Intentional Therapist subscriber survey – Self-care shifts & wins

Thanks again to everyone who responded to our annual subscriber survey!

In our last newsletter we shared what women identified as barriers to their self-care, which we hope reminded you that you are not alone in your struggles and helped you to embrace a more self-compassionate approach to self-care.

In this week’s newsletter, we’d like to share what women identified as some of their biggest self-care shifts or wins. Their responses highlight that it is possible to overcome these very real self-care barriers and that self-care shifts and wins come in many different forms. So, if you’re still not sure where to start with your own self-care shifts or experiments, we hope these might offer some inspiration.

Women mentioned shifts like:

• Signing up for our Thrivival Skills for Therapists course
• Dropping unhelpful “shoulds” (e.g., I have to work 40+ hours/week) and giving themselves “permission to be kind” to themselves
• Improved self-compassion and connection
• Thinking of self-care as an experiment
• Setting up a bedtime that includes “unwinding time”
• Breaking larger projects into smaller steps
• Being “transparent with my family about when I need alone time”
• Taking “deliberate and intentional initiatives to implement self-care activities”

Several women also mentioned changes related to their schedules including:

• Putting themselves in their calendar (so simple, yet so often overlooked!)
• Reclaiming “me time”
• “Giving myself the actual time, scheduling it in and making it a priority, not allowing it to be pushed to the side”
• “Consciously thinking about” what to subtract when adding new things
• “Saying no and implementing safeguards so I don’t take on too many clients”
• Giving themselves “permission to adjust my schedule as my needs evolve long term”
• Giving themselves permission to change their personal plans when their ”battery is low”
• Scheduling in self-care activities before work “instead of after work when I might not have the energy or time”

And making space for things like:

• Breaks (“sometimes taking a full lunch hour!")
• Healthy eating (scheduling meal breaks)
• Spiritual care (e.g., daily bible study)
• Mindfulness
• Physical movement (e.g., multiple 5 – 10-minute intervals during the day, “flexibly tailoring yoga to what the day needs”, engagement in a fitness program)
• Time off (e.g., “fully” disconnecting from work over the holidays
• Family activities

One respondent also mentioned she’s “begun to view everyday activities as self-care” and provided this concrete example: “Brushing my hair is an act of caring for my physical self and if I slow down and pay attention, I experience the felt sense of being cared for.” Such a great example of how even making small shifts in our everyday behaviours can contribute to our self-care.

And another respondent mentioned “being brave” and applying for a new job (which she got!). She mentioned how the variety in her new position is really helping with her self-care. This is such a great example of how helpful it can be to set up our work so that it aligns with our work values. For some that might mean more variety and less direct patient care and for others that might mean work that’s heavily focused on direct patient care, and for others that might mean work that’s heavily focused on assessments.

Honouring our preferences and values is such an important component of self-care.

So, as you continue on your own self-care journey, please remember that, although the barriers are real, they need not be insurmountable. Self-care shifts and wins are possible and they come in many different forms.

Together we can create a new culture of self-care for female mental health clinicians.

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