•Asking her to imagine what she would say to her friend if that friend were having a bad day. Explain to her that she can also say those things to herself when she is having a bad day. In the same ways that she might be there for her friend, she can be there for herself.
VIEW MORE
“Perfectionism,” by Dr. Kristin Neff, self-compassion.org/category/exercises/
Self-Care and the Whole Girl 4
YOU ARE READING this book because you care. And you demonstrate your care in many ways, from providing for your daughter’s basic needs for food and clothing to delivering comfort and emotional safety. As girls grow up, consider shifting from care giver to care guider. Empower girls to demonstrate that they can care for themselves, deeply and deliberately, as they grow up. You will be the best judge of how to balance providing care with encouraging her self-care.
So see what happens when she learns how to practise self-care and self-nurture and realizes that she can ease her stress and discomfort, feel more confident, and discover more pleasure and fulfillment in her days. There are many ways to encourage a girl to turn inward and provide herself with the care she needs and deserves. As girls take the lead in identifying their needs and getting them met, they learn invaluable life lessons of independence and responsibility.
When girls come to know how to provide for themselves, they send a clear message to themselves (and others) about their self-worth and self-respect. This can be revolutionary. They will have to come to terms with the fact that putting one’s own needs first will inevitably mean disappointing those who are used to a different status quo. Girls are natural caregivers and nurturers, but often their priorities become skewed—for example, when they help a friend in need even though they themselves feel depleted and empty. By making the decision to care for herself first, and until she feels restored, she will ultimately have more to offer others.
Girls need to know that self-care is not selfish. Rather, it’s a gift they can give to themselves. And when girls make self-care a habit and choose to focus on self first, they may feel enhanced inner strength, emboldened to keep going, and as though they can conquer the whole world!
“Conversations require complete disregard for the clock.” JULIA ROBERTS
Self-care is a daily and consistent habit, a reflective practice of knowing and loving the entire self. Getting started can be as simple as choosing to do even one good thing for herself every day. Let’s look at self-care in terms of the whole girl: physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual.
Physical Self
Girls taking care of their bodies begins with excellent hygiene. This includes washing their body, cutting their nails, brushing their hair, and caring for their skin with sunscreen, medicated cream, and moisturizer.
Beyond these hygiene basics, we need to educate girls to honour and respect their bodies by fuelling and nourishing them with whole and nutritious foods and drinking plenty of water to stay hydrated. The expression “You are what you eat” is absolutely correct! When girls eat healthy foods such as fruits, vegetables, lean proteins, and whole grains, and limit sugary, fatty, and processed foods, not only will they have more energy, but they will feel healthier and better about themselves. Consuming nutritionally dense foods will contribute to healthy, glowing skin, strong teeth and nails, and thick and shiny hair, not to mention more balanced hormones (helpful to avoid painful periods) and emotions (fewer mood swings).
We can embolden girls with the eating philosophy “Eat when hungry, and stop when full,” or author Michael Pollan’s good advice for healthy eating: “Eat food, not too much, mostly plants.”1 If a girl can connect to and be mindful of the feedback from her body, she will gain wisdom about what kind of self-care she needs. It’s important that she knows that her weight does not determine her self-worth.
One need that girls sometimes underestimate is that of keeping active and moving their bodies every single day to stay fit and healthy. Being physically active aids in digestion, disease prevention, stress reduction, and mental performance and productivity. As well, girls who are physically active are more likely to have confidence and a healthy body image. Physical exertion throughout the day will also improve sleep, and sleep is a non-negotiable necessity: they need at least eight hours each night to restore and rejuvenate. Getting adequate sleep will improve memory and creativity (and grades), build focus and attention, and, again, increase positive moods. A girl has a plethora of activities to choose from—indoor or outdoor, solo or group—and she may want to explore numerous options to find out which she loves most, and which is the best fit for her level of physical ability.
Ultimately, girls need to know that their bodies know exactly what to do and how to achieve wholeness and balance. It’s their job to pay attention, listen, and trust in their bodies, and then to get out the way so their bodies can keep them healthy.
Mental Self
As girls grow, their brains continue to grow too (until age twenty-four). We can teach girls how to care for their brains and not just by wearing helmets when they bike. We can teach girls how to manage their thoughts. It’s not easy to become aware of what you’re thinking and to self-regulate a busy mind—for any of us at any age! Girls need to understand the maxim “Don’t believe everything you think.” Thoughts will come and go like monkeys swinging from branch to branch (the “monkey mind” is a common metaphor in certain schools of meditation), but they don’t need to believe them all. We can encourage girls to investigate their thoughts, releasing any that keep them stuck, by teaching them to first pay attention and to then be curious about their thinking, with questions such as “Is this thought true?” and “How do I know it is true?”
I can tell you that as girls’ brains develop, they start to gain what we call “metacognition,” the ability to think about their thinking. As metacognition develops, girls can improve their awareness of what they are thinking and to what degree. It’s true—sometimes girls’ thoughts are bang on, and can be trusted to guide them to the right decision; other times they are inaccurate or exaggerated. We can help girls sort through their thoughts until they learn to do it themselves. But we’ll never be able to help them do this if we aren’t cultivating connection and talking with them on a regular basis—how else will we know what thoughts keep coming up for them?
Girls greatly benefit from stress-reduction activities such as deep breathing, muscle relaxation, and visualization, to slow down and calm their rapid-fire thinking—or, as I call it, their A-to-Z thinking—and to focus on one thought at a time.
Emotional Self
We can help girls care for their emotions by encouraging them to express themselves. So many girls keep their feelings hidden and buried inside. We can teach them that their emotions can seem much worse and larger when kept on the inside, and convey to them the importance of sharing their inner worlds. Holding feelings inside can negatively influence girls’ physical health and well-being. We can encourage girls to explore their feelings with us. Often, when girls are given the safe space to do so, they feel unburdened and restored. If girls aren’t comfortable confiding in a trusted friend or family member, they might seek alternatives, such as writing in a journal, drawing or colouring, meditation, or yoga.
“Many of the most accomplished girls are disconnecting from the truest parts of themselves, sacrificing essential self-knowledge to the pressures of who they think they ought to be.” RACHEL SIMMONS
Girls need to learn that when they can identify their feelings and express themselves freely, they are caring for their needs and are much more likely to feel relieved, supported, and like they are not alone. It’s also important for girls to be able to match their emotional needs appropriately. By