Self Care For Busy Parents (A Reminder)
How are you doing? Really. Take a moment and ask yourself. Right now, how are you? Is what you’re doing aligning with who you want to be and where you want to go in life during the parenthood journey?
As you can probably guess (if you’ve followed me on social media at all or read any of my emails), I think deeply and I’m an advocate of self-care for parents. I believe self care allows you to be the best version of yourself and the parent your autistic or neurodivergent child needs you to be.
Parents, we need to take care of ourselves mentally and emotionally as well as physically.
But… I have a confession. For many years, I have been STRESSED, BURNTOUT and just living in constant reactive mode. Why? Because I put a lot of pressure on myself to always do more, with in the parenting and professional world in all aspects of my life. This is both a blessing and a curse!
Let me tell ya, doing life stuff behind the scenes is not easy for me. The constant demand of professional work, parenting, my own obstacles, relationships, and the busyness of work.. is freaking maddening… It’s honestly super overwhelming and challenging and I have learned so many of us adults are feeling that way. It’s a whole new world.. trying to do it all.. just doesn’t work.
The funny things is that all that I have learned from the Autism community for the past two decades taught me so much as life keeps throwing demands and children’s needs at us. I have lived a life of constant anxiety and stress and started to impact my children, my home, and my relationships, work and the domino effect happened.
Well, let me tell you, I got caught in a dysregulated cycle. I started to feel it in my body (I also have Crohn’s disease, and have progressed to severe) and I KNEW I had to change what I felt in my body.
Sometimes self care is just taking a moment to reflect and listen to ourselves.
I took a moment to pause and think back on the past:
What have I been doing… is it in alignment with my goals?
How are my actions supporting me?
What do I need to change or adapt?
This process of reflection is such an important part of self-care, because it creates an opportunity for you to “try again” and create different actions to support the path you want.
I created a unique plan to help realign myself with my goals and what I really want out of life and work.
After this time of reflection, I was able to use my dynamic intelligence and think through what choices I can make that will help reduce the stress and feel better. As a result, I was able to make some shifts (thank you Autism community of knowing the strategies that are possible!) and let go of things that weren’t serving me, and realign with what truly matters rather than focusing on the “shoulds,” or other stuff that just takes up my mental space and adds stress!
It’s been awhile since I made the choice to re-align myself, and as a result I am back into my groove again!
If you want to go deeper and try something new, think about what you want. What are you doing to support where you want to be?
In the RDI process we do a Mission Statement to help identify the future you desire for both you and your child. When you give yourself a moment for self carecare and reflect, and remember it doesn’t need to be long but it needs to be a moment that allows you to stop and breathe.
Take a second to reflect upon your journey and how you are supporting yourself. It’s so important to know that Self care isn’t just bubble baths and scented candles (although those things are nice). Radical and reflective self care gives you the opportunity to notice your own experience of life, and allows you to make changes when needed to create a world you want to experience.
This works for your own day-to-day life, needed for parenting too. Give yourself time to pause and reflect and see how you are able to find more peace and joy in life!
If you feel stuck and need help, feel free to send me a message. I’d love to help. You can also join my newsletter for more content from me direct to your inbox.
Does your child have a new autism diagnosis? Are you struggling to understand and support your child through challenging behaviours? You can access a recording of my free webinar here.
