Taking Care of You
Now that we have started work on our foundation of self compassion, let’s work on nourishing it. In this post you are going to figure out how to take care of yourself. Now I will first address the Elephant. I know the field we work in. I know not every early childhood educator's work situation supports the educator in ways that it should. But I have a secret; there are steps you can take to take care of yourself regardless of what your hourly rate is or whether you get benefits through your work or not. These steps will take some work but remember what we talked about in the last blog post, inactivity is easy for you. It is innately easy for you to sit back and take the wage you earn or the benefits you don't have and let yourself feel run down or angry because of it. These steps will help you change that and help take the pressure off of just getting what you get.
Step 1: Get a Financial Advisor
Whatever stage you are in this career, whatever financial goals you have in your personal life I guarantee more money could help you right? You have a bank right? Did you know there are people at that bank that can help you and advise you with little to no extra cost to you? Banks in Canada like TD, BMO and RBC all have Financial Advisors on their staff that are dedicated to you. All you have to do is book an appointment. Dun dunn dun…appointment?! Don’t worry most banks today are open for appointments on evenings, weekends and even have virtual or over the phone options. So no need to book time off. Why is a financial advisor the first step in taking care of yourself? Well because they can help you get the most out of the money you currently receive, educate you on how to invest that money, help it grow and advise you on ways to set up a future for yourself through rrsp’s and more. This first step will inevitably take a lot of stress off of your regular paycheck and put money back into your pockets.
Step 2: Get Your Own Benefits
If you have benefits through work no need to follow this step. If you do not have benefits, read on. When a place of work offers benefits that support a workers life needs there is usually a percentage of your wage being paid towards the insurance or you are simply signing up for an insurance plan under your boss’s name. So the solution if you don’t have this through work would be to get your own. Start by doing your research. Do you have a common law spouse or marital partner? Do they have a plan through work you can be covered under? Or do you need to find a plan to cover both of you? What kind of insurance do you need? Health, dental or life (If you can manage it I suggest all three). On a side note you may not think you need health insurance because of OHIP or coverage through your provincial health card but it is actually very helpful. It can aid you in paying for prescriptions and medical expenses that are left out of provincial coverage so don’t be so quick to cut it away. It can also be used towards mental health expenses. Basically I want you to do your research, there are a lot of plans out there and a lot of companies out there that offer a wide range of insurance and it's likely you can use the same company that you may already use for car or house insurance. Find what works for you and suits your life. Bottom line is this is an important address before we go to the next step.
Step 3: Take Care Of Yourself
Are you prioritizing your health? If you aren’t feeling 100% how do you expect yourself to want to put 100% percent into your work? Can you honestly say that in a full day of work with the kiddos that you were on the whole time or were there moments you were tired or felt burnt out. Is that cold or gastro bug going around? When was the last time you booked a doctors appointment to get yourself checked out? Or a dentist appointment? Or a therapy session? Chiropractor? Masseuse? Bloodwork? Now is the time to start. Taking care of yourself is another tier of that self compassion we talked about in the last post. You should never feel guilty for needing to book a doctors appointment and needing to take a couple hours away from the day or a full day to do it. Book the appointment, get the bloodwork, take the time to make yourself feel as good as you want to feel. When you start prioritizing your health and wellbeing you will notice a difference in your overall demeanor and others will too. And you will have a better understanding of the wellbeing you are trying to foster at work for the children too.
Step 4: Do Something For You
Now even with all of this new support that you have found there will still be times that you feel worn out and need refreshing. My advice to you is to find something like a ritual, a meditation, a self care routine that refreshes you and do it as often as necessary or as available. Some people need the refresh after a day of work to separate and disassociate themselves from the work day and reset to home life. Some need something to ward off the morning anxiety before starting the work day. Some need it so help them get out of bed and start their day in the morning. Maybe you need something on Sunday nights to reset yourself before starting another week. Or you are feeling anxious in the lead up to returning to work after some time off. We will dive into this more in later posts but for now just start thinking about some ways you refresh yourself. Face masks, a face washing routine, an afterwork shower, a tasty breakfast to look forward to in the morning, Sunday night yoga or a rage room (look it up). Find what refreshes you and have fun with it.
At the very least I hope that after reading these steps that I made you think of something new. A small spark can start an explosion. Maybe now you have a little bit of a different perspective about how deeply your work can affect you. If you are not nurturing yourself because of your situation at work then it's time to reevaluate, research and reframe your thoughts surrounding what you need and what you have. If you don’t have what you need then you need to get it and these steps are a good way to start.
