When was the last time you spent a few hours doing something by yourself FOR yourself?  Create a weekly self-care night with your spouse and it can be a lot more often.

Recently I’ve been reading a book called Essentialism, which is supposed to teach me how to discern what is truly essential and eliminate all that is not so I can give my all to what really matters.  I like the book and I’m on board, the only problem is while telling me to eliminate everything, it also says, ‘oh but also you have spend time on YOURSELF.  Exercise, read, get outside, do fun things just for YOU.”

Riiiiiight, where is all of the “me” time coming from?

If you’re like me, there are just barely enough hours in the day to take care of the people and the house counting on me for survival and sanitation.  Let alone a good night’s sleep, let alone “me” activities just for fun.

But, I’m happy to report this year, we decided to start prioritizing this mental/physical/emotional health initiative of time alone to something good for ourselves.

And it’s been one of the best things we’ve done for our marriage this year.

Here’s how it works:  each Wednesday evening/night we trade off watching the kids and doing bedtime so the other one can go out and have a night to do whatever they want.  We call it self-care night.  And we LOVE it!

Every other Wednesday night I get 2-3 glorious hours all to myself to do whatever the heck I want!  I can read, sew, shop, swim, go out for a treat, be productive, be lazy, or whatever else I feel like!  I can’t tell you how much I look forward to these Wednesday nights.  I didn’t realize how much it would benefit my mental well-being until we started doing it.

And Rich feels the same way.  I admit I pitched the idea back in January mostly because I wanted to do it, but Rich loves it just as much as I do!  Maybe more.  Often most of our other family scheduled calendar activities can slip his mind, but he never forgets about a self-care night 🙂  Its been fun to see what we do with our time when we get to do things we normally wouldn’t.

Are you on board yet?

Here’s how to create your own:

1.  Decide on an evening (or morning or mid-day depending on your schedule) when you are relatively free for a 2-3 hour chunk.  For us, it’s Wednesday nights from whenever Rich gets home from work until about 9pm.
2. If you have kids, commit to flying solo with them that one night every other week.
3. Make a list of fun things you never get to do!
4. Do those things on your self-care night!
5. Enjoy your new care-free life.

🙂

Let us know if you decide to do it and tell us how it goes!!