Making Self Care Your Super Power! Putting Yourself First

When someone in our life dies, there seems to be this initial period of time where we aren’t doing anything for ourselves so much as we are planning everything around that death and understandably so. There are arrangements to make, funerals to plan, wills to look over, financials to try and square away. And while we are making these deep decisions and working to be organized, we are often crumbling into pieces internally, breaking apart like shards of glass leaving pieces behind us as we go. And that’s ok. You’re not wrong for that. We are, in these moments, trying to exert some control over a situation that is wholly and devastatingly outside of our control.

And initially self-care isn’t something we often think about because if we’re lucky we have people around us who are helping hold us up in those initial days and weeks. I know for myself I barely recall the first couple of months after my husband died. It was as if I was going through the motions, a passenger on the road of life, watching as the road spiraled crazily in front of me. I recall my mother sitting at the end of my bed handing me a tuna sandwich because I hadn’t eaten in two days. She sat there and watched me take every bite, making sure I had some water and keeping vigil over a daughter who couldn’t even recall nor care for the importance of eating or drinking at the time.

But at some point, visits end, the phone calls slow to a crawl, and people stop making you meals and dropping them off. In those initial days everyone else put you first, but from here on out it is up to you to put yourself first and to advocate for yourself. And if you think that’s selfish, then I’m here to tell you it’s time to put your sassy selfish pants on and get on with it!

I’m sure we’ve all heard the phrase “Put your mask on before helping others”. This of course is a reference to something that flight attendants tell us on a plane. In the event that there is a change in cabin pressure, they specify that before we help others with their mask, we have to put on ours first. We hear this all the time; every time we fly in fact so why don’t we feel selfish at the prospect of that? Does something have to be life or death in order to allow us to be a little selfish? Then hold onto your hats friends because putting yourself first while grieving is often a life-or-death thing.

Yes, my statement was a little dramatic but hear me out. When we are grieving, we go through emotional and physical changes. If you’ve read my blog post about grief brain, then you know that deep grief affects even our brain pathways. Our immune systems can take a hit. We tend to get sicker than we used to or are sick more often. I’m not trying to scare you, I’m just trying to be honest about the importance of taking care of ourselves. If you have an affliction or a chronic disease for example, you have to take good care of yourself, right? The same is true for when we are grieving. It becomes imperative that we take care of ourselves, mind, body, and soul. We don’t call people with traumatic anxiety selfish. We don’t call cancer patients selfish right? So why would we consider putting ourselves first at perhaps one of the most vulnerable times in our lives selfish? And the people who love you, the one’s who are invested in your wellbeing and sincerely only want the best for you will understand. They may not understand exactly what you’re going through, but their love for you should create an understanding of the importance of caring for yourself.

Alright, so now the question is how do we engage in self-care? But I don’t want you to just engage in self-care. I want it to become your Super Power. Because if you want to build a strong house of healing and you make self-care your foundation, then you’re going to have one sturdy damn house come what may. You see self-care is all encompassing. It doesn’t just mean taking care of yourself physically and emotionally. Good self-care allows you to acknowledge and process your experience. It allows you to lean into your faith if that is something that is important to you. It allows you to live in the moment instead of trapping yourself in the traumatic moments you experienced while acknowledging that those moments happened!

So, what sorts of activities do we mean when we talk about self-care? Maybe for you self-care is listening to a Mindfulness Meditation when you first wake up or go to bed. Maybe it means journaling and writing down your feelings and emotions in a space where there is no judgement, where you can pour everything out onto the pages to grant yourself some relief for a moment. If you are religious or spiritual, maybe it means saying a prayer in the morning or talking to God or the Universe about what you’re experiencing and how you’re feeling. Maybe it’s walking outside in nature and listening to the birds sing to you from the trees or feeling the gentle breeze slip lazily across your cheek. Maybe it’s just a bubble bath, locked away in the bathroom with some candles and a glass of wine. Maybe it’s going out to dinner with a friend and talking about anything but your deceased loved one, or maybe its going out with a friend and talking about nothing but the happy memories with your loved one.

Whatever self-care is to you, it is important that you carve out some time just for you because believe me, you deserve it. In fact, you more than deserve it, you need it. When I started coaching others and offering grief support, I was reminded quickly that we can only give what we have. And if we don’t take care of ourselves and fill our cup up with whatever it is we need, then we ultimately have nothing to give. Trust me, a little self-care goes a long way. It’s a lot of work and it is at times extremely hard, but it is worth it. I promise that you are worth it.