A Little Bit More About Self Care

I wanted to take a moment and write a little bit more about this self care topic. I just wanted to share how I did self care before this time off.

After the bad week in October I made three major changes.

1. I joined a gym - and actually went to it
2. My husband and I started marriage counselling
3. I got very choosy on where I spent my time and worked less hours (except the week of the vote)

The gym: This was great because I was getting worried about my weight gain and I realized that I was getting exhausted early in the evening. Going to the gym has become a time just for me and to bring a book or music and just zone out on that while working out. I've really enjoyed my time at the gym. It was suggested to me that I ask the council to pay for my membership since it is self care. I asked 2 months ago. I don't think they will end up paying for it and I heard rumblings of there being some people that don't want to give me a severance package - which I need - so I'm nervous to push the topic. (There will be a post about the severance package a little later).

Marriage Counselling: After the bad week in October I was on the phone with one of the pastors that lead one of the meetings and he asked me how the congregation has been reacting. I said it was tough going. He asked if they started professional attacks on me yet. My response was that those kinds of attacks are old hat and I'm good at dealing with them. Then he asked if they started personal attacks and I said, "well, actually, this just happened this week." He talked to be a little bit about why it happened and my reaction to it and how I could react in the future. Then he told me that once they realize that personal attacks aren't hurting me anymore they will start attacking my family. This concerned me. My kids are young and I don't want their early memories of the church being a place full of hate. My husband and I already decided to have them attend Sunday School at another congregation and they were going to this other congregation for about a month, so the family actually wan't around much anymore but I got in "Mother Hen" mode even at the suggestion that the congregation might start attacking the family, and with my history with the congregation there was no reason not to believe it. So, I suggested to my husband that we start marriage counselling before this happens as a kind of prevention. We went for 4 or 5 sessions then the counselor suggested we come back for a few more sessions some time in May as we get near the closing of the congregation (and my husband's grad-school program comes to an end) and the stress gets high again.Doing this was really helpful. It made us realize that we are both at an okay place regarding the unhealthy nature of the congregation and we have to keep communication open between us and support each other in finding ways to relieve stress. (hence the gym membership)

Being choosy: It was also in these conversations were I realize I have been trying to make everyone happy but that would never happen. I was trying to write sermons that dealt with many of the concerns I heard during the week - and this took a long time to write the sermons. I was calling many of the members on a regular basis to make sure they knew what was going on only to have some of the conversations turn back on me. I was working many hours being away from home for the entire time. I was having conversations with neighboring clergy that had questions or concerns about the process and the vote. I was planning for two different futures of the congregation... I could go on. I had to stop and see what was the most important and just stop doing the other things.Once I gave myself permission this was actually pretty easy to do.

There might have been other small ways that I worked at my stress levels - but these are 3 major ones. I'm glad I realized that self care is a high priority before something blew up or I got sick or it started to effect my marriage.