The Nephelai, my self-care strategies, follow me from the Green Zone right through to the end of the Green Journey. They also follow me through the Blue Zone and the Blue Journey.
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| Elektra (Light thru Mist) - habit trackers. Image: Arthur Rackham, Rainbow Goddess. |
Electra is one of my 10 self-care strategies. I have made some habit trackers to get me into the habit of doing my self-care every day.
I have a rainbow tracker to remind me to take my meds/supplements, to eat, and to drink water. I also track my water on an app that gives me fish in an aquarium if I drink my water, lol.
To motivate myself to go outside, to walk and to do my exercises, I have started to do a virtual Camino walk through Portugal. I track my km on a blog here. I'm at 6 km right now.
I have printed off two trackers - one with leaves and one with trees - to motivate me to make connections. My kids are the leaves - I NEED to make time for them. My friends are the trees, the forest I need around me. This also is me helping others - me supporting them.
I've been trying to think of ways to connect. My list so far is this: dinners together (and cleaning up after), texting, sending IG memes, phonecalls, goodnight foot rubs, holidays together, holiday traditions, birthday dinners/cakes/gifts, nameday cakes, fun times together (cards, movies), grocery shopping/errands together, ADHD sibling talks, post-secondary school talks/support, cooking together (making pasta, cheese, etc.), connecting on interests. Most of these can apply to friends as well as my kids. All of the ideas rely on action and making the time - two things I am good at avoiding. This time when I say I have to make it a priority, I really need to. I'm hoping the tracker will get me over the avoidance, if not then I will have to come up with a specific strategy to deal with the fear that is holding me back.
I have a sleep/pain tracker with bubbles that I will start using. I'm also adding a nightly relaxation practice to this so that I practice before I'm in crisis. I'm not too worried about sleep right now, but I am needing to note how often I can't fall asleep and why. Often I have pain, or just am so restless I can't stop twitching/moving. Or I can't breathe properly.
And I don't need a magical hobby tracker right now since making projects is one of them and I am ALWAYS working on projects such as this Goddess Project, and Meals from Around the World (we are doing Portugal at the moment), and Eat Local (which starts in January).
I am hoping that these trackers will get the habits solidified, and then I won't need to track so consistently. I will feel better when I do these things so it's worth the risk of getting too obsessed with the trackers. And hopefully, I will not get lazy and stop doing them - I suppose that is one of my signs.
