Women encouraged to focus more on self-care

“Take care of yourselves!”

That’s the message Clinical Psychologist at Soleyn Psychological Services, Christa Soleyn has for women from all walks of life across Barbados, on International Women’s Day.

As Founder and Chairman of United Youth Leaders of Barbados, Christa has done a great deal of activism, projects and outreach focused on youth empowerment and now, as a psychologist with her own practice, though she is still very passionate about youth work, her area of expertise allows her to do a lot of work with women who experience trauma, sexual violence or who struggle as young mothers. She also works with vulnerable populations, such as persons living with HIV.

Christa says, whether it is working with professional women or young mothers fighting to cope, she is doing a lot more mental health work and she finds that females in general need to focus more on their mental and emotional well-being. They need to make a strategic effort to take care of themselves, she notes, so they do not experience burnout, stress and anxiety and other challenges, due to their tendency to push themselves beyond their limits, as they try to balance family life, a hectic work schedule, their social activities and the demands of life in general.

“I am very passionate about women’s work and youth work as well. Right now I am actually working on the Girl Power Hour workshop, which is for teenagers. It’s all about empowerment. I also work on the Love Project every year, where I offer free therapy for particularly vulnerable populations, such as young mothers. I am also working on a project to help young professionals. So I am getting into companies and talking to women about self-care. So I am doing a lot more mental health work,” Soleyn revealed.

She added, “Self-care is very, very important, especially in this time where we kind of neglect our mental health.”

“I think that women tend to have this idea that we are supposed to do (everything), so even if I am overwhelmed, I am going to push myself and not stop. So you find a lot of women are coming into the practice. Mothers are coming in all burnt out, but still can’t stop because of these expectations of her, but then also as women, we are wired to think that we need to put everybody before us,” Soleyn acknowledged.

“So what I am hoping to do, is to actually host a Self-Care Retreat at the end of this year or early next year. I have actually done some site visits, so now I am looking for a partner to fund the retreat. But the idea is to bring together some young professional women and from there, start to talk about self-care. I hope it is something I can do every year, because every time I have to do a session, it’s the number one topic, burnout and self-care and women not being able to function and then not knowing what to do,” she told The Barbados Advocate.

Pointing out that women at times appear to take pride in stating that they are extremely busy and even exhausted, Christa however stressed the need for women to recognise the signs of burnout and to focus more on taking care of themselves. She even advocates a special Self-Care Challenge which she gives to her clients, but which can prove useful to women in general, which encourages them to focus on different tasks to be accomplished over a period of five days, that will help them better care for themselves.

“What I do for my clients, is a Self-Care Challenge. So it’s for five days and every day it has a different task. So for example, one day it could focus on physical health, so the challenge would be to go for a walk and exercise. Another day would be to eat an all fruit or all vegetable meal. The next day is to de-clutter. There has been a lot of studies that say de-cluttering helps. Journaling is very important. Ever one in my practice receives a journal. The other one is to be social. No matter what, this particular day, just try to go out with a friend, a coworker,” she explained.

She however noted, “The tasks that I find a lot of people don’t do, is finding a hobby or building something with their hands, and it has to be something that is new. Also, spending alone time. So those are some of the activities I would put out and then you do it over five days and then talk about it. But the real message behind it, is that for five days, you are focusing on doing something for you. We always say we don’t have time, but doing one of these task every day, encourages us to make time.”

Meanwhile, the Clinical Psychologist says women need to know the power of “no”.

“Many women don’t know how to say ‘no’ to situations they know are toxic for their mental health, even though they may be on the brink of having a meltdown. They feel if they say ‘no’ the world will end or the person will hate them, but you have to love yourself more,” she maintained.
“In the message of self-care, is also the message of self-love. If you love yourself, you will take the time to do whatever you need to do, to (stay healthy),” Soleyn finally pointed out.