The Importance of Self-Care and Keeping Your Resilience Cup Full

By Kathleen Harnish McKune

When I first heard “Take time for self-care,” I immediately thought, “Seriously, have you seen my schedule? Do you have any idea of the responsibilities I carry?” The idea of self-care has been preached for years – especially to women – from legitimate medical sources to unrealistic (and sometimes harmful) wellness marketing. And while most everyone recognizes its importance; it can feel more like an unjustifiable luxury than a necessity.

Researchers have identified that self-care is a complex issue, with challenges that lead to significant gaps in our own care, which can lead to stress, burnout, and even chronic health conditions. I experienced this for myself in November 2021, a time which I now call my “turning point moment” around self-care. Four significant personal traumatic events occurred between March and October 2021. During that time, I lost my mother and my business partner of 30 years, who in every way was the father I never had. My son was hospitalized for a new severe chronic condition, and I was the sole witness to an out-of-town accident resulting in my husband’s traumatic brain injury.

All these traumatic events required my attention, my care, my energy, and my resilience while negatively impacting our economic situation. I had to manage all of this while still working full-time to keep things in balance. I gave and gave, cared and cared, and then for the first time in my 60-year journey, I fell over.

What did “falling over” look like and feel like for me? I could not see a way forward. I could not see how I could continue to just “pick it up and get things done.” I was completely exhausted. I considered ending my life – built the plan, started moving it into action – and then reached out. My sister, my business partner’s wife, and two colleagues read between the lines of my texts and within hours were at my doorstep. My sister, Karen, held me in her arms. The others talked me off the edge and encouraged me to re-engage in therapy. They were able to voice to me that while these events affected my loved ones, I was also affected; deeply affected, although my injuries were not visible. One colleague helped me to see that for the first time that I could identify, I had completely depleted my resilience cup. A lightbulb moment.

When I think of this traumatic time, I understand that it was family, friends, and colleagues who picked me up. It was the neuroscience of trauma, the science that informs so much of what we do with TeamTech and Remarkably Resilient, that reminded me of the importance of self-care.

The reality of doing self-care for me, and for so many other people, is a balancing act. I’m an entrepreneur. I must bill, I must innovate to keep the economic balance in our lives. Therefore, being responsive to clients and constantly innovating are still top priorities, but self-care is worked in among them.

I schedule self-care like I would schedule a meeting, and my husband and I have found ways to make it more accessible. My workouts are done most mornings in the basement where we installed a treadmill and weight-lifting equipment. My pup dog needs walks so I often schedule those with girlfriends so we can talk and laugh together. Massages are a monthly 6 p.m. appointment, and my husband joins me for long work trips so that we have evenings and weekends together. I love to dance, but my husband cannot do that anymore, so I talked two girlfriends into buying cowboy boots and joining me periodically for line dancing.

All of these are self-care for me and are built into my monthly calendar and rearranged when necessary to accommodate my business. Viewing self-care and my other responsibilities as a balancing act has been the key for me.

It’s important to remember that self-care looks differently to everyone, and it doesn’t have to be costly, time consuming, or difficult. It just needs to be meaningful and consistent.

Many of you already know that my sisters and I wrote our story of resilience in our book, Remarkably Resilient: Community Matters.

We have now taken the insights about resilience that were informed by the neuroscience of trauma from our book and added in the evidence-based practices of journaling and self-reflection to create Remarkably Resilient Together™ – a community-awareness campaign using two decks of cards and a personal reflective journey to teach resilience through regulation, self-care, and relationship-building techniques.

If you struggle with making time for self-care like I did before November 2021, my hope is you will take to heart this bit of wisdom: For you to be there for others requires you first be there for yourself.

Perhaps step back and think about this bit of wisdom in your own life’s experience to see if you have found it to be true. If you have, carve out time in your daily and weekly schedule that you set aside for doing things that care for you – whatever that may be. You and your relationships will be better for it.

Excerpts of this blog are included in the Remarkably Resilient Together Reflective Journal, a companion piece to the Remarkably Resilient Together card decks mentioned above. Remarkably Resilient Together materials are now available from our non-profit partner organizations at https://teamtechinc.com/remarkably-resilient-together

Remarkably Resilient: Community Matters is available on Amazon