5 self-care questions to ask yourself today.

It’s officially April! I thought what better way to kick off the month than by reflecting on my own goals, thoughts and feelings going forward. I have been feeling very uninspired of late, so instead of thinking of a whole topic to blog about I have decided to answer some important self-care questions that could help to shape this new month, and season in my life.

I found these questions when I was looking at self-care on pinterest. I can’t take credit for coming up with them, I can only take credit for my answers. The brain behind them is the lovely Anne over at Simplicity Avenue.

You can view her original post here.

Without further ado, here we go.

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5 Self-Care Questions to Ask Yourself Today

Question One: What emotions do you want to feel more of this season? Or less of?

I definitely want to feel more happiness day to day.

Although I am already feeling generally a lot happier than I have been for a while, most of my day is filled up with a feeling of being okay. Things aren’t necessarily bad, but they’re not good either.

In an ideal world I would wake up in the morning and feel positive, instead of dreading the whole day. I don’t know what it’s like to wake up and feel good. I just feel groggy, and anxious about what the day is going to bring, and it can take some time for this to subside so I can get on with my day.

I want more good, and less meh. And I am going to do my best this month to facilitate that.

Question Two: Who are a craving a deeper connection with right now?

In all honesty, myself.

I have struggled with my mental health since I was 13. That’s 13 years. I grew up depressed and anxious and have lived my entired adult life this way so far.

I don’t know who I am outside of my mental illness.

Now that things are starting to actually get better, I want to discover who I am. I am slowly learning what I enjoy, what I find interesting, and what I can and can’t do. I am learning my goals and aspirations all anew.

Throughout this new season of my life I am aiming to connect more with myself as a person, not a person struggling with depression and anxiety.

Question Three: What one regret do you want to make right this season?

This one is really tough, because there is a lot in my life that I do regret. Mainly things I regret NOT doing.

For now I regret not taking my time to figure out where my life was REALLY going. I had planned to eventually do some sort of masters degree so I could become a child and family counsellor, but I hadn’t looked seriously at how this would happen and what this would look like (or how much it would cost).

As a result it was put off for years, and I was stuck doing jobs that didn’t give me much fulfillment. It made me feel pretty shitty (for lack of better word) and I struggled with these jobs so much because they worsened my tiredness. I cut my hours down bit by bit, until I ended up where I currently am – working just 15 hours a week because that’s all I could manage.

But that’s not what I want anymore, which is why I’ve gone for a new full time job with actual career prospects. I want to make something of myself in a new role and feel like I’m working towards something.

I start in May, so I still have a few weeks of my current job to get done. I am hopeful though, that this is the move I need to make a good and positive change in my life.

Question Four: How do you want the people to around me to describe you this season?

Normal.

I know ‘normal’ is a completely subjective term. My normal is completely different to yours, and there’s nothing wrong with that.

For a long time, though, I have just wanted a typical life. A life that is NOT defined by my condition. I was to be able to tell people what I do without having to explain that I only work 15 hours a week and it’s because of my ME.

I want to just be Phiz, the girl who works with insurance, who keeps her house clean and writes and knits, and goes to church. Not Phiz who is tired because of her ME and struggles to get anything done.

I am getting there slowly. I’m never going to be completely separate from my condition, but I can stop letting it define me.

Question Five: What adventure, project or experience would make you feel totally, completely beyond excited about life?

Making progress on my book.

As I’ve said, I’ve been so uninspired recently and the one thing that has taken a massive hit has been my novel.

I have been trying to write about my life with ME and what it was like when I was first diagnosed. (Pretty ironic as I’ve just said I don’t want to be defined by my condition, but I do still want to write about it and raise awareness). I managed to get to chapter two and I’ve just become stuck.

I don’t know if I want to change the way it’s written, to turn it into a more diary like format, or continue with it as it is. I’ve just lost some steam with it and don’t know how to get it back.

I’m going to try and do some exercises to help with my writers block, and get more of a plan together so I come back to it and hopefully make some progress on it though. Because I really want this book to be written, and it would be a great achievement for me to finish it!

And there you go folks – 5 Self-Care questions to ask yourself today!

Feel free to try to answer these questions yourself – they’ve been so good for me to reflect on how I feel about my life right now. I’m sure your answers will be very different to mine!

What are your dreams and aspirations for the month ahead?

Want to hear more about my goals? Check out:

27 things to do before 27

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