The word ‘self-care’ is thrown around so often these days and too often it’s misunderstood. Self-care is fundamental to the work we do with all our clients, but we often find they start from a belief that self-care is self-indulgent, when actually that’s far from true.
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While a spot of pampering definitely helps, self-care isn’t all about bubble baths and manicures! In fact it’s not always about what’s easy and enjoyable – it can be downright frustrating and uncomfortable.
The actions, habits and mindset that are best for your health and wellbeing often take effort, or require you to evolve beyond your ingrained way of thinking and behaving.
Self-soothing and self-care are not the same thing.
True self-care means tapping into your own needs, understanding yourself better and setting clear expectations and boundaries for yourself and others. Because if you keep putting yourself last, it will undoubtedly have an impact at some stage of your life.
You can start with the basics:
It could look like regularly cooking yourself simple, healthy meals from scratch instead of buying ready meals. Working out a debt payment plan instead of burying your head in the sand. Or finally booking the doctor’s appointment you’ve been putting off for months.
It means being able to stop and calibrate your needs and how you are feeling as opposed to simply pushing on through.
Consciously bringing awareness to how you feel, either in yourself or about how someone else’s behaviour has impacted you, means you can really start to tune in to what aligns and what doesn’t and then take action to address it.
In turn, this helps you make better decisions. You can respond rather than react, based on your own wants and needs, helping you to transform your relationship with yourself.
Even after all my training, when I was struggling to cope after an accident and I couldn’t move my neck, my default response was a dutiful one. I pressured myself to just carry on, to keep going. But my body was screaming at me to stop. So I listened.
It wasn’t easy, but I decided to stop pretending everything was OK and communicated how I really felt. I asked for help and support around the house. I focused on what made me feel good, the things that brought me moments of joy. I rested when I needed to and very slowly and gently started to move gradually each day.
I gave myself some compassion and love, reminding myself this was a moment in time, by practising breathing and mindfulness exercises which gradually started to make a positive difference to my pain.
I accepted that I wasn’t able to do what I’ve always done, and that’s ok. My body needed my attention to heal and recover. It is amazing and I respected it!
You’ll have heard your body and mind screaming at you as mine did. Desperately asking you to listen. What I teach my clients, and what I want you to do, is to take the time to nourish yourself long before it gets to that.
It’s no secret that chronic stress is bad for your physical and mental health. Regular self-care practice helps us lower our stress levels and improves our health – it’s one of the most positive things you can do for yourself.
We need to build nourishment into our everyday lives. Because if we let it, life will always get in the way. We need to make caring for ourselves a priority just like we would caring for a child or our pets.
Sometimes, when life is different to the one we had hoped for, we can find ourselves in unknown territory, managing a whole gathering of heightened emotions. This is particularly relevant when we are faced with a potentially life changing health event that results in a longer-term condition. Coming to peace
We’re featured in Premier in Magazine Our founder, Fiona, was recently interviewed for the summer issue of Surrey, Berkshire and London’s leading luxury publication – out now! Share on Fiona was given the opportunity to share with the readers of Surrey’s Premier Magazine the benefits of therapeutic coaching. Across a double page spread
Hypnotherapy is one of the therapeutic techniques we use as part of our integrative approach to holistic health and wellness. It is a form of psychotherapy that uses hypnosis to help people make positive changes in their lives. It can be used to treat a variety of issues, from anxiety and confidence to public speaking and addiction.
Kora is a bespoke coaching and therapeutic experience that marries integrative and evidence based techniques including, Clinical Hypnotherapy, Mindfulness, NLP and CBT, grounded within a holistic and nature connected, sensorial experience.
We specialise in empowering women with cancer and chronic illness to live more, whilst navigating some of the biggest health challenges in their lives. The Kora experience also enables those facing significant other life challenges or loss, to redefine life on your terms.
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