Me-Topia

Hello! 

This blog is about something you might not have heard before: Me-Topia. The relationship you have with yourself.  I suspect some of you might be thinking "oh, here we go, another self-care lecture." Please bear with me - this isn't about bubble baths and face masks (though if those work for you, brilliant). This is about something far more fundamental: how the way you treat yourself affects absolutely everything else in your life.

When I ask clients what they do for themselves each week, the response is often the same: self comes at the bottom of the list. Always. And when I suggest making time for themselves, I hear: "But that would be selfish, wouldn't it?" Looking after yourself isn't selfish. It's essential. It’s like that instruction on aeroplanes about putting your own oxygen mask on first before helping others. That's not a suggestion, it’s survival. If you're not breathing, you can't help anyone else breathe either.  It might be an overused analogy but that’s because it captures the importance of this so perfectly. What are you doing to keep yourself well? 

Why This Matters More Than You Think

Something I've noticed in my Practice is that pretty much every woman I've worked with who struggles with loss of sexual desire has poor self-care in place. Not some. Not most. Virtually all. Sexual desire, interest, and energy for sex are among the first things to disappear when you're not looking after yourself properly. It's a really good indicator that something's depleted.

And it's not just about sex. When you're running on empty, your capacity to deal with anything - conflict with your partner, disappointment, life's inevitable curveballs - shrinks to nothing. You have no tolerance. You have no resilience. Your partner loses out. Your children lose out. Your friends lose out. Your work loses out. But most of all, you lose out.

Before this starts to feel like a lecture aimed only at women, let me point out that men struggle with this too. Whilst I do think women are particularly conditioned to give their attention outward, to serve others and put themselves last, men, you're not off the hook either.

The Voices Inside Your Head

There are many different selves that reside within you. I'm not talking about mental illnesses here, I'm talking about the community of voices inside all of us. These include the critical parent, the loving parent, the tyrant, the compassionate friend, the grumpy teenager, the outraged toddler, the rebel, the good girl.

At different times, different voices / selves are helpful. The trick is knowing which self to bring forward when. Sometimes you need the disciplined part of you to get something done. Sometimes you need the playful seven-year-old who knows how to have fun - because the sensible 45-year-old you is far too serious to do anything frivolous. Sometimes you need the kind friend on your shoulder saying, "go on, give it a go. It doesn't matter if you fall flat on your face."

We all have a critical voice as well—that bully sitting on our shoulder saying, "who do you think you are?" or "you shouldn't be doing that" or "that's ridiculous." But hopefully, you also have a much nicer voice. One that cheers you on and knows you deserve good things. Try to listen to that one more often.

What Do You Actually Need?

Here's where it can get tricky. Some of us genuinely don't know what we need or want. We've spent so long looking after everyone else that we've lost touch with ourselves. That’s why the market in self-help books is thriving - we're all looking outside ourselves for the magic answer.

By all means, look at those resources for inspiration but understand this: self-care is deeply personal. What works for your sister or your best friend might be your idea of hell. My sister does outdoor circuit training in all weathers - I find that prospect horrifying. I prefer restorative yoga, gentle swimming, slow walks through the park. Her self-care is my nightmare. Mine is probably hers.

The point is, you're the only one who can discover what actually works for you. And that takes experimentation. Give yourself permission to try things before you find what suits you.

Four Pillars of Wellbeing

There's a framework Janet shares on the podcast that she’s found useful.  It was developed by motivational speaker Damien Hughes, based on Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs. Hughes identifies four corners of wellbeing: safety, control, value, and belonging.

You might like to try this as an exercise: score yourself out of 10 for each pillar. How safe do you feel right now? If it's a 3, you immediately know something needs attention. What about control or as I prefer to call it, agency? Do you feel you have much say in what happens in your life? What about value, not just being valued by others, but how much do you value yourself? And finally, belonging. Do you have your tribe? Your people? Do you feel part of something?

That sense of belonging is particularly important. I'm not talking about losing yourself in a crowd, I'm talking about knowing your place within your community. When that's secure, solitude becomes nourishing rather than lonely. Without it, being alone can feel erosive.

The Practical Stuff

Self-care doesn't have to be complicated. It's making sure you have enough rest, enough of the right food, enough exercise. It’s participating in activities that make you feel joyful, make you feel good about yourself and your life. Within a relationship, it's having time to do things independently, remembering you are individuals as well as being part of a couple.

Sometimes one person in a partnership is much better at looking after their own needs than the other. This can lead to resentments building. "You're always off doing this and that, and I'm stuck at home." But what if, instead of storing up resentment, you supported each other to prioritise yourselves? What if your partner said, "Wednesday night, 8pm, that's your time. Go take it. We'll be fine"? That kind of mutual support can be transformative.

Try and remember it doesn't have to be the big stuff - five minutes to put music on and dance around the kitchen, a few yoga stretches, grabbing your hairbrush for a bit of bedroom karaoke, a moment connecting with yourself in front of the mirror. Little pauses throughout your day to come back to yourself before rushing onto the next thing.

The Sexual Dimension

Let me be blunt about something: sex can be one of the pleasures in life and it's free. Recent research shows that for women, an orgasm a week can add five years to her life. Five years. That's significant. We're told about the things that take years off our life like smoking or excessive alcohol but here is something we can engage in by ourselves, without needing anyone else's participation.

If you're burnt out, knackered, giving and giving and giving, you're not just going to lose desire for sex with other people. You'll lose interest in experiencing sexual pleasure with yourself. And that's a loss worth paying attention to.

Let Go of "Selfish"

I want to challenge the word "selfish." What we're really talking about is being self-aware. Self-attentive. Being able to notice where you have agency and where you don't. In all your relationships, the one where you have the most agency is the relationship with yourself and yet it's often the relationship you drop out on. The one you neglect first.

If you can attend to that relationship, if you can be selfish for the team, your capacity to be awake, present, and able to engage in healthy, life-giving relationships with others will be enhanced exponentially. Everyone benefits when you're resourced. Including you.

A Small Practice

Here's something you can try: punctuate your day with pauses. Not long ones necessarily, it can just be a moment to take a breath, to check in, to come home to yourself before rushing onto the next thing. That simple practice of returning to yourself throughout the day can make an enormous difference.

And if you're someone whose natural drive is to give and serve, if this really isn't your strength, give yourself permission to experiment. Talk to people, pick their brains for   ideas and get support to help you learn this. It's a skill, like any other and it can be learned.

A Final Thought

How you learned to care for yourself, or didn't, was likely influenced by your family of origin. Maybe you had parents who modelled that looking after yourself was important. Or maybe you had martyr parents who made a big performance out of never having time for themselves, which probably made you feel guilty for even wanting anything.

But here's the good news: even if you had appalling role models, even if you didn't learn this as a child, you can learn it as an adult. It might be harder for some of you than others, it might feel like a real stretch, but it's absolutely possible to retrain yourself to recognise the value of this relationship.

Your relationship with yourself is the foundation everything else is built on. Neglect it, and everything else becomes harder. Attend to it, and you'll be astonished at what becomes possible. 

Until next time, be kind to yourself. You deserve it.

Clare

This is the final blog post of series one, but we'll be back. If you'd like to hear more about this topic, have a listen to Episode 9 of our podcast, where Janet and I talk more about the different aspects of self-care and why it matters so much for your relationships and your sex life.