SCH 042 An Introduction to Self-Care MAPS

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When your podcasting program eats four episode recordings and you’re thousands of miles from home, what do you do? Go back to the beginning and give an introduction to why the Self-Care Hacks podcast exists!

MAPS for the Basics of Balanced Self-Care

We all need to take care of ourselves, but most of us have forgotten how (or maybe we never learned in the first place). I believe women, especially, struggle to take care of themselves. Why? It could be culture, it could be religion, it could be a lack of education.

For Christians, we all conveniently ignore those parts of the Bible where Jesus withdraws to lonely places. That’s spiritual self-care. He knew he needed time alone. I like to divide self-care into four quadrants–Mental, Academic/Artistic, Physical, and Spiritual. If we take care of ourselves in all four areas, we will fuel ourselves so we can go out a serve the world.

When we ignore these domains, we find ourselves feeling burned out and unable to cope. So while it seems counterintuitive to spend time fueling and developing ourselves, if we don’t do it, we’ll suffer. During different seasons of our lives we’ll spend more time taking care of ourselves in one quadrant or another. When I had small children, I focused on physical and spiritual because I knew those would fuel me the most for the job of motherhood and working full time.

Everyone has different needs during different seasons. Become a student of yourself and learn what fuels you and why.

Show Notes to the Introduction of MAPS

Not only did my podcast recording program eat four episodes, but I also left my computer charger at home, too. Check out my weekly Self-Care Sunday blog posts for a plethora of ideas on how to develop your self-care routine.