Why You Should Practice All Eight Domains of Self Care

Today, we’re diving into a topic that’s close to my heart: self-care. But this isn’t about bubble baths and spa days—we’re redefining what self-care really means.

In this episode, we explore why self-care can be so difficult for women to prioritize and break it down into eight essential domains that go far beyond the surface. We’ll look at how societal expectations, invisible labor, and internalized guilt create barriers to self-care, and we’ll provide actionable steps to reclaim your well-being.

Here’s what we cover:

• Why self-care has been reduced to a buzzword and how to redefine it in a meaningful way.
• The eight domains of self-care—physical, psychological, spiritual, emotional, personal, professional, social, and financial—and how they interconnect to help you thrive.
• Practical tips for addressing neglected areas of self-care, from building better habits to setting boundaries and tackling invisible labor.
• Resources to empower your journey, including books, worksheets, and tools to help you take control of your self-care.

Links to Resources Mentioned in This Episode:

1. Book: Fair Play by Eve Rodsky – Learn about invisible labor and how to share the mental load.
2. Worksheets: Negative self-talk reframing guides and emotions wheel.
3. Book: Financial Feminist by Tori Dunlap – Build your financial literacy and independence.
4. Podcast Episode: Tori Dunlap on how money buys happiness.
5. Her Time Therapy Services: Learn about our affordable, accessible care options, including sliding scale services, Medicaid, and Medicare.
6. Domestic Violence Resources: Support for leaving abusive relationships safely and identifying relationship red flags.
7. Relationship Flags: Identify red flags and green flags in relationships. (Another resource HERE).

✨ Takeaway Message: Self-care is not selfish—it’s essential. Think of the eight domains as parts of a wheel. If one goes flat, the ride becomes bumpy. If several go flat, the wheel stops turning. Let’s focus on filling your wheel so you can thrive, not just survive.

🎙️ Tune in now on your favorite podcast platform!
💬 Share your thoughts and self-care wins using #HerTimeTherapy.

Transcript

Meagan: 0:28

today we're diving into a topic that's close to my heart, self care. But we're not just talking about bubble baths or spa days, we're redefining what self care really means. exploring why it can be so hard for us as women to prioritize ourselves, and discussing how to practice self care across eight essential domains to truly thrive. So let's start by addressing the essential question. Why is it so hard for women to prioritize self care on a consistent basis? After all, we hear about self care all the time. It's splashed across social media accounts. Our friends, family, and even our therapists preach about it. And it's really become so common that in a way it's lost meaning. Because self care is marketed as something that we should do, it just becomes another overwhelming item on our to do list. Another thing to feel guilty about if we just don't get to it. For many of us, the challenges to practicing self care consistently and understanding what self care means for us as individuals is connected to societal expectations. Women are often raised to be caregivers, to put others needs ahead of their own. This feeds a constant underlying layer of guilt that all women seem to have. And when we take the time to do something like go to the gym or get a massage, we run into an internal conflict. We are practicing self care, as we've been told to do, yet still, that directive comes in conflict with another directive that we've been conditioned to believe and follow since birth, and that is that to be a good woman, you are selfless, and you are sure to take care of others ahead of yourself, so even when you do the quote, right thing, and practice some form of self care as often as you can, A little voice pops up that says something like, I should really have been home helping my kids with homework instead of spending that full hour at the gym. Or it felt really great to finally get my hair done for the first time in six months. But gosh, I really should have spent that money on something for the family. So really any thought that equates to this was great, but because I spent time, money, or resources that benefited only myself, I'm being selfish. Does this sound familiar? If not, take a moment to listen to our episode on human giver syndrome and then come back to this one. Another challenge to practicing self care consistently for women is the invisible labor that we carry that often goes unacknowledged by others and sometimes even by ourselves. This includes the mental load of managing household schedules, cleaning, remembering everyone's appointments, handling emotional support for loved ones, Making holidays happen and countless other unseen and unacknowledged tasks that we keep track of mentally and emotionally. These responsibilities add up and increase our mental burden, leaving little time or energy for consistent self care. Asking for help or delegating tasks can feel like an uphill battle, but recognizing and addressing this invisible labor is crucial to lightening the load enough to make space for self care to be practiced in a consistent way. If this term invisible labor is new to you and you want to learn more about it, a great resource is the book Fair Play. By Eve Rotsky, which we'll link to in the show notes. This book in particular talks about what invisible labor is and how to share the load across the family system instead of taking it all on yourself. But here's the truth. You can't pour from an empty cup. We've all heard it, and I know that's an overused phrase. And honestly, many women may even challenge that phrase because how often do we actually pour from a basically depleted cup? Functioning from a place of being drained and exhausted all the time. But we know this isn't sustainable. Eventually it leads to burnout and a slew of other physical and mental consequences due to the sheer volume of responsibilities that we juggle in the modern world. So that means consistent self care isn't a luxury, it's a necessity. It's about giving ourselves permission to thrive, not just survive. And the first step is redefining what self care actually means and what it looks like in our lives. As we've said, self care is so much more than getting a massage or going to the gym. It's about addressing all aspects of your well being, and there are probably more aspects to that well being than you may realize. So we're going to dive into it and actually break self care down into eight domains, each of which play a crucial role in our mental health. So let's start with the obvious one, physical self care. This is the one that we often think of first. It's about taking care of your body. So examples are exercise, getting enough sleep, eating nutritious meals on a routine basis. It could also mean scheduling the overdue doctor's appointments instead of just focusing on the doctor's appointments for your family. Which is one of those invisible labor tasks that women tend to take on. Yet for many women, establishing consistent physical self care is daunting and feels unachievable. It's the one that we talk about and that we are talking about first, because it sets the foundation for all other types of self care. If you're not sleeping, feeding yourself well, and moving your body each day, then your physical and mental well being will suffer. There's no way around this one. So if you are struggling to establish good habits in this domain, consider working with a therapist, a personal trainer, and or a nutritionist to help set an achievable routine. The second domain is psychological self care. This involves nurturing your mind and emotional resilience. Engaging in activities like journaling, therapy, and practicing mindfulness or meditation are all great options here. Setting boundaries with yourself and others and saying no when needed are also forms of psychological self care, as is taking mental breaks throughout your day to just take a moment and breathe and pause from thinking about so many things. For women, lack of psychological self care is a really common cause of some of the mental health conditions that we see them come to us with. Like anxiety and depression in particular. The psychological self care issue that I think I see most often in my practice is Negative self talk. If you find yourself speaking internally in a way that is more degrading, aggressive, and cruel compared to what you would ever think of saying to a loved one, then this is an area of psychological self care you may want to start with. A therapist, of course, can be helpful in this process, but if you want to try to work on negative self talk by yourself first, we recommend using a therapist. so that you get a sense of just how often you're having this negative self talk occur throughout the day and what it's really looking like. It's quite different to put it down on paper rather than just have it kind of running through your mind all day. You can also use a worksheet that helps you reframe negative self talk as a guide if you have trouble stopping it and challenging it on your own. So we will link some of those resources in the show notes. A third area of self care is spiritual. And this doesn't have to be religious, although it certainly can be. Attending a church ceremony or, reading religious texts can definitely be a form of spiritual self care. But this is really about simply connecting to something bigger than yourself. So things like meditation, going for a hike and spending time in nature. Disconnecting from technology, maybe attending a yoga class, or even engaging in more creative activities like painting can all fall into this category. Next, we have emotional self care. Acknowledging and expressing your feelings in healthy ways is the goal here. How often, and with who, are you able to share your emotional truth? Are you even honestly identifying the emotions that you're having to yourself? Practicing emotional self care may look like having a heart to heart with a friend, writing a gratitude list, attending a therapy session, or even crying when you need to. If you're the type of person who has a hard time slowing down long enough to notice and feel your own emotions, a good place to start may be to schedule five minutes a day where you stop what you're doing, stop all the responsibilities, Try to slow down the thoughts, take a deep breath, and just try to identify what are the top three emotions coming to the surface. If you have a hard time putting words to it, you may use something called an emotion wheel to help you in that process. And we'll also link that resource for you. Our fifth category of self care is personal. This is about doing things that bring you joy or help you to grow as a person. Now this category can sometimes be difficult for women because it fully contradicts what we're conditioned to do as givers. Practicing personal self care means doing things for your own benefit. So this may look like reading for pleasure, spending time engaging in a hobby, or doing anything that moves the needle on your personal goals that doesn't necessarily benefit anyone else or have anything to do with them. This is something that's just for you. Next, we'll discuss professional self care. This involves creating a healthy work life balance, and maybe even setting some professional boundaries. It could also mean taking a mental health day or investing in continuing education or another degree in order to change your career path. A good way to start practicing professional self care is to actually do a time and values assessment. Basically, calculate the time that you spend on certain professional and personal activities across the span of your week. Just take a holistic view of where did all of your time go over the course of seven days in doing this if you notice that say 90 percent of your time is spent on work related activities that you really don't feel that passionate about and you don't really feel like they move you forward in a career that you love, then it may be time to reassess your time allotment should ideally be in alignment with your value system. If you value prioritizing a lot of time with aging parents, for example, working 60 plus hours a week is out of alignment with your values at this particular stage of your life. So really anytime we are unbalanced and have a misalignment between how we spend our time and the values that we hold as a person, that creates a system where our mental health suffers. Our seventh domain is social. One of the longest studies in happiness, called the Harvard Study of Adult Development, Reported that having good relationships is the most fundamental and critical element to us being happy. Sometimes we call this relational self care. This is about nurturing those relationships in your life that bring you happiness and a sense of community and support. Ideally, this looks like carving out dedicated time on a at least semi regular basis to just be around the people you love and spend quality time with people who uplift you. However, it can also look like doing some self reflecting on relationships that are not bringing you joy and doing the work to distance yourself from toxic dynamics when necessary. For women who are experiencing abusive situations, this can be especially difficult because an abuser has likely isolated you and eroded your trust in your own self and your own judgment. So if you find yourself unsure if a relationship is bad enough to leave, or if you determine that you do want to leave a relationship but are not sure how to do so safely, we recommend reaching out to work with a licensed mental health provider that specializes in domestic violence and interpersonal partner violence. We will also link to some resources in the show notes that can help support you if you're feeling unsafe leaving a relationship, as well as information on how to identify green flags and red flags in those relationships. One of our next episodes will focus solely on relationships, so stay tuned as we dive much deeper into this element. Finally, Perhaps surprisingly to some, our last category, is financial self care. While financial self care is the last element that we're discussing, I actually believe this is one of the most critical and foundational domains of self care for women. How often do we as women shy away from talking about money? Pretty often, right? Financial independence is one of the most empowering things that we can achieve. Financial self care is about gaining control of your finances, budgeting, saving, investing, and building financial independence. And this is true even if you are in a healthy relationship dynamic. It's all about increasing your personal financial literacy and knowledge in a society that does not prioritize teaching women or encouraging women to know about personal finances. Women talking about money, especially if they have a goal of becoming wealthy, is often chastised, both directly and indirectly, as being greedy, intimidating. Even unattractive. Yet, there is that double standard that still exists today where a man who talks about these things, actively seeking out money, investing, getting a high paying career, is regarded as ambitious and driven. So why does financial self care for women matter so much? It's simply because money equals choices, and choices equal freedom. Financial control and stability is critical for women's well being, and it's one of the first areas that abusers target in unhealthy relationships. An excellent resource to start building your personal financial knowledge is Tori Dunlap's book Financial Feminist. She also has a great, workbook, podcasts and a couple of courses that aim to increase women's personal financial literacy and independence. Tori actually stated in one of her more recent podcast episodes that money does by happiness, and I completely agree. Financial freedom gives us the power to make choices. Like leaving a toxic job or relationship, accessing high quality healthcare, pursuing education, or simply living life in your terms. It's about having the security to know that you can keep a roof over your own head and build a life you love. That said, it's also important to acknowledge that good mental health shouldn't depend solely on financial means. I think we can all agree that it shouldn't, but whether we like it or not, it is one of a handful of critical elements that we need to establish for ourselves to be happy and stable. For those who are not coming from a place of privilege or have significant challenges to building personal financial literacy or wealth, We want to start by using the resources that are available to us. At Her Time Therapy, we believe that mental health care must be available to everyone, regardless of their financial situation. This is why we aim to make mental health support accessible by accepting a variety of insurance options, including Medicaid and Medicare. We offer sliding scale options as well and employ a variety of providers from interns to fully licensed therapist supervisors to ensure that at her time we can offer support to women no matter what financial or emotional position they are in when they come to us. true freedom is about more than just financial security. It's about knowing that support is available and accepting that support when you need it most. While money is an important factor for women to live a stable, empowered life, what you personally define as a rich life may not include being literally rich. So, what's the big takeaway here? It's that self care is a lot more multifaceted than we tend to think. It's a practice that touches every aspect of our lives. I would like you to think of these eight domains of self care that we talked about today as parts of a wheel. If one part of the self care wheel is neglected and goes flat, then the wheel no longer turns smoothly. If multiple areas go flat, the wheel cannot turn at all. Thank you. When we prioritize all eight domains, we're not just surviving, we're thriving. in looking at your own self care practices, you have the power and the autonomy to choose which parts need to be addressed first and in what order to improve your overall well being. So start small, pick at least one domain that may be a little flat for you to focus on this week and see how it feels, and then build from there. Remind yourself, as some of that guilt creeps in, self care is not selfish, it's essential. It's essential for you, and it's also essential for the people in your life that you love and that you take care of. You can't be there for them and be your full, capable self you take care of yourself first. Thank you for taking the time to talk today and for joining me on this journey into self care.