You are feeling like you’re on your last nerve, spoiling for a fight; aggression is high, you snap at loved ones. Maybe you feel like you might have a meltdown, your anxiety is ramping up, or you swing the other way and feel like you aren’t who people think you are - you feel like a fraud. A lack of self-care can lead to uncharacteristic behavior, and unmet needs are often the source. When we are trying to balance other people's needs and wants, or if we're pushing ourselves to be a perfect version of ourselves, we get overwhelmed, don’t eat well or when we should (hangry, anyone?), exhausted and in dire need for rest that we never quite manage to achieve.

If we keep ignoring our needs and pushing ourselves to the end of our priorities, we will overlook the ‘red lights’ that our bodies and minds are giving us, like nausea and stomach discomfort, sweaty palms and shallow breathing, headache, clenched jaws and tight shoulders, being easily annoyed and not feeling able to cope with daily tasks. Our body and mind get our attention in whatever way they can, if we keep trying to ignore them. Little things become big issues, or we start to pick and nag at others over things they’ve done (even if we secretly realise that they aren’t really the issue, just the ‘fall guy’).

Even when an external factor isn't the cause of our mood, we don’t tend to go to self care as the next logical step in acknowledging our deep-seated needs. We do not realize how our thinking and our actions can flag that we have unmet needs, so we can turn on ourselves, believing that we are deeply flawed or weak. When we neglect ourselves, our needs become ever more urgent, we feel worse, and we behave in ways that aren’t helpful, or how we normally would if we were at peace. This perpetuates a vicious circle. The people we love and spend a lot of time with can often identify when we are running on empty before we do, but ironically our unmet needs can cause us to lack out at them when they do draw it to our attention.

Every individual has their own bandwidth: we all differ in how we deal with things, our capacity and how much our energy and care gets depleted. We are not the same, and certain tasks and challenges call have a different toll on each of us; maybe you might feel physically low after dealing with an issue - for someone else, they may take a hit emotionally. Self-care is vital – and when it is lacking, it impacts us and the community around us.

The HALT system:

Hungry
Angry
Lonely
Tired

It may seem obvious, but if you feel one of those 4 things, it can be amazing how often we act, respond and behave in unwise ways. They can have a pretty potent influence on our decision-making! Address those needs first before dealing with others (this is also a pretty effective tool when raising children as well!) - check yourself before you wreck yourself! These are basic unmet needs that can often underpin other issues.

In our pursuit of our desires and goals, we also tend to take the ‘easy’ path, which leads us to be heavy on self-criticism when we realise that perhaps, it wasn’t the best route to take, or if it has a bigger toll on our wellbeing that we realised at first.

Observing changes in our emotional state, and being aware of our behaviors that are detrimental to our wellbeing and our relational health is vitally important.