How Self-Reflection Can Help Carers Reclaim their Vital Health

Here's five things you can do to begin exploring your Inner-World (Self-reflection)

1.       Make a decision to prioritise your own self-knowledge and self-care

It may sound obvious, but I have found that unless we actually set a clear intention and develop routines we are unlikely sustain behaviour change.

As carers we tend to be “other” focussed rather than focussed on ourselves.  For many of us, we learnt to pay attention to the needs of others early in our childhoods when our need for connection to our primary caregiver (most often a parent) was essential for our survival.

We may have already been naturally sensitive, caring, and empathic and in order to feel safe and get our basic needs met, we learnt how to read the emotions of those around us and predict and help meet their needs.

By being so focussed on what was happening for others in order to avoid displeasing them, we often never learnt to turn our attention to our own emotions and needs and so many of us just don’t know where to start.  Often we have been called “selfish” or “uncaring” if we have attempted to set boundaries; societal expectations of women as carers and nurturers can also play a role in us denying our needs outside of these roles.

It's not uncommon for me to hear many carers say “But I don’t know who I am or what my needs are.”  You may not know yet, but the first step here is to acknowledge that your feelings and needs do matter and that giving attention to them actually improves the quality of the caregiving relationship as well as your health.

2.       Identify your early life Attachment Style and consider any adaptations you may have made to maintain connection with your primary caregivers.  Adaptations are coping mechanisms that we employ during childhood to feel safe and get our basic needs met and many of them persist into adulthood.   For some, this may take the form of “people-pleasing”, paying attention to your caregiver’s emotions and trying to predict what they may need.

For others, these coping mechanisms may be more avoidant in style – making ourselves small, denying our needs and emotions, not speaking up, engaging as little as possible with caregivers to avoid the possibility of upsetting them, doing as little as possible to avoid “getting it wrong”.

These adaptations aren’t “wrong”, they were necessary when we were little and had no-one else to look after us, but for many of us we have carried these adaptations into our adult lives and they don’t always serve us.

See if you can identify any behaviours that may fit in to either avoidant or people-about something?  Can you recognise when you are ignoring what you feel in order to keep the peace?

3.       Practice regularly tuning to in to your body, particularly if you are feeling under pressure. Stress is felt in the body before it is understood by the brain.   Which parts of your body do you notice sensations in?  For me, I tend to start to feel churning in the stomach; others may notice clammy palms, a racing heart.  Get to know your own responses, because the more awareness you have, the earlier you can utilise strategies that will assist your body to relax.

4.       Make small changes.  What is one small thing that you could do today that would begin a new habit of prioritising your self-awareness and reflection?

Some suggestions:-  When you first wake in the morning, rather than letting your brain get in to “monkey chatter” about what you need to do today, give yourself just ten minutes to focus on your breathing, or give yourself ten minutes to focus on everything you are grateful for, or play a short guided meditation with positive affirmations to start the day.

5.       Congratulate yourself for taking small but vital steps in the direction of self-care, self-compassion and prioritising your health.

Remember, you can’t help others without risking ill-health if your energy tank is drained  And small changes can often have big impact.