Self Awareness & Self Care

Introduction

Self Assessment – A series of surveys you can use to assess your health

Setting Priorities – In accounting for all the different aspects of health, how can you narrow your focus?

Writing Your Personal Health Plan – Guidelines and links to help you write-up an Integrative Health style health plan

Healer Burnout – Information, articles, and resources centering on how to avoid (or handle) burning out

Self Care Articles, Links, & Other Resources

Introduction

The bottom line is, you can’t give what you don’t have. Taking responsibility for the health of another requires that you have the resources you need to do so; this doesn’t mean just having a ‘black bag’ full of tools. You must be present. You must be compassionate. You must be well rested, feel physically well, and not be operating in ‘crisis mode’ if you are to offer the best care you can. The care of others is a weighty responsibility, and those in the healing professions are at high risk for depression, substance abuse, and other health problems. Burnout is all too common.

There is no doubt there is room in our society for us to improve how we take care of ourselves. In the United States, 80 percent of illness is thought to be preventable, including eight of the nine leading causes of death (PreventDisease.com). How we eat, how much we exercise, our addictions, our stress levels, our environment, how we relate to others – we know that these and many other factors influence how we feel. The challenge is not in knowing how we ‘ought’ to do things but in making the transition from knowledge to practice. If we as healers cannot do so, it is hypocritical to ask it of our patients.

The following three sections are arranged to take you through a process of self-evaluation and self-healing; your success with this is up to you.