Self-Care for Selfless Moms

If your impression of self-care includes spa days and affirmations, I’m here to offer a different perspective. Read on for more practical self-care tips.

Your Current Self-Care Routine

You struggle to find a moment for yourself between work and carpooling to extracurriculars. Because your family’s needs take priority over your own, self-care feels like just another thing to add to your to-do list. You find yourself in the same pattern over and over again: swinging between ravenous and uncomfortably full. Each time you promise yourself that you’ll start fresh again, but that requires you to follow restrictive food rules that deny your satisfaction. You’re tired of feeling anxious about food and ashamed of your body but you don’t know any other way.

Everything You’ve Tried Hasn’t Worked

Constantly worrying about nutrition, you spend lots of time, money, and energy on false promises of a future (perfect) you. You hate dieting and are ready to embrace Intuitive Eating but you’re also scared of gaining weight or becoming unhealthy. At least having rules to follow removes some of the confusion about what, when, and how much to eat.

On a Hamster Wheel

Your thoughts and beliefs about food have been shaped by so many different sources like the media, doctor, school, grandma, and your mom-friends. If there were a prescriptive way of eating that could make you feel healthy, strong, and powerful, you would’ve found it by now. Dieting disconnects you from your body’s internal cues of hunger, fullness, and satisfaction. When you place rules on nourishing your body adequately, your inner rebel is bound to come out. All plans for eating mindfully disappear and you’re left thinking, ‘What’s wrong with me?!’ once again. The problem isn’t your diet, it’s the thoughts you have about food and your body.

Food and Your Body Aren’t the Problem

Food and your body were never the problem to begin with. The problem is that women are socialized to:

• 1. Think their appearance represents their self-worth

• 2. Sacrifice their wants and needs for everyone else’s

Women are taught that a good mom takes responsibility for everyone and everything, and puts everyone else before themselves. This programming only creates resentful women who feel burned out.

Before you swing to the other side of the pendulum, the solution is not to abandon all roles and responsibilities! That’s black and white thinking (a very popular tendency among dieters). There’s a way to find a fair compromise and to do so intentionally.

Baby Steps to Self-Care

Have you ever heard the analogy, ‘You need to put your own oxygen mask on first, before attempting to help those around you’? Your family needs you to prioritize YOU first. In other words, it is not selfish to put your well-being and happiness at the top of your list. Your children especially need a good example of a woman who honors her authenticity.

Don’t know where to start? Here are some powerful questions to ask yourself:

• If everything were the way I wanted it to be, how are all the ways I would prioritize myself?

• Why am I not currently doing that?

• What is one thing I can do today to bring me closer to prioritizing myself?

At first you’ll feel uncomfortable setting boundaries because you’re used to worrying about how others will react. Your lizard brain wants acceptance from the tribe because that ensures your survival. But belonging to a tribe begins with accepting yourself first. Try reframing the discomfort as a good sign that you’re outgrowing your comfort zone! Remember your intention to set a good example for your children? You get to define what it means to be a ‘good mom’, no one else.

Self-Care That Isn’t Superficial

Our relationship to food and our bodies parallels our relationship to every other aspect of life. Remember, the world treats us externally how we treat ourselves internally. When we learn how to meet our needs physically, mentally, and emotionally, it reminds us and those around us of our inherent worthiness. We’re able to look in the mirror and genuinely say, ‘You are a rockstar mom just the way you are!’ 

If you’re with me in theory but struggling to envision this new reality, I invite you to fill out an application for 1:1 Nutrition Coaching. Together we’ll challenge the rules, beliefs, and thoughts you have so you can redefine what self-care looks like for you. And if you haven’t already, join my like-minded community of moms raising intuitive eaters.