She Can Heal Podcast

Ep. 39 - How to Create Your Personalized Self-Care Plan

• Keila Aldea, LCSW • Season 2 • Episode 39

Share episode

Send us a text

Creating a personalized self-care plan is essential for addressing your unique needs and challenges rather than following generic advice that might not work for you. We put together everything we've learned about physical, emotional, and spiritual self-care to help you design a practical framework that builds resilience and supports your well-being.

• Self-assessment is the crucial first step to understanding your current self-care habits and identifying areas needing improvement
• Identifying your specific challenges helps tailor your self-care strategies to your actual needs rather than generic practices
• Creating a needs list clarifies exactly what would help you feel better physically, emotionally, and spiritually
• Your self-care plan should include specific practices across physical, emotional, and spiritual domains that address your unique challenges
• Regular re-evaluation of your plan ensures it continues to serve you as your needs and circumstances change
• The free downloadable Self-Care Toolkit provides everything you need to follow these steps and create your personalized plan

Download our comprehensive Self-Care Toolkit to get started on your personalized self-care journey today, including the self-care assessment, your challenges and needs worksheet, and self-care plan template.


90-day Self-Growth Journal - A great companion you can use on your healing journey. For 90 days you will have daily prompts on the topics of self-love, self-care and gratitude.  This journal is great for beginners, novice and anyone that wants to dive deeper into their true selves.   https://amzn.to/4fk14sq

Ready to nurture your mind, body, and spirit? Get our FREE Self-Care Challenge

Visit Our Website - The show now has a website and blog!! Come visit and read more!

Sign Up for Our Weekly Newsletter - Come subscribe to my newsletter to receive tips, BTS previews and additional resources to guide you on your healing journey.

Follow me on IG @shecanhealpodcast for upcoming episodes and more inspiration.

Come be a guest on the podcast: - I am looking for guests to come on the show and share their stories. If you have a self-care practice, tool or resource that has helped you on your healing journey, please contact me or send me an email at shecanhealpodcast@gmail.com

I want to hear your thoughts on the show:
Reviews help my show so much, please leave a review on your favorite platform.

Subscribe to the show
You'll be notified when a new episode is available, so you never miss an episode.

Shop My Products

Speaker 1:

Hello and welcome to the she Can Heal podcast, a podcast aimed at helping women heal and thrive emotionally, physically and spiritually. I am your host, kayla Eldia. I'm a licensed therapist and a self-care advocate that is passionate about helping women take back their power and help them realize they're important, worthy and deserve the care and attention they give to those they love most in their lives. This show is meant to help inspire you on your healing journey, no matter if you're in the discovery phase and are just realizing that you have unhealed wounds, habits and mindsets that are keeping you stuck in your life, or you've been on this journey for a while and are looking for inspiration, encouragement and or new tools to help you continue on your healing journey. My goal is to help you realize that you can heal from all that life has thrown at you and are capable of evolving into your healthiest and happiest version. On this show, I will provide you with resources, tools and insights to help you heal and thrive emotionally, physically and spiritually, because you deserve all of that. So if you're ready to ditch the guilt and make yourself a priority, then you're in the right place, because the truth is that you can't pour from an empty cup, even though most of us do this on a regular, and we really need to stop that nonsense. So get ready to be inspired, motivated and equipped to truly thrive.

Speaker 1:

Hello and welcome back to another episode on the she Can Heal podcast. Today, we are going to put everything we've learned in the last couple of weeks together and we're going to talk about how to create our very own self-care plan. This is going to be a fun episode, so I hope that you truly enjoy it, and if this is the first episode that you're listening to in the series, I would suggest that you go back and listen to all of them, because today we're going to put all the information that we have learned thus far in our self-care series. So, to remind you what we've covered in the last few weeks, we learned what true self-care is and how it builds resilience to help us against all that life throws at us. I reviewed the three main types of self-care, and that is physical, emotional and spiritual, and I gave you the benefits of each of them and gave you some practices that you could incorporate into your daily life. So you have all the tools, all the information you need, but I'm sure that you may be feeling overwhelmed, because it is a lot of information, and I'm sure you're probably thinking how do I do this Now that I have all this information? How do I create a system, a plan that I can use every single day to make sure that I'm feeling myself right, so that I can feel my best? Well, I am here to help you with that. That's the whole purpose of today's episode. I'm going to help you understand the steps needed to create a plan that will feel good for you.

Speaker 1:

We have to remind ourselves that, also, everyone is different and what works for one person will not work for the other, so we have to learn how to tailor our plan to our own needs and not try to compare ourselves to anyone else. I know there's a lot of information, a lot of influencers that you're probably watching on all types of social media outlets, and we don't want to use anything that anyone else does because, again, we all have different lives. We all are different individuals, we have different needs, we have different challenges and struggles, and what works for someone, even if they have similar struggles, are not going to necessarily work for you. For some people, sitting down and having this quiet meditation works great. For other people, they're like I can't sit there. That's torture to me, you know. And so it's not fair for you to try to compare yourself to what everybody else is doing. And so today we're going to talk about how do we create it specifically just for us, all right. So we're going to do a step process and I'm going to go through each step and help you to create this self-care plan that you could use. That's going to be just for you and it's not going to be overwhelming, it's not going to. Nobody's going to do this for you. You're not going to like look it up and follow it. You're going to create it yourself, all right.

Speaker 1:

So step one is self-assessment. So the first step in this process is to know where you are starting from. So we want to assess ourselves and see where do I struggle, where do our struggles lie, where are we doing well, so that we know where we can start. So I created a self-care assessment that you can download and quiz yourself and know how you're doing with the three main self-care areas. I'm going to link it in the show notes, so it's up to you if you want to pause and do that, or if you can listen to the whole episode and you can go back, because this is going to be an episode where you want to take action and we can do it together, or you can listen to it first and then you can come back to it.

Speaker 1:

And so the self-care assessment it's going to ask you questions in the three main areas of self-care and then you're going to have an idea of the areas that you need that needs your more attention. It's three different areas, so physical, emotional, spiritual there's going to be seven questions in each category. So for physical things, such as like am I getting enough sleep? Am I having a balanced diet? Am I getting regular physical activity? Emotional also has seven like do I express my emotions in a healthy way? Do I practice self-compassion? Do I engage in activities that bring me joy and laughter? Spiritual do I spend time in nature? Do I engage in activities that bring me a sense of peace and tranquility? And then what you're going to do is you are going to rate how often you engage in the described behaviors and at the end you're going to add them all up and you're going to have different scores for resection and there you're going to understand what are the areas that needs more attention, what are the areas that I'm doing okay, but I can improve on, and what are the areas that I'm doing really well with. And so this self-care assessment is going to help you to understand where do your areas that you struggle with and what are the areas that you're doing really well with, okay, so, now that you've completed your self-care assessment and you have an idea of areas that you're doing really well with and areas that you're not, the next step is you want to identify your challenges?

Speaker 1:

Okay, so this next step would be to identify the areas of challenge for you. So what are the areas of your life that you are struggling with? For example, are you experiencing stress, fatigue, depression? Do you feel disconnected from yourself or others? Do you get sick a lot? Do you experience pain or discomfort in your body? This is another important step, because we want to tailor your plan to address your specific needs. We're not just going to put together a plan of random habits, but we want to find the ones that are going to help you to feel better right now.

Speaker 1:

Okay, this is important, so I want you to take some time to sit with yourself and ask yourself some questions that are going to help you to assess. What is it that I'm struggling with in this moment and I'm going to give you some ideas, but you don't have to use these questions. But this can be some questions that can start you off. Some questions could be like how have I been feeling in the last few weeks? Identify specific emotions like stress, anxious, I've been feeling sad. I've been feeling joyful, I've been feeling happy, I've been feeling disconnected. How have I been feeling physically? Have I been feeling tired, achy, weak? Have I been feeling energized? What areas of my life have I been struggling with lately? Maybe it's work, maybe it's relationships, maybe it's self struggling with lately? Maybe it's work, maybe it's relationships, maybe it's self-esteem, maybe it's family. And how have I made time for joy, fun, creativity, how often? And if I don't, again? So these are just questions to be in that process of identifying your struggles, like what are the challenges that you're having right now? Because that's what we want to address in order for us to feel our best, we have to. Are the challenges that you're having right now? Because that's what we want to address In order for us to feel our best. We have to identify the areas that we're struggling with so that then we can create strategies and practices that are really going to help us in those areas. Okay, so, now that you have done this part and you've gone through and you've identified what your challenges are, the next step is that you're going to create your needs list. So, after taking some time to ask yourself some questions and processing those areas, you should have an idea of what your challenges are right now.

Speaker 1:

Next, it's time to create a needs list. What do you need right now in order to feel better, healthier, happier? Maybe you've noticed you've been feeling lonely and sad recently. Maybe you notice your self-esteem has been in the dumps and you have felt tired and unmotivated to do anything. Maybe you have been feeling a lot of stress at work or with the kids. Maybe you've been feeling overwhelmed with all your household responsibilities and you realize that you haven't really made time for fun.

Speaker 1:

So an idea of your needs list. Maybe your needs list can include rest. Maybe you need time for rest and relaxation. Maybe you need to learn how to regulate your emotions right. Learn how to manage those emotions that you're experiencing right now. Maybe you need some connection. Maybe you want to feel better with your relationships. You want to engage in fun activities. So those are just some examples. So you should be able to have a needs list from the struggles and from the areas that you've processed earlier.

Speaker 1:

Okay, so now that you've done that, the next step is you're going to create a plan that will fit your needs. So now that you've assessed your habits in the areas of physical, emotional and spiritual self-care and you've identified the challenges and your needs, it's time to put this all together and create your very own self-care plan. So I'm going to use an example to help you see how to do this. So we're going to use one of the examples from last week and I'm going to revisit that scenario so that you can kind of understand. So the scenario is that Maria is a woman in her late forties.

Speaker 1:

She's experiencing a variety of challenges. She recently lost her job, her long-term relationship ended and she's dealing with the increased health concerns of her aging parents. She feels overwhelmed, she feels hopeless and like her life is falling apart. She's struggling to find motivation to even get out of bed. What are Maria's challenges? So currently she's dealing with job loss, so financial insecurity and a blow to her professional identity. So that's a big heavy weight on her. She recently broke up with her long-term relationship. So she's having emotional pain and a sense of loss because she lost this relationship. Parental health issues so she's worried, she's stressed, because now her parents are getting sicker and older. Now she's going to have all these added responsibilities. She's feeling emotionally overwhelmed because she's having a whole lot of different feelings from everything that's happened recently, right? So she's having hopelessness, anxiety, depression.

Speaker 1:

So now that we understand what her challenges are, let's talk about what are some of her needs. So, for Maria, one of her needs is grounding right, taking time to ground her energy during these stressful times so that she can manage everything that's coming at her. She needs some emotional regulation. Maybe she needs some tools to help her manage her emotional pain from everything that's been happening to her. She probably could use also like some self-love right, feeling connected to herself. Because she's recently out of a relationship. She's probably feeling a lot of different emotions as it relates to herself, depending on why that relationship ended. And so these are some of the needs that she may have. I'm sure there's more, but we're just going to kind of keep it nice and simple, all right. So now that we've identified her challenges, we've identified her needs, now we can create a self-care plan. So now that we've identified her challenges, we've identified her needs, now we can create a self-care plan. So now we're going to use all that we've learned to create a plan for Maria that's going to include the emotional, physical and spiritual practices that we've all learned about. The first thing we're going to do is we're going to identify for each area, because we're going to take a holistic approach. We're taking a holistic approach because that's the best way for us to identify and to really meet all of our needs. So her plan is going to look like this Emotional Maria can start journaling each evening, writing down her thoughts, her feelings, fears, any of those things that come up for her.

Speaker 1:

This can help her process her emotions. It can help her identify patterns and gain insights into everything that's happening. She can also find a therapist that she can work with to assist her in learning tools that she can use to manage the emotional stressors that she's experiencing. She shouldn't have to do this all alone. She should be able to ask for help in just processing, learning everything that she needs in order to kind of manage this emotional heaviness that she's experiencing. With physical, she can start a morning yoga practice, even if it's just 10 minutes per day, she can focus on her breath and she can engage in each yoga stretch, helping her to release tension, stress and help her increase levels of relaxation and connection to her body.

Speaker 1:

Maria can also take walks every day. This can help her to slow herself down, disengage from the busy cycle, to give herself some grounding in nature. She can also find a good audiobook that she can listen to on her walks. Spiritually, she can start practicing daily guided meditations focusing on releasing negative thoughts and cultivating inner peace. This can help her to quiet the noise in her mind and find moments of calm during all the chaos. Maria can also adopt a gratitude practice where, each day, she can focus on the good moments in her day. This can be as simple as being grateful for the warm sun on her walks, her house and being able to support her parents.

Speaker 1:

So, as you can see, this is a tailored self-care plan specifically for Maria, because it's following Maria's what she needs right. So, again, this is an example of what your self-care plan could look like. So it is identifying your struggles right now, it is identifying your needs and then it's plugging those in to your self-care plan. We're not going to stop there, though, because the last step in this process is we are going to re-evaluate our plan. Okay, so we are going to check in on our plan as needed I would say, at least monthly would be a good idea for you to check in with your plan and just to identify, making sure that these strategies or the practices that you have been doing help you.

Speaker 1:

You're connected to them, they are working well and they're really helping you. So let's talk about Maria. So Maria can check in with her plan in a few weeks and adjust it as needed. Maybe she's feeling better and doesn't need to meet with her therapist every week. Maybe she can switch it to monthly. Maybe she loves her walks and now she wants to extend her walks to 20 minutes. Maybe she realizes that standard meditation is not working, so she switches it to walking meditations.

Speaker 1:

Again, this is your plan, and you can adjust it as needed to fit your needs. Okay, so only because you wrote these, this plan, up, it doesn't mean that it has to stay that way. You can adjust it as needed because you want it to fit your needs. So now it's your turn. So now it's your turn to take the steps to create your very own self-care plan and you can have fun with this part. This is like my favorite part, just because you can be very creative and you can make it work for you If you're a creative person like myself.

Speaker 1:

When I do this workshop, we actually create this self-care plan on a big cardstock sheet and I'll bring stickers and markers and we'll make like these bubbles for each area of self-care and it just looks really cool. I have mine and I have it on my board here and I really love looking at it and using it and referring to it whenever I need help in managing my self-care. Maybe it's time for me to switch up some of my strategies that I've been using. But honestly, this could be as simple as writing your plan in a journal. You can create a vision board, you can do it any way that you would want, because this is your plan, and if it's easy and simple and you just write it down on a piece of paper, it's fine. All you really need to do is just write those three areas emotional, physical, spiritual. What are you going to do? What are the practices? You can do every single day, and that is it right. That is it. Just to remind you.

Speaker 1:

The first step is you want to assess yourself, so make sure that you download the self-assessment that I have here for you, so that way it can at least get you started on where you're doing well, what areas you are struggling with, what areas you are struggling with. Step two you want to identify your challenges. What is it that you're struggling with right now that these practices are really going to help you? You want to have a needs list. You want to understand what is it that I need right now? So I'm having these struggles. What is it that I need? Maybe it's more rest, maybe it's help, maybe I need to be in nature more. Maybe I need to have more fun, and then you will plug all of those things into your self-care plan.

Speaker 1:

Remember that creating a self-care plan is an investment into your future self. By taking these steps, you're building a foundation for a more balanced, joyful and resilient life. Don't wait for the perfect time. The perfect moment is now and, honestly, as you saw, it does not take much time to follow these steps and have your very own self-care plan that you can begin to use daily to feel your best. You can totally do this, but if you need any help with any of the steps. Please feel free to reach out to me. You can connect with me on Instagram by email. I would love to connect with you, so don't be shy, reach out if you need help.

Speaker 1:

Before ending today's episode, I do want to let you know that, instead of just a self-care assessment, I am providing you with a whole self-care toolkit, and this toolkit is going to walk you through exactly all the steps that we talked about in today's episode. So you're going to have a self-care assessment. You're also going to have a section to check off all the challenges that you're having and all the self-care needs that you have, and you're going to have a self-care template. So I just wanted to give you that update to let you know that not only will you get a self-care assessment, but you're going to get all these different parts so that you can literally follow every step that I've talked about here, and you'll have a downloadable that you can go along with it. You can do this so that you can have some actionable steps that you can take after this episode. All right, thank you.

Speaker 1:

Thank you so much for listening and I will talk to you next week. Take care much for listening and I will talk to you next week. Take care. Thank you so much for joining this conversation today. I hope this episode was helpful to you on your healing journey. Don't forget to subscribe so you never miss an episode packed with valuable tips and insights designed to empower you. If you found value in this episode, I'd be so grateful if you left me a review. Wherever you're listening from and share your thoughts and feedback. This really helps me to reach more women just like you. Thanks for listening.