Why Nurturing Yourself is Necessary (and how to start)

Flowers just starting to emerge after weeks of waiting! Are you good at nurturing? Your first instinct may be to say, "no." After working all day, paying the bills, making dinner or doing laundry, taking care of the kids and/or pets, there's little left in the tank to use for nurturing yourself. 

But does nurturing have to take hours? Must it involve expensive spa treatments or pricey weekend getaways?  How do you define nurturing? Often the word brings up images of a mother bending over her baby in a crib, rubbing his back and humming a lullaby. Sometimes the word nurture makes us think of a career in the medical field or teaching profession. After all, these professionals spend their days taking care of other people's needs. 

As a creative though, what does the word mean? We're told to "nurture our creativity," or maybe to "allow the muse to nurture," but what the heck does that really mean?

In a world that's rush-rush, helter-skelter, it's hard sometimes to know how to effectively nourish one's soul. How to carve out time to just be , and in being, find the creative deep down inside. ( This article lists 7 tips for doing just that.) But I don't think that nurturing has to be all about big things. Or even about adding more to one's already over-full plate. Maybe it can just be about a certain frame of mind. A certain kindness in one's inner dialogue. A little bit of contentment in one's everyday life. What do you think? 

I'm going to be embarking on another 20-day challenge in the month of February: adding 15 minutes of nurturing into each day. I'll be blogging about my progress here and, if you're interested in joining me, I would love to hear about your tips/tricks and successes (or lack thereof) with this experiment.