Best Self-care Practices
Our Rare Family Dynamics Support Group is a wonderful place for you to share your heart. This week we talked about the things that sustain you in the early stages of your raregiver’s journey. Many shifts and changes occur when you become the primary caregiver for your Rare child. There are helpful ways to manage your life and conserve energy.
Getting organized
If you are a leader in your community and one of the member's Rare children is undergoing a procedure, people naturally are concerned and want to know how it turned out. Fielding individual messages from members is time consuming. You might want to start a Facebook group to post information rather than messaging people individually or perhaps you start a group text thread. Think of ways you can simplify communications in your life.
Self-care for all parts of you
Self-care means caring for your past, present and future selves. In NLP, neuro linguistic programming, there is a process for sending love and goodness forward and backward in time. So, once you’ve become more resourced in yourself, you might want to send some gentleness and kindness to the younger parts of you who were overwhelmed in the earlier stages of becoming a raregiver.
You can do this visually or perhaps it is a felt sense experience or maybe you whisper to that part of you that everything you’re feeling is valid and that no feelings are final.
Beware of catastrophic thinking
As you navigate the day-to-day unknowns of being a raregiver, it’s important to recognize when you are going into a future trance and imagining worst case scenarios. Doing this can be very upsetting. Breathe and do your best to stay in the present as much as possible. Life is easier when you take it one moment at a time.
Ways to stay present and calm:
Turn towards your breath
Pay attention to what you are seeing and hearing and feeling. Your senses bring you into the present moment.
Rest your hands on your heart and feel their warmth and weight.
Smell some lavender essential oil or any other scent that you find calming.
Trust yourself
Early on in your journey with your Rare child, you may notice certain signs that trigger your mother’s intuition. Perhaps your child is not sleeping or maybe their poops are not right. Medical professionals may challenge your mothers intuition and tell you that your child is fine and that this will pass. It’s important to trust yourself and resist any tendency to doubt yourself or to engage the voice of the inner critic.
As a raregiver your primary job is to be present, breathe and from here discern what is needed for you and your family in each moment.
Coming up this week: Vulnerability
This week we will explore the ways being a raregiver renders us vulnerable. Raising a child who has a multitude of physical vulnerabilities points us to the vulnerable nature of the human condition. Come and share your experience with a group of people who are familiar with the path on which you are walking. We will also inquire into how there is strength in vulnerability and how to live with an open heart. Please join us.
You Belong Here
This group is open to all raregivers regardless of gender or relationship status. Join our amazing community of raregivers who get you. Come be seen, heard and deeply understood. Let the community hold you. We meet on Tuesdays at 10am PT. Come for all or a portion of the session.
Come as you are. Your presence is a contribution.
Zoom Link: Click Here
We look forward to being with you soon.
Warmly,
Padma
