Is the 'all-or-nothing' mindset sabotaging your self-care?

I sometimes cringe at using the term self-care with clients as I find the concept to be a bit fluffy. My clients are high achievers, they’re busy juggling life and they’re struggling with #emotionaleating & #bingeeating. Telling them we’ll work on self-care strategies may sound like I’m suggesting they should make more time for bubble baths and face masks. Advice that I believe would trivialize the problem of Emotional Eating.

This is part one of a series focusing on what self-care can look like in the context of emotional eating and binge eating. 

Let’s start with ‘All-or-Nothing Self-Care’.

This shows up a lot for my clients! If they’re having a good day they take their vitamins, drink 3 litres of water and make the effort to take an evening walk. All great forms of self-care! 

But when they’re having a bad day and they don’t eat well, they decide not to take the vitamins which are sitting an arm's length from their desk. They neglect the skincare routine that takes less than 5 mins to do and they don’t bother to hydrate. They basically decide to put all of their positive behaviours on the back burner until they’re back on a good streak. Self-care is overtaken by self-sabotage.

Can you relate to this? Do you find it easy to treat yourself well when you're doing well and neglect yourself when you’re not?

The irony is, of course, it's when you’re having a bad day that you actually need self-care the most. If you're swamped by work, not sleeping so well and not prioritizing nutritious food then your body could probably use those vitamins more than it would on an average day.

This behaviour is what I mean by all-or-nothing self-care. The all-or-nothing way of thinking goes far beyond just food. It sneaks into your daily habits and can affect the way you view your work and family life too and this is part of what we tackle when working with clients on the #eatingfreely program.

Have you noticed yourself adopting this way of thinking? Do you find it more difficult to implement self-care strategies when you’re having a bad day and need them most?

Stay tuned for part two!