I think one of the things along this journey of healing that has been the most critical for me is finding ways to nourish myself finding ways to care for myself well and our society is not very good at expressing the importance of self-care and when we hear self-care I think we all have a picture of what that looks like and most of the time it's the spa or a once a year vacation and it is so much more than that I've come to find out it is those daily verse throughout your day that's consistent of taking care of my mind taking care of my body taking care of my soul like all of the parts that make make me me it's taking care of my inner Childs it's resting I think we live in this fast-paced like keep going um gotta get it done world and we don't think it's super important to rest a lot of times people go on zero to no sleep and rest I learned in the last couple of years is one of the most critical pieces it's okay that I'm not doing something today it's okay that I'm just rejuvenating and and and sleeping a little more or um just slow paced um so in that peace learning to celebrate my body um many of us that have experienced childhood sexual abuse in any form of sexual violence have this really hate relationship with our body there's there's a disdain and a distrust of our body we feel like our body has betrayed us and we hold it captive to what other people have done to it and we have this disconnect between our mind and our bodies so part of self-care for me which was you know beginning to come home to myself beginning to you know think my body for getting me through some really difficult situations and circumstances and make peace make peace listening to my body and it might sound a little strange because we don't talk about this in our society but checking in with my body you know putting my hand over my heart and asking my heart hey heart how are you doing today as is a huge part of my daily self-care and listening taking the time to listen um you know taking the time to do a check-in before I enter a meeting that I have a work meeting and saying like where's my heart where's my mind um and then if it's not really in it or feeling kind of discombobulated from what I'm about to go into just taking that three to five minutes to refocus and maybe doing some heart openers for me on my yoga mat or just some some quiet reflection for the for the two to three minutes before I just jump into a meeting um it really is that that key that that turned the lock for me um and realizing that there's so many forms of therapy out there there's DBT there's equine there's there's body movement therapy through somatics and Tre and tapping and and breath work was crucial we don't know how to breathe and we're not gonna live and so many of us that have experienced extreme trauma we hold our breath and so learning to find that regulation in my breath and calm calm myself when I'm feeling triggered or activated was important and a form of self-care Wilderness therapy has been a huge piece for me I get my backpack and I go with a group of survivors led by therapists and we go out into the Wilderness for a week in Wyoming or Colorado there is so many forms of therapy out there there's self-help groups there is there is you know all of these things that are just waiting support groups and and connections um it does not it is not a one-size-fits all and it can be multi-faceted you know we can go to a group and get get therapy and get and get self-care that doesn't have anything to do with our trauma so what is something that you want to do what is a dream that you have you know this past year I did um I did aerial arts and so the the list is endless I just encourage you to jump in there and see what's available for you.
