The 3 Stages of Self Care

Welcome to the Overcoming Sexual Abuse podcast where you get the tools and inspiration to help you overcome childhood sexual abuse. I’m your host Christina Enevoldsen, certified coach, author, and incest survivor, and I’m here to help you heal and live your very best life. 

If you’re a survivor of abuse and neglect, chances are you’ve developed habits and a lifestyle that perpetuates mistreatment. Based on the 3 Stages of Self Care, I’ll help you identify what stage you’re in and the top needs and strategies to support you. You’ll be empowered to reverse unloving patterns and create a life where you’re well cared for. 

I had a lot of shame around self care. I was already full of shame and I didn’t know that it was from the abuse and neglect, so I just thought I was unworthy and undeserving. And of course, that then impacted the way I treated myself, because I didn’t think I deserved better. And then I was ashamed of the way that I neglected myself. 

My self care was so bad that I used to watch, okay, this is embarrassing to me, but I used to watch Keeping Up with the Kardashians when it first came out as this model for how to take better care of myself. And believe it or not, that was an improvement. It makes me really sad to remember how much shame that I heaped on top of my already shame and just simply for treating myself the way that my parents treated me and the way that they modeled love and self care and self respect. 

And I learned the lessons so well of treating myself as though my needs and desires are selfish, and believing that the fewer needs I had, the more acceptable I was. And feeling like a burden and a bother, even to myself. And then focusing on others and their needs and their desires, that became more important than mine. 

And not only that, but I didn’t know what self care actually was because self care as a child meant comfort and that’s because there was no changing the abuse. There was no stopping the violations. There was no getting my parents to love me. If I’d been an adult in that same situation, then self care would have meant leaving that relationship. And as a child, that just wasn’t an option. So then comfort was the only self care option that I had, and that led to, even as an adult, I was drawn toward comfort over actually taking care of myself, over actually changing my situation. And I struggled through all of that for most of my adult life until my healing process. 

And now I have found the keys to self care including the three distinct stages of self care and each stage has its own characteristics and it has its own strategies for getting to the next stage and only by working one stage at a time allows you to narrow your focus enough so that you can actually be successful no matter what stage you’re in. So, as we go through this and you identify your starting place, just notice if you have any sense of shame, because shame stops your growth, shame keeps you small. 

And if you were raised in dysfunction and abuse and neglect, you learn to relate to yourself and others in very dysfunctional ways. You learned dysfunctional ways to care for yourself. And there’s nothing wrong with you if you haven’t learned healthy self care. You just weren’t given the right environment to bloom. So don’t blame yourself. The important thing now is you’re now creating the right environment for yourself to bloom. So whenever you feel shame, the antidote is compassion. And remember and connect with that little child in you who had to make the best of things, who had to make sense of the mistreatment and the abandonment, who was all alone and had to try to get to the next day the best that she could. So don’t beat that part of you down. Don’t beat that part of you up even more with those shaming messages. Just bring her compassion. 

All right, so let’s get into the three stages, and you can think of them as caring for your past, your present, and your future self. And as you identify what stage you’re in, look for the stage that most describes you, where you have the majority of the characteristics, even if there are one or two areas in your life at a different stage. For example, you might find yourself mostly in stage two, but in your finances, you’re actually in stage three. So then follow the strategies for stage two. 

All right. So the first one, stage one is seed stage. And this is caring for your past self. This is in a way, you can think of this as making up for the decisions and actions that you’ve made in the past or the ways that others mistreated you in the past and this is very much survival mode and so coping is a big part of it. 

Another part of it is that you’re likely, if you’re in the stage, spending a significant amount of time with a nervous system in a dysregulated state in the fight or flight, freeze or fawn state. 

And using time and energy, just trying to keep up. So you might be very reactionary versus being proactive. So tasks tend to be last minute, which then significantly then adds to your stress. And you also, just because you don’t have the capacity for anything else, you might depend on quick fixes that only address immediate problems, but you don’t have the capacity or resources to solve for longer term solutions. So only focusing on the short term perpetuates the problem and keeps you in this stage. An example of this is when your roof needs to be replaced but you can only make repairs as you experience leaks. 

And so in this stage, you might be feeling like nobody understands how difficult this is for you. You might feel unsupported and alone. It might trigger feelings of abandonment, and you might feel hopeless and powerless, and you might even feel depressed. You might feel angry or resentful for not having the help you need, and you might worry how long you can keep this up. In the financial area of your life, maybe you’re working paycheck to paycheck and you’re not really keeping up very well. Maybe you’re living on credit cards and just trying to pay the interest on loans. 

Physically, you might feel exhausted. Maybe your health isn’t getting any better. Maybe it’s getting a little bit worse. Maybe you’re gaining weight and in your home and work environment you might feel disorganized. It might even feel chaotic. Maybe you can’t find things that you need and that just adds to your stress. 

And another area that I’ve heard a lot, so this is an area that tends to bring a lot of shame but I hear this so often from survivors and really there’s nothing to feel ashamed about and that’s poor hygiene and that is rooted in childhood neglect and you know, just maybe you weren’t taught how to care for yourself and a lot of survivors share that that they don’t always brush their teeth or they neglect other self care routines. And this can also be about just so much of your capacity going toward just keeping up and feeling like it being too much just to add one more thing. 

And this is another example of how this first stage is so prone to dysregulation because it’s things like not having the capacity for daily maintenance that leads to emergencies and major crises down the road. And that just adds to the stress because if self care feels like too much in small things then what happens when big things are required? 

And in this stage, it’s common to have poor boundaries with yourself. You make promises to yourself or you commit to something and then you don’t follow through. And this is not at all about being lazy or being undisciplined. This is about dysregulation, keeping you physiologically just wired and primed to only focus on the here and now, what’s right in front of you. And you might have listened to episode 32 leaning into discomfort to create your new life. And I share the two types of comfort. You can have short-term comfort of using coping methods and avoiding pain, or you can have long-term comfort when you take care of the hard things now. But when you’re so dysregulated, you’re not chemically prepared. You’re not chemically supported to consider long-term. It’s just about right now. And so there’s no good reason not to just eat, drink, and be merry for tomorrow we may die. 

Now from a relational standpoint when you’re in the stage, you’re also likely to have poor boundaries with other people. And again, it’s about what’s comfortable and easy right now because that’s what you have the capacity for. You might say yes to things that you don’t want to do. So someone may ask you to do something on Saturday, but hey, it’s only Monday and it feels uncomfortable today to turn them down. So you push that discomfort onto Saturday’s version of you. And then you get to Saturday and then you still don’t want to do that thing and it’s uncomfortable to be honest, so you lie to try to soften it, and you’re not considering how the lie ultimately has a bigger impact on the relationship than if you’ve just told the truth in the first place. But that doesn’t matter because future you will deal with that. And so there’s a lot of racking up consequences for the future version of you, and that’s a really hard place to live. 

And so the strategy for this, and yes, there’s a strategy, you know, that sounds really, really stressful. And I know because I’ve lived there. And the strategy for that, the number one thing, again, going back to compassion, is especially when you feel shame or discouragement or anxiety, depression, when you feel disempowered, offer yourself compassion, because you did not get here by yourself. You were taught to live like this. You learned it, and so that means you can learn a different way of being as well. So, start with compassion. 

And next, start to regulate your nervous system when you notice you’re stressed or overwhelmed. Bring yourself back to a calm state. And by the way, self-compassion does help you do that. It’s very regulating. A regulated nervous system is absolutely vital to change and growth. It’s the only state where you can learn and grow and heal and evolve. When you’re dysregulated, the executive functioning part of your brain, the part that imagines and plans and can think about the future and think creatively. That’s offline. That’s not available to you. And that part, the executive functioning, your prefrontal cortex is vital for moving toward possibility and future thinking. And when you’re dysregulated, you’re just focused on surviving the short-term, this moment right now, what’s right in front of you. So you’re not positioned to do things that will get you to the next stage in self-care and life and things like delayed things like delayed gratification, choosing short-term discomfort for long-term comfort.

Now to move toward spending more time regulated, before you even get out of bed in the morning, do some self-soothing exercises like deep breathing and then practice noticing when you’re getting dysregulated throughout the day and bring yourself back to a calm state. And now don’t try to rush this. Give yourself time to acclimate to the feeling of calm because since it’s unfamiliar, it’s going to feel uncomfortable at first. Being regulated might feel empty or boring because the chaos was your own kind of order. You knew what to expect there. So pay attention to the discomfort that you might feel when you’re calm and assure yourself that it’s just simply unfamiliar, it’s not dangerous, it’s not threatening. And then practice spending more and more time in a regulated state, though, so that becomes your new normal. 

All right, the next part of this strategy is that you need a quick win. You need something small you can achieve or attain to show yourself that you are empowered to change your life and to fuel your own life. And so you need a quick win to start to turn things around and start to create momentum in a positive direction. Don’t even think long-term here. Just get one more hour of sleep tonight. Don’t worry about doing it every night. Just focus on tonight. Eat one healthy meal. Don’t try to eat perfectly all day. Because one healthy meal starts to fuel the life that you want. And don’t clean your whole house, just wipe down your bathroom mirror and then face smaller chunks of time–one hour instead of one day at a time. 

Now it’s going to take time to learn new habits and to think differently, but slowly you’ll be able to build on your successes. Just start with that quick win. 

All right, the next part of this is to get outside support. Who’s overcome the challenges you’re facing? And this is so important whenever you make a change. Get support from someone who’s ahead of you in the journey. So in this case, it would be someone in stage two. The idea is someone in your life that you know who can offer you empathy and encouragement and maybe some wisdom. But if you don’t have that, then you can also use social media, you can use YouTube, you can use books. So find out about other people’s journeys and glean from their experience, learn from their wisdom and be inspired by them and encouraged by them, both by their mistakes and their successes. 

All right, if that’s you and you’re feeling stressed just hearing about all that, just take a deep breath and know this is totally doable. 

All right, stage two is the bud stage. So this is about caring for your present self, keeping up the status quo. And it looks like you have enough and you do enough to have some stability in your life. You manage your day to day, but you struggle with maintaining order and success across all areas of your life. So when you focus on one area, you do well there, but then another one tends to suffer. It’s kind of a game of Whack-a-mole. And in your living and working spaces, it might look like one space being organized and well-maintained while another space is chaotic. 

And financially you might be keeping up and you might have little savings but you’re just not prepared for a serious crisis. And you might have started to establish healthy boundaries and might feel good in several relationships. Good for you. And yet you still struggle with some people or in some situations. On some days you might feel like you’re doing fairly well. And other days you might feel like your life could just fall apart if you just took your attention or effort away just for a minute. And you might feel fine unless something unexpected happens, and then it sends you into a crisis. 

You might have a desire or a dream of getting ahead, but you either don’t have an actionable plan or you haven’t implemented the plan. 

So the strategy here in this stage is to, number one, focus on your progress. Think progress over perfection. As long as you’re heading in the right direction overall, that’s a win. So take the win. You head in the direction you’re focused on, so keep your attention on where you are successful. And then celebrate that success. Celebrate the gap from where you used to be to where you are now. Focus on what you do want. Focus on what you are doing well, rather than on what you don’t want and what you’re not doing well. 

And then the second thing to keep in mind is just like stage one, your nervous system is really important to keep regulated to affect this growth and change that you want to do. 

The third thing is to add margin in your life. So plan more time in your schedule between tasks. Put more savings aside when it comes to money, and take care of yourself first and then work or then give. 

Now, this is a mistake that I used to make. I wouldn’t plan any time for myself and then I’d get worn out and I couldn’t work or give. I just completely depleted myself. And so I’d rest just enough to get back to limping along instead of investing the little capacity that I had into myself, then I’d run out again doing for others. And I repeated that cycle for a long time. I just couldn’t get ahead until I started investing in myself first. And now that’s a major boundary I have for myself that I only give out of my abundance and my abundance only comes from filling myself up first. 

So when you add margin, it does a couple of things. One, it helps you stay regulated because everything isn’t an emergency. And then two, it helps you focus on more abundance. Because if you’re in this stage, and so I’m going to use a metaphor, but think about this. I’m going to use a metaphor about money, but think about this as more than about money. Think about this as every area of your life. So, maybe you’re coming out of this stage in your finances and you’re paying off debt and that’s great. But if your goal is to pay off debt, then your goal is zero. If you’ve been operating at a deficit and getting to zero is an improvement, so that’s great. But if you’re not careful, you can stay focused on that zero. And then what can happen is if you pay off your debt, but your goal is still zero, you just get into more debt so you can keep heading towards zero. 

And so adding margin is the beginning of thinking outside of that. The same principle applies to all of your resources in your life. So instead of zeroing out in your patience or your energy or your time, create margin to stay calm and to fill yourself up and to think and feel from a place of abundance. As you do that, you’ll need to shift beliefs about zeroing out and only filling up when you’re depleted. 

If you struggle with that, you might need to look at your beliefs about when you’re allowed to give to yourself and how much you’re allowed to give to yourself. 

So to create more margin in your life, to create space for what you truly want and need, you’ll need to do some purging. And that’s because chances are there’s a lot of clutter in your life. And I define clutter as things that don’t contribute to your life. They take up physical space or mental or emotional space and they cost you but they don’t contribute. So clothes that don’t fit you are an example of clutter. They take up physical space but they don’t do you any good. In fact, they can take up mental space and emotional space too because they cost you mental and emotional energy if you feel bad about yourself when you look at them or maybe they cost you in time and energy when you have to wade past them just to get dressed. Potato chips are another example of clutter. They take up space in your stomach or pantry, and they just don’t contribute to your health. They fill you up with empty calories, but then you don’t have an appetite for food that will actually fuel your life. So, what commitments do you have in your life that are clutter? Maybe it wasn’t always clutter to you. Maybe the commitment served a purpose at one time. Maybe it got you out of the house. Maybe it introduced you to new people. Maybe you were interested at one time. 

Maybe though, it was always clutter. For whatever reason, it’s just not contributing to your life right now or not contributing enough compared to the effort that it takes, the time, the money, the other resources that it takes that it’s costing you. 

And what about the relationships in your life that are clutter. The people that you used to be close to, but if you’re honest, you only keep them in your life because you feel bad for letting them go. Maybe it’s a relationship dependent on a past version of you. Maybe it was from your over-drinking days or your people-pleasing days, and they don’t know how to relate to you anymore. So who in your life is just simply at this stage of mismatch. Who costs you a lot of energy? Who drains you? 

And when you eliminate the clutter from your life, you have so much more margin. It increases your capacity for what you really want, for what really fits you, for who you really wanna be. So take inventory of what in your life serves you, serves you now and for your future and what doesn’t. And don’t try to keep more than you have space for. And when you declutter, you get more time and more space and more peace in your life. 

All right, the next stage, the third stage is the bloom stage. And this is about caring, not just for your present self, but your future self too. You’re providing provisions for yourself in the future. You’re sending supplies ahead. You’re making it easier for the future version of you. And you are generally very well regulated. And when you get dysregulated, you come back to a regulated state quickly. At this stage, you know your unique needs and you consistently meet them. Even when you miscalculate your needs, you know how to get back on track quickly. You don’t spend time criticizing yourself or shaming yourself, you just make the necessary changes. And you know how you work best, you know your capacity and are working to increase it a little at a time. 

So at this stage, the strategy for it is to, one, acknowledge and celebrate the progress that you’ve made, and also don’t lose sight of the opportunity. So stay intentional about maintaining a growth path, knowing that whatever isn’t growing is dying. 

And that means two main areas: both self-growth and in your relationships. So in the area of self-growth, it means not being dependent on external circumstances to be okay for you to be okay, because security does not come from external resources. It comes from being internally resourced. It means growing in trust and trustworthiness that you’ll make wise decisions that serve you in the future. It means knowing that if you lost everything you own, that you’d be able to rebuild because it was never about those things. They’re simply an outward reflection of what’s actually in you. 

And then the second part of that is relationships. So strengthen your relationships. Don’t use your resources as a way to insulate you from others. Being well-resourced isn’t about never needing anything from other people. We are not meant to do it all by ourselves. That’s not the goal of healing. Healthy relationships are not dependent or independent. They’re interdependent and it’s living in a way that acknowledges I need you and you need me. And I’m responsible for my needs and you’re responsible for your needs, but we support each other. So let yourself feel both the vulnerability of that and also the joy of that. 

And with that in mind, you can grow exponentially when you give and share with others out of your abundance. So find a way to pass on what you’ve gained. Find others who need a mentor or help in some other way. And they’re working toward growth. So there’s a satisfaction in knowing that you’re helping them. So that’s an added bonus as well. 

So the corresponding part of that is to be intentional about asking for support. Open yourself to being in the receiving role. Who has the expertise or the experience where you’re lacking? When you’re going through a tough time emotionally, who do you ask for to be there for you? So let others feed you physically and emotionally and mentally and spiritually. Give people the pleasure of helping you. 

So these are the three stages of self-care. Do you recognize yourself? No matter where you are, your journey begins where you are today, and you can start to make small changes starting now. Just these manageable steps. 

Thanks for joining me today. I have some great topics coming up. I’m bringing you more on healing and boundaries and self care and family dysfunction and so much more, so be sure you’re subscribed so you don’t miss any of it.