I’ve been battling back pain for over a week now, with the worst of it over the long holiday weekend. I’ve spent three days lying around doing a whole bunch of nothing, except trying not to strain my inflamed sciatic nerve.
Since the pain started as sporadic, I can’t figure out what I might’ve done to aggravate it in the first place or what I need to do to make it go away. Since I’ve had lots of time alone with my thoughts over the past several days, I can’t help but ponder the often overused Internet phrase of self-care.
Maybe this whole sciatica thing is my body’s way of telling me I need to slow down.
The thing is, I have been here before, it might’ve looked different, but the situation was the same. I seem to have a bad habit of putting self-care dead last.
Whether it’s been because I’ve given my time to care for family members or if it’s been to do work that didn’t feed my soul, the evidence is quite clear, I often push myself to the point of misery only to step back, somewhat broken, and declare I need to make changes.
With that thought in mind, I remembered a wonderful post by Sarah McColl of the blog Pink of Perfection, and how she declared in a powerful message that she, too, seems to go back to the same ideas over and over only to declare aha! each and every time she comes upon them.
Since I seem to forget what can be bad for me, I’ve been trying to remember what makes me tick. I have a lot of what I consider hippie tendencies that I’ve unfortunately had to push aside as of late. While my world has been filled with fun and fantastic things over the past six months or so, they’ve also taken up an enormous amount of time. Writing-at least in my eyes- is an artistic and reflective endeavor.
In order to write, I typically need three precious commodities: time, quiet and stillness. Since I’ve been somewhat immobile for the past few days, I’ve been able to focus on activities that nurture my soul: journal-writing (several pages each day!); practicing gratitude (hey, at least I can still walk); reading and of course, writing.
So as I deal with this new wealth of time on my hands, I am trying to embrace these moments of self-care, and documenting the experience so that hopefully I can remember to slow down, rather than pushing myself to the breaking point so frequently.
Do you practice anything that you consider to be self-care? If not, would you like to begin a practice? I’d love to hear your thoughts and experiences in the comments section below
Amanda Bretz 
Hope you feel better soon, Amanda. I know how debilitating back pain can be.
I hadn’t heard the phrase “self-care” before, but it sounds reasonable.
Thanks, Emma. Ibuprofen and an ice pack seem to be helping very slowly.
I don’t practice self-care nearly as often as I should. I tend to squeeze a lot of writing time into my already hectic life, which means I’m usually running on about 60% of the sleep I need half the time. My body’s reaction? Whenever I push it to far, the old bod starts to rebel–often I’ll get sick, or fatigued and have to spend a few days recuperating. Arghhh. If only there were more hours in the day!
I hope your back pain has eased up some. I know there’s nothing worse than that–it can completely knock you out of commission. 😦
Thanks, and yes, it has gotten better! I’m 100% again and trying to navigate through this whirlwind known as everyday life. The last thing I want is to be ill or impaired again, so I’m trying not to push myself so hard 🙂