Nadia Narain - Self-Care for the Real World

Nadia: Growing up I had a pretty difficult time at home and I left as soon as I could, at not quite sixteen. I was lucky enough to have a job as a model that allowed me to support myself and to travel all over the world. When I look at my friends teenagers now, I cant believe how young I was to be out there on my own.

Although Katia and I were fortunate to be brought up on a foundation of healthy food and exercise, I never felt that I was taught to look after myself emotionally. This, combined with being independent at such a young age, meant that I was always looking outside, to other people, for emotional stability, instead of learning to find it in myself.

When I took my first yoga class at the age of eighteen, it was like I had come home. Yoga made me feel soft and safe and held, and helped me learn a new way of being. Now Ive been teaching it for over twenty years, and Im still learning and constantly practising.

Yoga led me to meditation, which helped settle my mind. I hate how corny it sounds, like just practise meditation and youll be calm, but meditation means training the mind and my mind has a tendency to be pretty volatile. So finding a practice that helped settle it was like finding a new pathway in life.

None of this was instant. It has taken a long time and many different practices, books and teachings to learn to soften my edges, to open my heart, to take care of myself and to accept myself rather than trying to fix myself.

I hope you will find this for yourself too.

@nadianarain

Katia: Like Nadia, I left home young and did a lot of travelling. In my twenties it might have seemed as if I was having a great time exploring the world, but inside I felt insecure and uncertain. It was hard for me to feel beautiful or worthy of caring for myself; I was living with the self-destruct button pressed way down.

My journey of self-care started with self-discovery. I was always open to alternative lifestyles, training as a reiki master, becoming a massage therapist and reading a lot of spiritual books. I began to accept that I was on a different path to the norm, instead of fighting it.

The big lesson I learned from all my travelling was that your unhappiness will follow you wherever you go, so you might as well be where people really love you, and face your issues and begin to deal with them.

I decided to come to London and make a life for myself with my sister and good friends by my side. My time spent travelling didnt go to waste, though; while in Hawaii I learned about raw food and juices, which led me to open my first caf, Little Earth, in 2004. Now I run the Nectar Caf in Triyoga, in London.

Grounding myself in London, where I live with my family, is where Im at right now. I have learned to be comfortable in my skin and to love and accept who I am. Once this happened I found that I didnt need to run from myself anymore.

I wish the same for you.

@katianarainphillips

Learning self-care is like building your own lifeboat,plank by plank. Once youve got your boat, youllstill be rocked by the waves of life, but youll havea feeling of safety, and a stability that means youcan pick other people up on your way.

Wellness pioneers Nadia and Katia have spentyears helping others to feel their best, but it tookthem a bit longer to understand how to look afterthemselves. Here they share the small achievablesteps they have learned, and how you can applythem to your own life, wherever you are.

What if I forgave myself? What if I forgave myself even though Id done some things I shouldnt have? What if all those things I shouldnt have done were what got me here? What if I was never redeemed? What if I already was? Cheryl Strayed

JUST IMAGINE, FOR a minute, that this statement is completely true: there is nothing wrong with you. Say it a few times. See how it feels. Weird, right?

A lot of us are brought up to believe we need to be better in some way. Maybe you were told that you should get top grades at school, or maybe there was something you felt you had to achieve in order to please someone you loved. Thats fine if you got the message you were still lovable, even if you failed the exam or got suspended from school, but if the overall message you heard from your parents or significant people around you was that love had conditions attached, it may be hard, even as an adult, to ever feel youre good enough.

Dont get us wrong, we do believe in working hard and doing your best, but what also matters is not so much that you can be good, more that you were already born full of goodness and love.

Other things that have happened to you may lead you to think theres something wrong with you. A boyfriend may have said one small thing about you when you were going out, and it stuck. Even if you havent seen him for years, you may still feel that part of you needs to be fixed or changed. Nadia remembers her best friend in school telling her she should always wear baggy clothes and cover up her legs because they were too skinny. It was only when, as an adult, a friend asked why she always hid her body that she remembered it, and realised it had stayed with her for years.

So think about what early messages you absorbed about yourself. Can you begin to question those messages and ask if they are really true?

Those childhood patterns stay with us, and when we are reminded of them by something that happens in the present, we often find ourselves coming back to the same ingrained message: there is something wrong with me. When something happens in adult life to confirm this maybe criticism from a boss, or a row with a partner or a friend we find ourselves dragged into the painful place in our minds where we feel we are not good enough.

Remember that even if youve behaved badly, or have done something mean or unkind, that does not make you a terrible person. We all make mistakes. The most self-caring thing you can do right now is forgive yourself.

You may have tried all kinds of ways to escape this feeling of not being good enough. People look for a magic wand to make the pain or empty feeling go away. Maybe you go shopping to feel better, or drink a lot, or have sex with people you dont like much (because you want them to like you). Or perhaps you go to a tarot card reader in the hope of hearing that things will change because of fate or destiny, rather than because of your own actions.

Some people keep going to different therapists, buying self-help books, going on retreats, visiting gurus and healers, going on diets or fasts, or searching for a way to feel okay about themselves. We understand this we did this too! And none of this is wrong in itself, but its hard to hear the voice inside if youre always looking for your answers outside.

You will never be rid of the stuff you dont like, but what if you learn that your flaws are beautiful and you can be friends with them?

Thats not to say theres anything wrong with wanting to change some behavioural patterns that dont work for you. Nor that you shouldnt learn new ways to be and to grow. What were saying is, theres a difference between practising self-care because you think youre a shitty person who needs fixing, and practising self-care because you are treating yourself in the same way you would treat someone you love.

Think about why you are doing yoga or meditating or exercising, or changing your diet. Be honest. Are you trying to fix something? Or can you learn to see that youre perfect as you are, with all your flaws and your beauty? Dont practise self-care to fix yourself, do it out of great love and respect for the person you are and the body you live in.