Most of us know that self-care is important, but what is self-care beyond taking 5-minutes at the end of the day or a trip to the nail salon? I asked Intuitive Spiritual Life Coach and National Bestselling Author Ulrika Sullivan why self-care is important and what we can do to begin reaping the benefits.

Website: https://ulrikasullivan.com/the-book 

Podcast: https://ulrikasullivan.com/podcast

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ulrikasullivan/ 

In your book, you mention that self-care can help us on the inner journey to becoming more heart-centred. Can you explain why?

Ulrika: Yes, I believe that there's so much more to self-care than getting your nails done or the things for our external appearance. There's self-care in our inner world.

Many women experience this, where they do all of these things and then put themselves at the very bottom of the ladder. That was the case for me, I had all these things I had to do every day, taking care of the kids, and in the evening, I would take five minutes.

I usually picture a mountain, and we have to allow ourselves to sit at the top of the mountain of our own lives. That's when we can connect with our essence and intuition to the unseen. 

If we operate from the energy of, “okay, I'm going to have to do all of these things first, and then I'm going to look after myself,” we never get to this connection with the wider, broader energy that's around us, and listening to our true essence and intuition. Self-care has to do with making space for yourself and your own life. 

I know how hard it is for women to admit they need space; I had three young kids at the time, and it was a hard decision I had to make. It's about setting boundaries even if everyone wants something from you. This is not a once-a-week thing; it's not something you do when an opening appears. It’s a commitment to a different lifestyle, for example, a different way of starting your morning and a different perspective on approaching your day. 

For someone like me who struggles to find that time, maybe putting it in the calendar here and there, as you mentioned? Do you have any tips or suggestions to start taking those baby steps?

Ulrika: It's not always easy to do it yourself because it takes a clear commitment to yourself, which can be difficult to navigate. The advice I give is to start very small because we often have big plans for how our life will change.

But, in the little daily nuances, you can change and shift this energy of busyness to listening to yourself. For me, it started with my mornings. Way back then, I had my phone on my night nightstand, my to-do list with like ten things, and maybe three things I've already added throughout the night that popped up. When the alarm rang, I ran up to the bathroom, took a shower quickly, ran down for coffee, then was out in the car and drove an hour to work.

I started by telling my family I needed 15 minutes of space in the morning, and I wasn’t going to set the alarm anymore. I committed to staying up in my bed and meditating every morning for five minutes. That was the start of putting myself on the top of my own mountain, and from there, it just grew because my entire morning shifted in terms of the energy that I brought to myself and the rest of the day to my family.

A commitment like that can change so much in your life, but it has to start realistically. What is doable here and now? And more importantly, how can you get to that commitment? 

What comes with all of this is self-awareness is to allow space to learn more about yourself. The difference often between someone who evolves and someone who does not evolve is curiosity about ourselves and asking those questions instead of seeing everything outside us as wrong.

To watch my interview with Ulrika Sullivan and hear more about using self-care to find yourself amidst the chaos, watch the video below. 

- Hey Mickey Anderson