’s your task: Create your own self care policies & procedures manual. Your manual should be clear and concise, and let’s you know exactly want to do if faced with making a decision. You can write them out on sheets of paper, or type them up. Remember, we want to decrease as many Reactive Decisions as possible. Here are some of my own self care policies:

*I require a least one week’s notice if a friend or relative wants to stay with me while they are in town. (It may sound harsh, but in this way, I can decide if I want to open my space to anyone, as well as to prepare for their arrival).

*I will only consider consulting projects and speaking engagements that are in alignment with the mission of my business. (This one can be a challenge. When the urge to get recognition or to make some quick cash rears its head, I ask myself if what I’m about to sign on to actually matches the values of my consulting business. I also consider the time it would take to prepare and execute the project, especially if my work schedule is already swamped).

Take some time during the upcoming days to develop your own self care policies & procedures manual. You can come up with as many policies as you want, and when you’re faced with making a decision, “run” the request through your polices & procedures manual and come up with a solution that works for you.

(image source)

In order to raise your voice for others, you have to take care of yourself first. That’s where self care comes in. If you like this tip, be sure to sign up for the Raise Your Voice newsletter to receive your copy of The Revolution Starts with Me! self care zine for more tips and self care resources.

We know how important self care really is, but how often are we actually incorporating it in our lives? A better question is this: If you are incorporating self care in your life, which area is receiving the most (and the least) attention?

Here’s another great resource from The University of Buffalo School of Social Work,  at the State University of New York, called the  Self Care Assessment. Adapted by Saakvitne, Pearlman, & Staff of TSI/CAAP (1996), the Self Care Assessment touches upon 6 areas: physical, psychological, emotional, spiritual, relationship, and professional.

Use this as a tool to think more about what areas of your life you pay more attention to, and which areas need more attention.

Take the Self Care Assessment

In order to raise your voice for others, you have to take care of yourself first. That’s where self care comes in. If you like this tip, be sure to sign up for the Raise Your Voice newsletter to receive your copy of The Revolution Starts with Me! self care zine for more tips and self care resources.

In order to raise your voice for others, you have to take care of yourself first. That’s where self care comes in. If you like this tip, be sure to sign up for the Raise Your Voice newsletter to receive your copy of The Revolution Starts with Me! self care zine for more tips and self care resources. 

This is one of my favorite self care exercises (and actually one of the most difficult to do)!

Created by Christine Kane, singer/songwriter and president/founder of UpLevel You , this self care exercise drives home how we often try to keep ourselves busy, fitting in so many activities to make ourselves believe that we’re being productive. What we need to realize, however, stillness (i.e., “not doing anything”) is when things start to happen. Christine says, “[We] think it’s all about the “doing.” And yes, there is some “doing”…But just as composers believe that a great piece of music is a lot about the rests in between the notes– I believe that a creative happy life is a lot about the rests between the activities.“

Christine calls this ”intentional boredom“, a period where you allow some down time in order for ideas and thoughts to flow. It’s where things begin to build. Think about strength training. When you lift weights, you damage the muscles fibers. However, your day of rest from lifting weights is when the muscle actually repairs itself, becoming stronger.

Intentional boredom can be very uncomfortable because we feel that we have to do something with our time. However, as author Echkart Tolle writes, ”As you bring awareness to the feeling, there is suddenly some space and stillness around it. As the sense of inner space grows, the feeling of boredom will begin to diminish in intensity and significance. So even boredom can teach you who you are and who you are not.“

So, try out this self care exercise for the next 7 days:

1 – Take out your calendar.

2 – Schedule in 10-minute blocks of “Intentional Boredom” time for 7 consecutive days, starting today.

3 – Show up at your scheduled time. Turn off distractions (your phone, the TV, etc.) and be still. It will feel uncomfortable, but think to yourself, “It’s only 10 minutes!” Allow whatever comes into your mind to flow in and out effortlessly. Consider this your me-time away from the everyday distractions in life.