New Year, New Rule
How an ancient Christian tradition can transform your self-care and your life
I have two questions for you. First, have you read Sacred Self-Care? If you have, have you created your Self-Care Rule of Life? If you answered “no” to both questions, let me tell you: you’re missing out on a powerful way to transforming your self-care and your life. And I’m not saying that because I wrote the book. I’m saying that because I’ve been using my own self-care rule of life for eight years now and it continues to be transformative for me.
The Self-Care Rule of Life is an adaptation of a long-standing tradition of Christian monastic communities. Traditionally, a rule of life is a set of practices and guidelines that monks used to structure their daily activities and rhythms so that they could maintain community, serve others, and be devoted to God. In seminary, I learned how a rule of life could be adapted for use by individuals in order to cultivate our relationship with God. Being a clinical psychologist who understood the connection between our minds, our bodies, and our spirits, I expanded my rule of life beyond the typical focus on spiritual disciplines to include self-care. A Self-Care Rule of Life is a pattern of activities, habits, disciplines, and practices that promote spiritual, physical, emotional, mental, relational, and vocational wellness.
My rule of life is a living document that structures my self-care priorities and holds me accountable. I keep it visible to remind me of the practices that I need to engage to sustain my health as well as my capacity for ministry. I paste a full-color copy of it in my Agendio planner each year and post another copy on my bedroom or office wall. I use a habit tracker app to remind me of my daily and weekly habits. At least twice yearly, I revisit it to assess where I’m doing well, where I need to improve, and whether it still fits my needs. I adapt it as my needs change (or as I become better at identifying what I need). I think I’m on my fourth or fifth version.
Even when I don’t adapt it, I go through the planning process for it once a year. Every August, I fill out my rule of life planning worksheet, where I set my self-care goals in each area, identify what I’m already doing well, and identify where I would like to improve over the next year (my “growing edges”). In fact, my self-care goals are rarely concrete objectives like “lose 20 pounds.” I focus on improvement, rather than perfection, and how I feel rather than some external standard. This year’s physical self-care goals, for example, are to increase my energy, flexibility, strength, and endurance.
After I set my overall goals, I operationalize them using the Self-Care Rule of Life Planning worksheet (see below), asking myself what concrete behaviors will move me toward my goals. I think about what I need to do daily, weekly, monthly, annually, and so on. For example, hitting my step goal or closing my Apple Watch move ring are daily goals, while working with a physical therapist may be more seasonal.
Then, once I’ve figured it out, I create or revise the poster that I then print to serve as a visual reminder throughout the year. Here’s a link to a Canva template that I share with students and workshop participants who need an easy way to create their own poster. You can use it to create your own rule of life.
Does all this sound overwhelming? Admittedly, the process takes time. I often spend days (and sometimes weeks) reflecting upon the prior year before I finally sit down to plan and design my rule of life. But taking the time to think about self-care is actually the most important, and most difficult, aspect of self-care.
So if you haven’t already (or haven’t recently) engaged in this process, I invite you to take out your calendar and set aside a few hours this month where you can do it. Put it in the calendar. Think about what you’ll need to do to protect that time. You likely already have what you need. You just need to take the time to figure out what that is.