Self-Care Guide - Finds.Life.Church

Self-Care Guide

by You’ve Heard It Said

By Michelle Garrett, MS, LMFT and Kay Gackle, MS, LMFT

How are you feeling right now? For many of us, stress is a feeling that we know and experience personally. We all have unique ways we respond to stress. When we’re aware of it, we can use it in a way that leads to growth.

This Self-Care Guide will help you identify seven areas of well-being that you can focus on to ensure you maintain a healthy life as you navigate different seasons.

Here’s how this works.

  1. Listen to episode 51, 7 Ways to Combat Stress, on the You’ve Heard It Said podcast.
  2. Pray and ask God to reveal one area of well-being that He wants you to focus on.
  3. Click on it below to learn more, and find ways to start strengthening that part of your life today.

Learn more about each area of well-being.

Relationship With God

A strong relationship with God is the foundation for our lives. Just like any other relationship in our life, this is going to look unique and special for you. However, there are still key habits and routines that can help you thrive in this area of well-being.

Rest

Rest is more than a nap and Netflix. There’s a biological reason for rest. There is a natural way that our stress hormones reset through restful activities. When we experience prolonged seasons of stress without rest, these hormones aren’t able to reset properly and we risk burning out. Plus, when we don’t rest, our energy levels are impacted, which then affect our other areas of well-being.

Relationships With Others

Relationships with others are crucial in every season of life. When you’re in stressful or overwhelming seasons, these people will walk with you, sit with you, and support you. It’s important to have relationships that are transparent, authentic, and mutually satisfying.

Physical Well-Being

Taking care of our physical health is important to our overall health and well-being. These habits encompass areas like getting enough quality sleep, moving your body, staying hydrated, and eating nutritious foods.

Finances

Our finances are a daily part of our lives, and they’re not going away. This can be a huge source of stress for many people, but it doesn’t have to be. Creating a budget, regularly checking your bank accounts, and finding ways to be intentionally generous can help us to have a healthy relationship with our finances.

Emotional Well-Being

Internal and external stressors impact our ability to process emotions and feelings in a healthy and proactive way. Learning and exercising your brain in areas that interest you and generally stretching your thinking can help you to stay healthy in this area of well-being.

Professional Well-Being

All of our professional lives look different. Regardless of the work you do, it’s important to gauge how well you’re doing in your role. We all have our own pace at which we work, and noticing when our personal tendencies begin trending downward is crucial to this area of well-being.

Did you pick an area to focus on?

If you aren’t sure which area you need to focus on—or if you have multiple that could use attention—think about the first area that usually breaks down when you’re under stress. Start with that area, because if you can identify and acknowledge the impact of stress in that moment, it will be easier to prevent your stress from snowballing into other areas, too.