Author Journey:

 

I’m sure you’re familiar with the terms “self care”, as it is thankfully becoming more and more important to the modern world person.

Self care is different for everyone. We have so many resources at our fingertips that allows us to customize our self care routines. In today’s blog I want to share some of my favorite self care routines for particular bad days.

 

This blog is about:

My top 5 Author self care tips for busy Authors on bad days. How the 5 tips encourage Hope and Power to get you through the toughest of days.

**DISCLAIMER** This blog is in no way sponsored by any of the brands shared in the pictures. I am sharing them because I use and enjoy using the products in this blog.

There are many types of bad days. These 5 self care tips work for any bad days. Recently, due to world and life circumstances, I have noticed a spike in anxiety and depression especially in the past few months. I am a HUGE advocate for mental health and it frustrates the fricken heck out of me when I see people suffering from depression or anxiety or many of the other mental health problems out there and I can’t seem to do a thing about it.

This past 2 years, yours truly, has embarked on learning about her own personality and being aware of mental health. Focusing on learning limits, best mental health practices and how to help get back up when it’s been a hellish day.

Here are a few thing’s Authors like me should be aware of:

• You are HUMAN!!! Not a robot. Recharging takes time and is different for everyone.
• The way you speak to yourself is vital!
• It’s easy to help other authors or people in your life when they are struggling, but it’s another thing when you are the one struggling.
• It takes time and adjusting so be patience with you.
• You cannot do it all by yourself. Nor should you. Life is much better when you find like minded people and share your adventures together.
• You will always have good and bad days. The key is how you work through the bad to make room for more good.
• Take your own advice. Rest and learn to take care of yourself!

With that being said, dear reader, you might be thinking “Ok, that’s nice and all, but where does the list of 5 self care tips come into play?”

That’s a good question.

Simply put from my personal experience when I am having one of those really (pardon my French) Crappy days, the ones that you can’t seem to shake off no matter what you do, if I start with one of these 5 self care tips, it helps me get through the day with more hope and power.

You need hope, because on days like that you feel hopeless, lost, exhausted even useless. Sometimes the day seems to last forever and the doom feels like it’s engulfing your life forever.

You need to feel powerful, because when you feel like sh*% you feel powerless and dead. Unable to control or do anything.

Those two strengths are encouraged by the 5 Health tips for busy Authors, I share below.

#1 Prayer

#2 Cleaning my face

#3 Drinking water

#4 Doing something special/loving for me

#5 Resting

These are the 5 Health tips for busy Authors, I do on bad days. Let’s dive into them a bit further to understand why they encourage hope and power.

The 5 Self Care 5 Health tips for busy Authors:

#1 Prayer

It has taken me many years of experimenting to find a prayer routine that I like and can do consistently. Fact: I am still changing things up randomly. If I get bored I simply change it up. Switch out morning prayers with a novena or religious meditation book. Same with night prayers.

The normal prayer routine for me is: morning prayers, right after I wake up I say this short prayer.

Rosary after work.

And end the day with night prayers.

Here is one of the prayer cards I use first thing in the morning. This is a prayer card from a business called: Abundance of Grace. You can find them on insta and etsy under that name.

BAD DAY ALERT! Author wakes up an hour late for her 7-3:30 day job.(have to pay for those books somehow) The days schedule is thrown off and you’re grumpy. The boss tells you it’s ok, but they have to write you up. After all being late is still being late for a job. Typing away on the computer the author tries to wake up, remembers that you forgot to say your morning prayers. Considers just skipping it today. It’s too long of a prayer, takes too much time. The author grabs the prayer card and says a quick prayer. Offers up the bad day and asks God for a boat load of extra graces to make it through the rest of the day.

3 things happened.

1. The author acknowledged the bad day.
2. With the prayers showed that their is always hope for a good ending. Trust that God will help them through the day.
3. The author took back some power by saying the prayer. You are back in control.

 

#2 Cleaning my face

This one is simple and symbolic in many ways.

I highly recommend you take a super quick break and wash your face.

3 things happened.

1. It helps wake your body up.
2. Gives you a fresher start to the day, washing away all the oil and gunk from the day before. More hope for your body and day. Feeling fresh and less dirty helps a ton!
3. You are showing yourself some love. Simple clean love. You are powerful as you are. Giving yourself the strength to clean up.

 

#3 Drinking Water

It’s hard enough fighting a bad day mentally exhausted so let’s boost your body ever so slightly with some good ol H2O.

Even when I get myself something special like coffee or tea I try to get in a few gulps of water to help get the system started on a clean note.

2 things happened.

1. You boosted your body. Giving yourself more power to work through the bad day.
2. Boosting your body gives you hope.

 

#4 Doing something special/loving for me

 

This one is totally up to whatever you think is needed.

Personally, my favorite is something like a latte, or mocha. Something about those loving notes of coffee and sugar hit the happy strings in my heart every time. Coffee seems to be a happy booster in this authors life. I am sure many of you fellow authors will agree with me on this.

If coffee isn’t your thing then what is? Take a minute or two to treat yourself with something that makes you smile and feel happy.

It’s important to give yourself that natural dopamine when you’re struggling. You don’t need a huge amount most of the time. Just enough to make you smile and realize that there is something good you can do for you.

2 things happened.

1. You are feeling loved. That smile is giving you Hope.
2. The power of treating yourself is in your grasp. You have more power.

 

#5 Resting

 

Authors, we sit and type many hours of the day. You might think that resting since we aren’t physically doing anything however that’s not exactly true. Your physical body may not be doing anything but your mind is going. Your body can be exhausted without doing any physical work.

Get in tuned to your body’s needs. Even if it’s annoying and slightly inconvenient. Your body tells you what it needs by how it reacts to life.

For example: when I am overly tired, hungry and over doing it, my body reacts by increasing anxiety levels and causing me to get cranky in 0.1 seconds. Everything makes me jumps and nervous. I feel tense, tired and ready to fight anyone who says anything to me.

Once I realized the pattern in my cranky behavior I started take more time to stop, listen to my body and doing something about it.

When I notice my anxiety spiking, I check to see if this is causing me to become moody. If that is the case I take a quick break, eat something and tune back into my body. Most of the time that really helps.

2 things happened.

1. You are proving to yourself that there is hope at the end of the dark tunnel. You just took steps to helping your body and mind.
2. Again, who did all that work? You did! You are more powerful than you thought.

 

There we have the 5 Health tips for busy Authors I highly recommend! I use them and they work.

Somedays I only get two of them done, but that’s the point. Self care doesn’t mean you complete 5 tasks every time and that’s what makes you feel better. Instead, true self care is about learning to respond to bad days with love, hope and power. One step at a time. Listen to your body and see to the needs.

Author tip:

Tell a good friend. This is something I really struggle with. Telling someone you hold dear, that you are really struggling makes you uncomfortable and vulnerable. However, we all need someone in our lives to help us when we are struggling. It’s not weak, it’s actually strength. It takes strength to admit we are having a hard time and need help. Plus when fighting a battle, mentally or physically having two will always be better than one.

 

This blog is about:

My top 5 Author self care tips for busy Authors on bad days. How the 5 tips encourage Hope and Power to get you through the toughest of days.

 

**DISCLAIMER** This blog is in no way sponsored by any of the brands shared in the pictures. I am sharing them because I use and enjoy using the products in this blog.

 

Thank you for reading until the end. As a new blogger any and all support is appreciated and welcome.

Write on~

Cecilia