what decluttering has to do with self-care

You may have noticed that I’ve been a little bit MIA these last few weeks. I’ve been working really hard these last few months and noticed that I’ve been neglecting myself. So I’ve decided to start making my self-care a top priority.

Most of the time, when we think of self-care, we think of eating, exercising, and sleeping well. You’ll notice some of those in my list below, and some might be eye opening to you. Enjoy!

1) Doubling up on time with my coaches (plural) and EFT. These keep me focused and with low stress so that I can do the things I want to do in life. Like live a vibrant, healthy, happy life. Small things like that. 🙂

2) Eating nourishing and comforting foods. My latest invention was sliced potatoes topped with ketchup and melted cheese. (Sounds like something your 7 year old would eat? The 7 year old in me wanted it, too). I think it may continue to be a regular around here this winter. Also roasted root vegetables. And cucumbers. I really like cucumbers. Don’t tell my mother, but I actually started liking tomatoes. (Hi, Mom!)

3) Outsourcing my work. I hired my good, old friend to help me out with some work. She’s not really old, just that we’ve been friends for a long time. We met when we were in seminary. Except that we didn’t go to the same seminary. She went to the one next-door to mine. I went to the one next-door to hers. We used to eat in the same dining room, and people used to mix us up, thinking that we looked alike. We kind of did, with light brown hair and dark eyebrows and perfectly slightly big noses (I don’t know about hers…but mine…is very perfect). We became friends almost instantly, and when we have a chance to catch up it’s like no time has passed since we last spoke. So it was a perfect solution to hire her to help me out. She’s fun and quirky and keeps me laughing, and it’s an opportunity to have more of her in my life. She’s a great assistant, so if you need help with your business or know of a business that does, feel free to hire her. You’ll be happy you did. Contact Brachie at brachiegrunberger@gmail.com.

4) Sleep. Sleeeeeeep. I could say that again and again. My clients are working on their relationship with food, and I’m simultaneously working on my relationship with sleep. I don’t like going to sleep early. I like to stay up so that I don’t miss out on any of the action going on…except that usually it’s the same old dishes that need to be washed and laundry that needs to be folded. So I’m learning to figure out the messages my body is giving me so that I can become a…get this — an intuitive sleeper. If that term didn’t exist until now, it now does. Copyright Rena Reiser, 2016. So anyway, I’ve been working on the sleep thing and 2 nights in a row I got to sleep when I wanted to. And then I slipped up. But it’s okay, because slip ups and fails are part of the game. And I’m just going to keep course-correcting and learning from these experiences.

5) Reading. I found a book that makes my neshama dance with joy every time I open it up and read a few pages. My eyes tear and I want to sing it from the rooftops. Something about it just clicks so well with me.

6) Sunshine. It’s the winter, and that means that the sun hides much of the time. Whenever I see it peaking out from behind the clouds, out I go to bask in its glow. That book I mentioned in #5? It follows me outside and I read it in the sun. Double win!

7) Decluttering. My cleaning lady, may she live long and be blessed, loves making piles of my piles. I’m not the most organized. I mean, I am. I am perfectly imperfectly organized. When I was growing up, I didn’t let the cleaning lady into my room, because she used to sort through the piles on my floor and PUT THINGS AWAY. The nerve. Didn’t she know that the place for my uniform was in a crumpled up pile in the left of the room, and my Shabbos clothes belonged in a pile on the right, and the clean clothes I tried on but didn’t want to wear were in the middle, and the dirty pile off to the other side? Anyway, so this is somewhat reminiscent of those days. I’ve gotten much better about putting my things where they belong each day. Yet every so often (okay, daily), things start to pile up on the dining room table, on the coffee table, on the couch…and my cleaning lady takes all those things and puts them into containers and sticks them under the stairs. So when our water bill needs to be paid and we don’t know where it is, we know to look under the stairs. How does this fall under self-care? Because the stress of not knowing where my stuff is is annoying. Ah, you may be thinking why don’t I just put things away before she comes put things away daily? Because I do try…and I’m not perfect…and this is one of the many areas of life I’m working on.

So that’s what I’ve been busy with. Self-care. Not so much in the inspiring blog post department. I did record a 2 minute video with tips on Thursday (see that below). I didn’t sleep so well Wednesday night, so that’s why I look exhausted. Because I was. And the lighting wasn’t so great. DONE IS BETTER THAN PERFECT. That’s my motto these days. I’m going to try to record short videos with intuitive eating tips each week. I’d love to hear your feedback on the content. Not on the video quality. I’m not a videographer. 😉

I’m also a coach, and in keeping with my new self-care regime, I’m cutting back on my regular coaching hours until after Pesach. So if you were thinking about working with me and getting on the path to breaking free from stress-eating, I have 3 spots open in my schedule to work with me for the next three months. Cuz tonight is Tu B’Shvat. And that means that Pesach is in 3 months. So 3 months of coaching starting now-ish takes us through Pesach. And what better time of the year to not stress-eat than when our stress levels as Jewish women are at their highest (and they really don’t have to be). Contact me if you’re interested in us working together for the next 3 months and we’ll set up a time to speak and discover if we’re the right fit for each other. Investment starts at $299 / 999 NIS a month for 3 months.

Here’s the video:

P.S. If you know someone else who would like this, please share this link with them: https://renareiser.com/blog/2016/01/24/what-decluttering-has-to-do-with-self-care/

​It’s the very nicest thing you could do for me!