Recovering, Balancing and Relaxing: Soul Food

Back to: Helpers Care for Themselves

We heard in one of the previous lessons how dangerous permanent stress can be. If you are not able to break the stress spiral your inner tension level will continuously increase. The consequence is a high risk of getting into exhaustion and burnout, developing physical illnesses or mental illnesses such as depression or anxiety disorder.

ThoughtCatalog, pixabay

The best way to break out of this accumulation of stress experiences is to know yourself and to respect your feelings and needs. Thus, it is essential to notice the signals your body and soul are sending out. When you watch children you can see that they are still able to respond properly to their emotions and needs: They know exactly what is good for them in the respective moment: Playing a funny game, eating a tasty meal or taking a little nap … Children react instinctively to their inner signals. As adults many of us have forgotten this healthy and helpful ability. We are used to be orientated towards duties, obligations and tasks, and to be „reasonable“. But our souls speak a different language: They need some food.  In order to face all the challenges we have in a healthy way it is very important to relearn the ability to care for our needs and give ourselves some „soul food“ for refreshing and recovering.

You should ask yourself what you could enjoy: Some people enjoy walking in nature, others like playing music or dancing, reading a good book or attending an art exhibition, planting flowers, cooking a nice meal or painting a picture … there are many options of giving some food to your soul. Sometimes it helps to remember what activities we particularly enjoyed when we were children … so, for example, why not building an impressive lego house when you are 50 years old? Allow yourself to be a child every now and then!

Find some ideas for soul food in the graph below:

Graph: Claudia Fuchs