Principle #5: Sanctify Your Soul-Care
My kids are headed back to school soon, and they will be doing all sorts of assessments to see how they’re doing in math and reading and writing. And this got me thinking. I need to do a series of mini-podcast episodes for moms to assess how they are doing, not with balancing equations or diagramming sentences (because I have a feeling most of us would fail those assessments), but to assess something way more important: our own levels of emotional wellbeing.
You may be thinking, is there an assessment for that? And I am glad to inform you that. Yes. Yes, there is!
A few years ago, I took everything I’d learned from interviewing over 300 experts in parenting and self-development and I boiled it down to six (*formerly nine!) principles of self-assured motherhood. These were the common threads that I found between all of the experts. I realized that if we, as overwhelmed moms, could master these areas, we would have so much more joy, more connected relationships, and more inner peace.
I put these principles into a framework and created a self-assessment that overwhelmed moms could take that would go along with this framework. This way, they could concretely figure out how they’re doing emotionally and would be able to see visually where they are thriving and where they deserve to put more attention.
These principles will be the basis for this SAM Framework mini-series.
So, let’s dive into the fifth principle!
Principle #5: Sanctify Your Soul-Care
Okay. So, what is soul-care?
Well, we’ve all heard of self-care, which can sometimes get a bad rap as something millennial, self-preoccupied, and needy.
That’s why I prefer the term soul-care because true self-care takes into account how your soul is doing on a deeper level.
It’s not just about expensive skincare or bubble baths or treat yourself it’s about being consciously aware of your soul and what it might need to thrive.
I define a soul as body, mind, and spirit. Sometimes, we can care really well for one of those areas, but not the others. And true soul-care takes the whole person into account: their body, their mind, and their spirit.
After going through my Self-Assured Motherhood program, one of my students, Celeste Noland, wrote this on her Instagram:
“The term self-care has become a loaded term over the last few decades, and has a somewhat negative even selfish connotation now. But if I asked you what childcare means, what would you say? Probably not that it means to just give the kid anything they want and let them lie around and eat chocolate cake all day, every day. Right?
In actuality, childcare and self-care are the same thing – caring for all of a person’s needs in a loving way.
When you’re a child, hopefully, you have someone to take care of you and make sure all of those needs are met. As you grow up, you gradually take more of those needs on yourself. And when you become an adult, it’s now your job to make sure all of your own needs are being met – mental, physical, and spiritual. Sometimes self-care is easy and feels good. Like taking a bubble bath or going out with your spouse or friends. Other times it looks like going for a stupid walk for your stupid mental health or having a difficult conversation with someone you love.”
I love Celeste’s words here. True soul-care is mothering yourself. Sometimes that means making room for the fun your soul is craving such as joining a dance class or going to lunch with a friend or getting a manicure. And other times it means the hard or mundane things that your soul is maybe avoiding, but that, you know, it truly needs like calling for the overdue doctor’s appointment or drinking enough water and getting enough sleep.
So where am I personally with soul-care?
To be honest with you, this is the only area in the Self-Assured Motherhood framework that, even after years of work, I don’t feel like I’m solidly green. (If that doesn’t make sense to you, just wait – I’ll explain more in a minute.)
The reason I’m not solidly green is because I’ve done a good job of prioritizing soul-care for my mind and my spirit, but I haven’t done a good job of prioritizing soul-care for my body these past few years.
I go to therapy. I journal. I pray. I prioritize time with my sisters. All of that nourishes my spirit. For nourishing my mind, I do this podcast work that I love. I also listened to really interesting books that get me thinking, and I have great discussions with other people about ideas.
But my nourishment of my body is lacking. I’m kind of embarrassed to admit that, but it’s the truth.
I would really like to work on soul-care for my body in the coming year. When I’m busy with work, the first things to go are often exercise, sleep, and good nourishment. And I’m starting to feel the effects of that in my body. As I age. 🫠
I thought about this recently, when I listened to an episode of one of my family’s favorite podcasts Against the Odds by Wondery about the Chilean mine collapse. It’s a perfect metaphor for what happens when we don’t nourish all three areas in of our soul.
Sanctify Your Soul-Care – A Real-Life Metaphor:
In Chile, 33 miners were trapped in a copper mine for 69 days after the mine collapsed during their shift.
It’s an incredible story of resilience with a happy ending, so I definitely recommend it for families. But I’m bringing it up now because as I was listening to it, I just kept thinking about all the parallels between this mine collapse and soul-care.
Before that copper mine collapsed, there were lots of signs that it wasn’t structurally sound. It was 120 years old.
The miners often talked about how the mountain was weeping. They would hear the rocks groaning and shifting during their work. Everyone knew that it was only a matter of time before a major rock slide or collapse would happen, but they continued their work, hoping for the best because they really needed the money to support their families.
The mining company also knew that the mine wasn’t up to current safety code standards. But they weren’t willing to take the time or spend the money to fix it. They paid the fines to the government, and then they paid their workers more in order to get them to work in those unsafe conditions.
They didn’t want to stop production in order to fix the problem. They just kept ignoring the mountain’s weeping, crossing their fingers and hoping for the best.
Of course, the mine did collapse, and what struck me as I listened to that story is that, in the end, the mining company spent so much more money to rescue their workers than they would have had to spend if they had just heated the warning signs and proactively fixed the problem to begin with.
So now my question is, are you ignoring the weeping from your soul? Are you waiting until you have more time or money to start taking care of yourself, either physically, emotionally, or spiritually?
I know I’m guilty of this.
When it comes to my physical soul-care, there are warning signs that my body needs more care, but I keep putting it off because I don’t have time to address it. I’m just hoping for the best. The story of the Chilean miners reminds me that I’m going to have way bigger problems to deal with down the road that will cost me way more time and probably money than if I just listened to my soul and slowed down long enough to prioritize this now.
This is my public commitment to myself to do more to prioritize my physical soul care this year.
Maybe you need to make a similar commitment to yourself in one or all three of these areas of soul care. You might be a rockstar at making it to the gym several times a week or getting enough sleep, but you don’t let yourself feel big emotions, or you never prioritize social time with your girlfriends, or you haven’t sat down to read a book or write in the journal and sort of just process your thoughts and feelings in ages, and you know that your soul is calling out for it.
It’s something to think about!
So, how are you doing with sanctifying your soul-care?
I mentioned above that I developed a self-assessment tool for moms. I use this assessment in my program that I teach to overwhelmed moms who want to know themselves better, more fully honor, their needs, and more deeply love their people. I call it Self-Assured Motherhood.
At the beginning of that program, these SAM sisters (as we call them) color in a Venn diagram based on where they’re currently sitting with each of the principles of Self-Assured Motherhood. I give them a definition of what it looks like to be green in this area, what it looks like to be yellow in this area, and what it looks like to be red in this area.
This way, they can visually see how they’re doing and they can honestly self-assess.
At the end of the program, they do the same exercise so they can concretely see how much they have grown and learned over our out time together. It is truly incredible to witness their progress!
Today I am going to give you the green, yellow, and red definitions that I give to the women in my program for this fifth principle of self-assured motherhood, and you can mentally decide what color best describes you right now:
If you’re green: You can define the three to five self-care habits that are essential for your body, mind, and spirit, and you have a consistent routine for making sure those needs are met most days. You take care of yourself as thoughtfully as you take care of everyone else in your family.
If you’re yellow: You generally take pretty good care of yourself, but when your life gets busy, self-care is usually the thing that you cut. You haven’t given much thought to what your soul needs. You want to define your essentials and build more consistent habits around them.
If you’re red: You have very few, if any, consistent habits for self-care, and you often feel depleted, exhausted, and out of alignment with your values. Your life feels chaotic, and you are the last person whose physical and or emotional needs you consider throughout the day. You keep pushing it to the back burner thinking, “Someday I’ll take care of myself.”
Where are you with sanctifying your soul-care? Are you green, yellow, or red?
No matter what color you rated yourself, my Self-Assured Motherhood program can help you. We talk in-depth about what soul-care is for you (because it’s different for everyone). You define it, and we work together to figure out how you can fit soul-care into your busy life.
SAM is also the place where I will be sharing some of my personal journey as I work harder to take care of myself this year. I always share my most personal stuff with the SAM sisters.
I hope you will join us in my Self-Assured Motherhood program this fall, where we will spend an entire month talking about soul-care. Enrollment for the program will open September 9th, and if you download that “Green, Yellow, Red” self-assessment, you’ll be automatically added to the program waitlist and you’ll get a special discount as soon as the doors open for enrollment.
My friend, you deserve to sanctify your soul-care. You deserve to have your mind, body, and spirit feel at ease and thrive! You have so much to give to the world! I’m rooting for you!
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Related Episodes like this one on Sanctifying Your Soul-Care:
- 262: 3 Ways to Recover from Mom Burnout
- 314: How to Feel like Yourself in Motherhood // Aleisha McKean
- 349: Overcoming Decision Fatigue through Reflection // Emily P. Freeman
