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The Process of Self Care for a Peer Recovery Specialist

Be professional! Know it all! Have it all together! Work smart! Nevermind, work harder!!! Sounds familiar? These are just a couple of the ideas/thoughts/spoken words we experience as working professionals, regardless of what industry/field we work in day-to-day.

One of the mantras we often don’t hear is “self-care is the best care”. I share this one all the time. Katie Reed put it this way, “Self-care is giving the world the best of you, instead of what’s left of you.” Poignant. Deep and wide. True!

It’s a shame, quite honestly, that we have to do self-care. Why do I say that? Because I don’t like doing it. I’d much rather follow my passions and dreams, hang with family and friends, or just take a nap (a non-self-care nap, I might add) then spend time journaling my feelings or talking to a counselor about my childhood angst, if I ever had any. Wait, Generation X here. That’s affirmative.

But, what I have come to learn is that self-care, for me, is non-negotiable and I would posit that it is non-negotiable for you, first and foremost as a person, and secondly and germane to this topic, as a Peer Recovery Specialist. If you talk to anyone who’s been in this field long enough, they will tell you stories of the benefits of “preventative burnout” via self-care. It’s unavoidable.

And the process of self-care is very simple: it’s taking an honest look at what your life is like now vs. what you want it to look like in the future and then making adjustments to go from one place to the other. If you are currently not good at self-care, be assured that this is not about judgment, condemnation, ridicule or being a failure. This is about recognizing a part of us that doesn’t serve us anymore.

So, if you would, take a moment and join me in the following exercise. I’d like you to say the phrase, “stop resisting!” out loud, even if you don’t mean it, believe it or embrace it. Part of resisting is fighting against what we don’t want to accept. This is a great opportunity to take off your boxing gloves, so to speak. Here we go!

“STOP RESISTING! Say it again. STOP RESISTING! And again. STOP RESISTING! And one more time. STOP RESISTING! And then one more for good measure. STOP RESISTING!”

The point is it’s an opportunity for each of us to speak deeply and powerfully to that part of us, which we all have, that resists change and self-care. And it’s OK. We can learn to make friends with it, help pack its bags, and send it to greener pastures.

Believe it or not, that part that resists change did/does so trying to protect us from pain. The pain of risking ridicule going to the gym. The pain of having that tough conversation we’ve been avoiding for a year (been there, done that). Its function was/is to protect us from being hurt, which ironically, is what self-care is all about, to keep ourselves mentally, physically, emotionally, and spiritually* safe.

So, I’m going to leave this here to get you started because as Rod Stewart aptly sang, “every picture tells a story.”

If you have questions and would like to explore different avenues of self-care but don’t know where to start, shoot me an email at chris.newcomb@mhav.org and I will do my best to connect you with people and/or resources to support your self-care the best I can! You can start by joining our Facebook group. Just search “Virginia PRS Network” and you will see it.

*Spirituality is a very broad term. In this case, at bare minimum, it is meant to describe the process of adhering to a higher principle that can change your life for the better. It does not require specific religious beliefs. That is/was the author’s intent.