Self-stewardship
A guided journey on how to build a nourishing relationship with yourself by starting exactly where you are.
Welcome to this month’s guided journey together at Being in Motherhood. If you are a paid member, you have access to this whole post. If you are a free subscriber, you have access to this voice note and what the theme of the month is before you reach the paywall. I invite you to listen to the voice note below and take your time as you move through this post.
Stewardship is the work of supervising, overseeing, caring for something; a household, a group, a community. An example of stewardship is the responsibility of managing an estate or a piece of land. An example of stewardship is the act of making wise use of the natural resources provided by the earth.
This month you are the object, the thing you are overseeing and caring for is you. We will be exploring building a relationship with ourselves.
Elena Brower inspired this theme by saying…“a haven is what’s created when we manage to steward ourselves amidst chaos.”’
What does it mean to care for yourself?
What does it mean to be in relationship with yourself?
How do you create a haven inside of yourself?
I find caring for and tending to myself to be the most important work but it did not start this way. I spent most of my life (and sometimes I still find myself) defending and protecting, these ways of being were birthed out of trauma and a need to survive. I held these patterns close, the biggest one being I do not matter, which also translates to everyone else matters more than me.
I was struggling, but managing, until the early days of motherhood. After months and months of being in service to a tiny being, this belief of not mattering had to shake loose. It was painful, frightening, and exhausting. I had a choice to make… to keep living as I had, neglecting myself or to do something differently, and take care of myself.
I found caring for myself to help in mothering my son. And I find it to feel incredibly selfish at times. I struggle to feel worthy of time for myself, I struggle at times with putting my needs on the map. Even with these struggles, I find caring for myself to be more supportive of the life I desire and the mother I aim to be.
How much time or energy goes to caring for other people?
How much of what you give do you then pour back into yourself?
Sit with your answers for a second.
What you do in a day for others is going to be what pulls you away from cultivating a relationship with yourself. Take a moment to determine your WHY for going on this journey, why you desire to care for yourself, and what you long for that to look like. This will be what you come back to when those around you have needs and desires that conflict with yours.
What self-stewardship is not
This is not self-care.
Self-care has become mainstream and clutched by capitalism. There is marketing all over the media aim at trying to give you this thing you need to take better care of yourself. I love a bath, I love chocolate cake, and I love laying on the couch, but what we are exploring goes deeper than doing nice things for yourself.
Self-stewardship is about making the time to deeply listen to yourself, to hear and be with what you hurts inside of you. Self-stewardship is about being present with yourself and your experience.
Self-care often lacks presence. When the idea is to do nice things for yourself, you can do them without presence. You can take a bath, and your mind could be spinning off about what to cook for dinner tomorrow. How nourished do you feel after an experience where your mind was somewhere else?
The intention of self-stewardship is to cultivate a relationship with ourselves that is nourishing. Let’s explore how to start to nourish ourselves.
If you are not a paid member, I invite you to join us. You will receive full access to each monthly guided journey full of prompts, practices, and insights to deepen your relationship with yourself.