Mokita Dialogues: How to focus on self-care around the holidays
Jana Marie Foundation continues the 2021 Mokita Dialogue series on Thursday from 11 a.m.-noon via Zoom (tinyurl.com/MokitaDialogues). This month, the discussion will focus on self-care during the holidays.
Throughout the holiday season, it is easy to get wrapped into focusing our time and energy into people around us, whether we’re buying gifts, preparing for holiday parties, or volunteering in our community. While these are certainly ways to enjoy and celebrate the holidays, it is also just as important to focus that same amount of energy into ourselves. Self-care is the idea of meet our own physical and mental health needs. Dr. Elizabeth Scott from Verywell Mind says that self-care can be placed into five simple categories to help us realize where we may to need focus our attention: physical, social, mental, spiritual and emotional.
Taking a moment to reflect on where our needs are being met and where we may want to focus a little more attention can help us best determine which self-care practices may be most beneficial for us.
Physical self-care involves the physical body — how we eat, how we sleep, how we move, and how we look after our health.
Social self-care shares insight on how we support the relationships with people around us — how are our relationships with family, friends, or other people we value in our lives?
Mental self-care involves our mental health — are we doing activities that stimulate our mind?
Spiritual self-care can come in many forms, including finding a spiritual or religious community that you feel welcome in or finding ways to meditate and connect by yourself or people around you.
Emotional self-care allows us to find healthy ways to recognize and process our emotions. We want to let ourselves feel all the emotions we have, including the good and the bad, and recognize what lead us to feel this way. Do we have healthy ways to express these feelings, and do we have strategies that help us recharge our emotions?
It is very easy to get sucked into the idea that self-care has to be a lavish, indulgent process. However, we want to try to reinforce the idea that self-care is taking care of yourself and what basic needs need to be met in the moment. There is no one correct way to do acts of self-care; in fact, it will likely look a little different for everyone depending on what needs need to be met at that particular time. Self-care may mean making sure we get a full night’s rest, eat enough to properly fuel our body, or take five minutes to reflect on our feelings. Some days we may have more time and energy to invest in self-care practices than others; one day we may want to take an hour-long yoga or medication class, and another day we may leave three extra minutes to stretch before we go to bed.
While thinking of ways to practice your own self-care strategies, ask yourself what of your five areas of focus (physical, social, spiritual, mental, emotional) need to be met today and think of one thing you can work toward.
This Mokita Dialogues session will give us the chance to come together to discuss the importance of self-care, consider ways to break down barriers that might prevent us from practicing taking care of ourselves on a regular basis, and reflect on what our needs may be. We hope you can join us for this important conversation.
For the past five years, Jana Marie Foundation’s Mokita Dialogues series has shine a light on a variety of topics of vital social concern that often go unaddressed or unnoticed. The discussions include a brief presentation, engaging activities that encourage thought and conversation, and suggestions for ways to continue the discussion.
Mokita Dialogues will continue in 2022 on the fourth Thursday of the month from 11 a.m.-noon.
To learn more about Jana Marie Foundation or the Mokita Dialogues series, please visit www.janamariefoundation.org, follow on Facebook (Facebook.com/janamariefoundation), or email info@janamariefoundation.org.