ANA Six Self Care Pathways
Self Care Challenges
Self Care Strengths
Areas of Growth Identified in Class/Readings
Physical Pathway: My strength in physical self care is ensuring my body gets at least thirty minutes of exercise a day. This helps ease my stress not only physically but overall by making me feel accomplished!
Mental Pathway: For this category, I am strong in my ability to reshift my outlook on life into a more positive one. I have been successful in not letting my mind spiral into pessimism in doing this. When my mental state starts to go down a darker path, I am able to recognize that I am in control and can shift my outlook into a positive one.
Spiritual Pathway:In terms of spiritual self care, I am strong in my ability to forgive openly, keeping my heart and mind open to others, but also practicing self care by using discretion to protect myself.
Emotional Pathway: Emotionally, I am strong in understanding not to take life so seriously and letting my emotions run out of control! I am able to accept and welcome the notion that life goes on despite it all.
Choice Pathway: In terms of choice, I love to practice self care by taking pride in the cleanliness of my spaces. Taking care of my home is very important to me as it allows me to practice self care while maintaining something I can take pride in not only for my guests, but for myself.
Relationship Pathway: In my relationships I would say I am strong in my abilities to put bondaries in place. It is so fulfilling to my self care to know when and how to place these boundaries, when to say no, and how to verbalize my boundaries are being pushed and I'm uncomfortable.
Emotional Pathway: One thing I struggle with in this category extensively is asking for emotional help. I am very keen on enclosing my emotions because, in my view, voicing my emotions gives them a certain reality because it means the negative can exist outside of my head. I am working on opening up by asking for help, however it is one of my hardest habits to break.
Mental Pathway: In this category, I struggle with disconnecting with social media. I am way too reliant on my TV, phone, computer, anything with a screen. I am working on decreasing my reliance on screens and tuning in to real life more often.
Spiritual Pathway: I think this area is one I struggle with the most. I grew up in the Catholic church, but no longer associate with this religion because of negative experiences. So often times, I feel jaded and don't incorporate this category into my self care. However, I would like to incorporate methods such as meditation instead of rejecting this category alltogether.
Relationship Pathway: For this pathway, I am still working on my ability to know when to say no and not feel guilty. I noted on my ability to set boundaries but it's still hard for me to say no relationships without feeling guilt afterwards.
Choice Pathway: In this category, I struggle with choosing to put myself first sometimes. I struggle leaving work late often, doing much more than was asked of me often, etc. which I think is helpful, but I let it get to a point where it's expected of me.
Physical Pathway: In this category, I struggle the most with maintaining a balanced, healthy diet. I struggle with this all the time, however with such busy schedules and tight college student budgets, it's very diffucult. I know a balanced diet would increase my self care fulfimment tenfold, therefore it is my goal to improve it by working on quick, easy recipes, incorporating a wider variety of foods, etc.
Physical Pathway: Physically, we learned about the pathophysiology of stress, which was something I had never learned or considered before. However, it was very gripping to learn what happens within my body during times of stress. This lecture helped me identify my understanding of my body and how to listen to her as an area of growth I can work on in the future in order to relax and initate my parasympathetic response.
Emotional Pathway: As I mentioned in my emotional strengths, I am strong in my ability to accept that life goes on. However, in class when we watched the Ted Talk by Lucy Hone, I was revitalized in this notion. It is very important in order to be a resillient person, as she stated, to be able to accept this and move on.
Spiritual Pathway: Each class, we practice breathing and meditation, which has been very helpful to ease and release stress built up from school. Before this class, I hadn't practiced breathing exercises before, and like I had touched on in my challenges, this is my hardest category to fulfill. Therefore, this is an area of growth I would like to invest in when this class has concluded and into my nursing career.
Choice Pathway: I think I struggle sometimes with accountability. The ANA Self Care and You handout suggests seeking an accountability buddy. I recognize this an area that I need some growth in so I am planning on taking this advice!
Relationship Pathway: In our recent lecture, Dr. Wood explained many ways to identify toxic people like the narcissist, the controller, etc. This has helped me to identify these people in my own life in order to protect myself in my relationships as an area of self growth in my life.
Mental Pathway: So far in class, something that has really stuck out to me was determining where I stood on the energy meter. This has been a great way to guide some introspection into my day to day life. I have identified this a positive are for growth; one that will generate positive outcomes for myself. I have learned to take a minute every once in a while to reflect on my mental state and what things are depleting it, and which things are energizing it. While this ties in with the emotional pathway, I think it's very important to reflect on the mental state in this aspect as well.