I’m so glad you are here today because I want to talk about how to care for your soul, a discipline that I believe is critical for health and spiritual well-being. Many different habits help us to develop rhythms that prioritize self-care, but today I just want to focus on the practice of encouraging rather than neglecting yourself. So, why don’t you grab a cup of whatever sounds good right now, and get comfortable as we talk about some of the ways we can get better at taking care of ourselves.

Now, before we get into it, let me ask you a question. How would you evaluate and describe the condition of your soul today? Consider your physical, mental, spiritual, and emotional tanks, because all four of these areas affect the overall condition of your soul. Is there one area that feels more depleted than the others? 

Those are not easy questions, are they? If you are anything like me, you may even be tempted to push them aside. Resist that urge, if you can, because the result of that process might be the very thing that helps open the way for deeper healing. 

Soul-care is stewardship

I don’t remember the exact year it was, but I think it was around 2008. My husband and I were down in Lancaster County for a Pastoral Leadership Retreat with other Pastors from our local region. Our yearly retreat was always a highlight for us because it gave us some time away and alone. During this particular event, author Mindy Caliguire was the keynote speaker. 

Here’s the nutty thing, I don’t even remember what she said that impacted me so profoundly, but I do remember the effect. By the end of that first session, I was a hot mess. The things she said and taught exposed the state of my soul, causing an unraveling as I had never experienced. I realized that my attempt toward the surrendered life had actually taken on a distorted practice of martyrdom. The Holy Spirit showed me that night that neglecting myself wasn’t surrender it was abusive and it was dishonoring to God. 

That night was a turning point for me because it kick-started a healing-journey. Understanding that before I can pour myself out for the sake of others, I need to submit to the fullness of God’s grace. It seems like a no brainer, but for me, I was stuck in patterns that continued to cut me off from destiny and purpose. 

Have you ever experienced that weighty hopelessness?

Here’s my point. God has designed you in the most unique ways. You have been given a body and life that is attached to a good destiny. The business of how to care for your soul is an issue of stewardship, and when you work from that position it sets you up to better recognize the enemy’s funky attempts to hijack practices that really are good (like surrender and sacrifice).

What is soul-care?

Formulating a plan to take care of your soul requires having a good working definition of what soul-care is. Ultimately, the health of your soul is intrinsically tied to the way you experience God in all aspects of your life. It’s about the way you abide with Him and responded to Him in all your moments. Maybe I shouldn’t presume to speak for everyone, but I observe a tendency of our human nature to compartmentalize things in our lives. You can’t do that with your soul, because it was designed by God to be interconnected. Everything eventually affects everything.

Soul-care is about tending and nurturing your relationship with God, which may need to include practices that help you care for certain parts of your life. Honoring and caring for the body and the life God created and entrusted to your care in vital. It is a critical aspect of spiritual alignment, which helps to open the way to the fullness of what God has for you because you can’t lead others when you aren’t able to lead yourself.

Whenever I travel by plane, I sit through the safety demonstration that reminds me that in the event of an emergency I need to put the oxygen mask on my face first, before I attempt to help another person. That always sounds so selfish, even though I know that really is the best course of action. You need to think about taking care of your soul as an essential practice for helping others. 

The difference between taking care of your soul and self-absorption

Just like everything else, soul-care can get funky if it’s not managed in the context of intimacy with God. That’s true of most things, right? We need to practice the discipline of soul-care with the Father, listening to what He says, lest we become self-absorbed.

How you take care of your soul, starts with understanding who God says you are. Identity is an important place to start. There are certainly times when you may be called to do something that you just don’t feel equipped or comfortable doing. In those kinds of situations, you can trust that God will always be faithful to resource what He requires. The rest of the time, you can also trust that He has created you to operate and function from a place of strength and gifting. If you don’t know what your strengths and gifts are, then this is likely the place you want to start.

Taking care of your soul is not about serving yourself first, it’s about honoring God first. A yielded heart is committed to surrender for the sake of bringing glory to God. Self-absorption subverts the act of surrender to garner attention. We have to be vigilant in guarding the heart.

Understanding soul-neglect

In 2014, my Father passed away suddenly. In the early days as we worked to make all the arrangements, I moved through the motions. Grief is a beast, and when we had finally gone through the funeral I began to crash. Emotionally I was spent, of course, but then my body began to follow. 

I remember as we made the trip home from Canada to Pennsylvania, talking to my husband about how completely empty I felt. He nodded and said, “Sounds about right. You have spent every store of strength from your physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual tanks. It’s going to take time to fill up again.” And he was right. It took me a LONG time to re-fill all those tanks. 

I began to recognize symptoms of soul-neglect in that season, which stand to this day as warning signs. One of the things I learned about myself is that when I am mentally tired I start to lose connection to my vocabulary center. Words literally fail to come. Have you ever had that problem? 

My kids and I would play that old car game, “Punch buggy no punch back.” We saw a lot of two-toned convertible Volkswagen bugs in that season, which caused much laughter as I struggled to find the right words. In my haste to be first, I’d say, “Punch buggy red with a black lid,” which always sent them into hysterics. My brain couldn’t find the word roof, so it would substitute it with the word lid. 

For me, a sure sign of soul-neglect is fatigue. The challenge is that how you treat physical fatigue is very different than how you treat mental, emotional, and spiritual fatigue. It’s a learning curve that requires paying close attention. 

What about you? Have you ever considered how neglecting yourself betrays any effort you make in taking care of your soul?

How to take care of your soul 

One of the best ways to take care of your soul is to learn how to recognize the symptoms of soul-neglect. Set up rhythms that support health and respect those boundaries. As you work those disciplines with the Holy Spirit, you will start to develop the ability to discern when there is a dis-ease within your soul. 

Let me outline what I mean. How do you take care of your physical needs? What do you value and how do you prioritize those things? The truth of the matter is we all have basic needs and we know how to care for them. That said, we also know that there are unhealthy ways to take care of those needs, right?

For example, I know I need to eat, but I cannot sustain health and wellness if my diet is unbalanced. Oh, I could eat cereal for every meal, which takes care of my hunger, but it doesn’t fill me up with enough nutrients. Eventually, vitamin deficiency will set in leaving me vulnerable to disease or whatever virus is floating around. Physical sickness is often a symptom of a deficiency. Also, what I eat affects how I sleep, and how I think. If I don’t properly tend to the specific issues of diet, my overall wellness will suffer. 

Doing an honest evaluation of the physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual condition of your soul helps to give you a better picture of what’s going on. I know that might sound a little overwhelming, so let me suggest that you begin with the most obvious aspects that you see. 

Write a list that of all the areas you see health. It’s always helpful to start with something encouraging, right? After you’ve done that, begin to make a list of areas that don’t feel healthy. Once you’ve got a working list, the next step is to dig a little deeper. Begin to examine the fruit in your life. What are you producing?

The practice of encouraging yourself

One of the things I’m learning as I continue to peel back the layers of this self-care discipline is that there are parts of my character and personality that are still underdeveloped. Yes, God has given me certain gifts and talents, but there are aspects of my personality that are begging for investment. 

In my own personal quest for recovery and wholeness where my soul is concerned, I’ve begun to see the value in finding ways to invest in myself through the practice of encouraging myself. I do this in partnership with the Holy Spirit. This isn’t a justification to serve my own wants and needs, but rather a recognition of how I am better when I function from the abundance of God.

Encouraging yourself is about acknowledging who you are in Christ and how He has designed you to be. It’s about digging deeper and investing so that what was planted can grow and increase. Taking care of your soul starts when you honor the person God created you to be in all aspects of your life. When you tend and nurture the gifts, skills, talents, and dreams that He has planted, it creates a fragrant offering of worship. 

Ideas of how you can encourage rather than neglect yourself

Physical

• Add a regular activity that you love
• Commit to a physical challenge (like couch to 5K)
• Regular sleep and waking routines
• Healthy eating practices 
• Developing regular eating routines

Mental

• Read books (develops mental strength)
• Do puzzles
• Word Search activities
• Use tools to help keep things organized so you mind doesn’t have to be responsible for remembering everything all the time.

Emotional

• Establish boundaries that help protect your emotions (i.e. Don’t watch things that stir up fear)
• Practice what you love.
• Paint a picture
• Write a song, a poem, or a story.
• Cook a meal
• Play in the garden
• Take a drive and capture the beauty you see with your camera or phone
• Nurture healthy relationships
• Seek help when you need it

Spiritual

• Cultivate healthy rhythms & disciplines 
• Guard your disciplines (set them up like appointments and establish boundaries)
• Set up special times of retreat 
• Read a book on the topic of an area, in which you would like to grow
• Consider connecting with a spiritual director, mentor, or small group
• Try going on short-term missions’ trip

I’ve created a little tool for you, to help work through and evaluate where you are at. Just click the link below! I hope you find it helpful in your journey as you pursue the practice of encouraging yourself.