A peek inside my own self-care rituals.
You might be quietly overwhelmed by the constant demands of your multiple roles, leaving you with almost no time or energy to tend to your own needs in ways that feel both doable and meaningful. Your nervous system’s real needs—not the glossy wellness trends—are what keep you steady; self-care means creating rituals that help you regulate stress and build resilience in the cracks of your busy life.
RESTORATIVE PRACTICE
A restorative practice is any intentional activity that replenishes psychological, physical, and neurological resources that have been depleted by stress, performance demands, or emotional labor. Psychologist Stuart Brown, MD, founder of the National Institute for Play, distinguishes restorative practices from mere rest by their capacity to actively restore nervous system regulation, not simply pause activation.
In plain terms: It’s the difference between scrolling your phone when you’re exhausted and doing something that actually fills you back up. Restorative practices are the things that, when you’re done, you feel more like yourself than before you started.
- A peek inside my own self-care rituals.
- Signs You May Be Carrying Relational Trauma
- Other supports and self-care rituals that are more weekly or ad hoc but that still support me?
- I really hope that one resource, ritual, or idea I shared resonated with you today.
- Wrapping up.
- Frequently Asked Questions
Relational trauma refers to the emotional wounds and patterns that develop from early experiences of inconsistency, neglect, or emotional unavailability within close relationships—often those with primary caregivers. It is not about a single traumatic event like an accident or disaster; rather, it’s about the ongoing, subtle ways your early connections shaped how safe and worthy you feel in the world. This matters deeply to you because the shadow of relational trauma quietly influences how you relate to yourself and others, how you struggle with self-care, and why your nervous system might feel more triggered or depleted than it should. Understanding relational trauma helps you see that your struggles aren’t personal failings, but real responses rooted in your body and history that deserve care, not judgment.
- You might be quietly overwhelmed by the constant demands of your multiple roles, leaving you with almost no time or energy to tend to your own needs in ways that feel both doable and meaningful.
- Your nervous system’s real needs—not the glossy wellness trends—are what keep you steady; self-care means creating rituals that help you regulate stress and build resilience in the cracks of your busy life.
- Healing your relationship to self-care means giving yourself permission to prioritize your wellbeing without guilt, using honest, imperfect practices that actually sustain your capacity to show up for yourself and others.
I don’t know about you but I’m always fascinated when people I follow give me/the public a peek into their daily habits, skincare rituals, favorite travel destinations, you name it.
SUMMARY
There’s a particular kind of value in a therapist who talks honestly about their own self-care — not as a performance of wellness, but as a transparent look at the actual, imperfect practices that help sustain the capacity for this work. This is an honest account of what self-care actually looks like in practice, built around the nervous system’s real needs rather than aspirational wellness culture.
Part of the appeal, for me, is voyeuristic.
But another part is this: I genuinely learn something and usually end up adding a product or resource to my own life that I wouldn’t normally have included.
My world and my toolbox expand.
So while I’ve never written a blog post before about my own self-care habits, I thought it might be fun (if not helpful) to share with you some of my own stalwart self-care habits and routines in case it helps you.
For context: I’m a 40-year-old trauma therapist who sees a full clinical caseload and I still run a boutique trauma-informed therapy center with 21 staff members, and I run my online course and (since 2015) write bi-monthly essays on this website.
And I’m a mom to a four-year-old.
I say all of this, not to impress, but rather for context: my time is limited. Really, really limited.
In an ideal world someday when I’m less busy and not in peak early parenting/peak career-building times, I’ll have more time to be able to take care of myself even better.
But, for now, this handful of stalwart self-care rituals and support gets me through my busy days, weeks, and months.
I hope even one nugget in this list can be of support to you, too, no matter what stage of life you’re in.
- A peek inside my own self-care rituals.
- Signs You May Be Carrying Relational Trauma
- Other supports and self-care rituals that are more weekly or ad hoc but that still support me?
- I really hope that one resource, ritual, or idea I shared resonated with you today.
- Wrapping up.
A peek inside my own self-care rituals.
SELF-CARE
Self-care is the intentional practice of attending to one’s own physical, emotional, psychological, and spiritual needs as an essential foundation for well-being. True self-care goes far beyond surface-level indulgences; it includes setting boundaries, processing emotions, maintaining meaningful connections, and building a life that does not constantly require recovery from itself.
Self-Care
Self-care, in the context of relational trauma recovery, is not primarily about bubble baths and face masks — it is the intentional practice of attending to your own physical, emotional, psychological, and relational needs. For those with trauma backgrounds, genuine self-care often involves unlearning the belief that your needs are a burden, and slowly building the capacity to prioritize your own wellbeing without guilt.
Self-care Ritual 1: Early to bed, early to rise.
My entire life I’ve been a morning bird and so this phase of my life where my daughter goes to bed at around 8pm (and sleeps until 6-7am) is perfect for my own natural biorhythms. Since she goes to bed so early, I tend to go to bed at about 8 or 8:30, too, and get up at 4 or so. It’s early, I know, but it leaves plenty of time for my stalwart morning routine before my day begins.
Self-care Ritual 2: My Oura ring keeps me honest.
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Last year I invested in an Oura ring to help me stay honest about how certain variables impact my sleep, how many steps I really take a day, etc etc. I love it but gosh, it was humbling. It really helped me see how much late-night snacking and/or an evening glass of wine messed up my sleep and so with it, I’ve been making some lifestyle changes that will allow me to get better, higher-quality sleep. So the Oura Ring’s accountability and my early to bed, early to rise routine, I generally get good sleep for the day.
Self-care Ritual 3: My morning routine.
I can’t tell you how much my morning routine grounds me. I miss it so much on days when I’m traveling and/or don’t have the time for it. My morning routine consists of the following:
Around 4 or 4:30am, while everyone else in my household is still asleep, I head into my house’s garage/home office/home gym.
Related reading: What does it mean to be an ambitious, upwardly mobile woman from a relational trauma background?
Sitting at my desk, I drink an espresso (that my husband made me the night before) and I turn on Deva Premal’s Healing Mantras on Spotify and I journal. My journaling always has three parts: Dream recall (if I can) and then a list of 10 gratitudes (in detail vs general statements) and then reframes on any and all stressors that are going on for me that day/week (finding either a different, more adaptive way of looking at the issue or brainstorming possible solutions or naming outright “silver linings.”) These specific prompts help get my mind into a more positive, solution-focused frame which supports me through the whole work day.
After I’m done journaling, I write out my to-do list for the day based on my schedule and key projects/tasks I know I want to accomplish before the day’s end. This helps me feel in control and like I know where the day is headed.
By this time, it might be 5 or 5:15 so I switch gears and get ready to work out.
Signs You May Be Carrying Relational Trauma
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Self-care Ritual 4: Daily exercise.
This is another HUGE one for me. Now, in all fairness, I’m a later-in-life athlete. Meaning, I wasn’t a huge athlete through school and college and while exercise has always been important to me, I haven’t done it as consistently or rigorously as I have since Fall 2020.
But now, every day, six days a week I get up and do 30 minutes of cardio (either on my Peloton bike or my Peloton Tread) and 30 minutes of weight lifting from Peloton strength videos. And very honestly: I dose myself with Peloton’s head instructor Robin Arzón.
I’m a little obsessed with her. She resonates with me so much and the mindset coaching she offers through each and every one of her classes is like a vitamin for my confidence and courage each day. I almost exclusively work out with her. So by the time I finish my workouts, my muscles are fatigued, I’m dripping in sweat, my husband and daughter have woken up, and I feel like I can conquer almost anything.
Self-care Ritual 5: Morning playtime with my daughter.
Even if it’s only five to ten minutes in the morning (and let’s be real: ten minutes is rarely possible), no matter how busy, rushed and chaotic our mornings are (racing to get me to work by 8am and getting my husband and daughter who has strong preferences about her outfits out the door by 8:30am to make circle time at her preschool), I will always find time for 5 minutes of play with her.
Sometimes it’s just putting on a Taylor Swift song and dancing, or getting on the ground and building a “college for big girls” out of Magnatiles, I make time for a few minutes of play with her before our days begin to be present and connect on her level. Plus it helps lighten up my otherwise pretty serious and efficient nature.
Self-care Ritual 6: I drink my greens.
Every since some health challenges I had in Fall 2021 (I’ll write more about that someday), I’ve had a big glass of Athletic Greens mixed with Vital Proteins Collagen Peptides each morning for breakfast (my body doesn’t usually get hungry until 10 so I stick with this through the morning (anyone who has a morning meeting or a morning therapy session with me has definitely seen my big glass of green!).
Not only do I hit a lot of my nutritional needs with it, but I also can literally feel a difference in my mental agility on days when I don’t drink it. I love both products so much that I’ll bring travel packets of them with me when I’m on vacation or at work conferences so I can mix it up in my hotel room.
(Note: I’m pretty sure this is the point in the post where I have to disclaim that I am not a nutritionist or a medical doctor and what I’ve shared above should not be construed as medical advice, only a personal anecdote. For all nutrition-related questions and guidance, please refer to a professional licensed and qualified to do so.)
Self-care Ritual 7: Voxers and texts with my besties.
I am so lucky to have some wonderful business besties and girlfriends from different phases and stages of my life.
There’s not a day that passes that I’m not in touch with at least one of them or one group of them, sharing with them business questions and personal strifes, receiving their support, and likewise hearing what’s going on for them. I don’t live close to them all, but nearly daily digital contact helps keep our relationships nourished and contact with them is a huge self-care support as I move through my days.
Related reading: Attachment Trauma: How Early Relationships Shape Your Adult Connections
Self-care Ritual 8: Digital detox at 4pm.
At 4pm, I am done with my workday (almost) no matter what. My daughter gets home from preschool at that time (my husband picks her up) so when my last session, meeting, or work commitment of the day is over, my phone is automatically put on Do Not Disturb and I leave my phone in my home office/garage so I can be present with my little family and truly unwind because when my day starts at 4am, I’m pretty tired by 4pm.
I don’t check work emails and my friends know that if they text or Voxer me in the evening they won’t hear back from me until the next day. Without work and screens distracting me, we do dinner, clean up, lunchbox prep for preschool, bath time, playtime, pajamas, reading, maybe a kitchen party dance party, and then bed. All before starting everything again the next day.
This routine, this consistency of being with my little family from 4-8pm each day is another huge support for me.
Other supports and self-care rituals that are more weekly or ad hoc but that still support me?
“aw-pull-quote”
- My own therapy (of course).
- Seeing friends (who happen to be the parents of my daughter’s classmates) weekly for playdates.
- Acupuncture.
- Giving myself a few hours on the weekend to putter alone in my kitchen (listening to audiobooks and cooking/meal prepping by myself is literally one of my favorite things to do after a week that demands so much of me mentally and socially).
- Escaping into my favorite TV shows when there’s a little more time (and currently, I’m obsessed with Yellowstone. Obsessed!).
Now, again, I’m in a stage of my life where almost every spare minute is taken but, even without all the luxurious time I’d like, I’m proud of how consistently and well I attempt (emphasis on attempt) to care for myself.
I really hope that one resource, ritual, or idea I shared resonated with you today.
I hope it maybe gave you an idea about how you can expand and build your own self-care toolbox even more.
But, and this is very important to know, I don’t want you to use my post and my self-care rituals as a proverbial stick to beat yourself with.
I want to name and acknowledge that you may have read this post and thought, “Well, that’s good for her, but I don’t even know what a healthy relationship looks like let alone have a bunch of friends I can text.”
Or maybe you struggle with self-organizing or maybe you still don’t believe you’re worthy of taking good (let alone great) care of yourself (yet).
This is totally okay. And it’s normal and natural.
Many of us who come from relational trauma backgrounds often have maladaptive and dysfunctional thoughts about ourselves, our worthiness, and what we deserve.
Moreover, we also likely have maladaptive habits we’ve built up over time that helped us cope but no longer look like self-care.
Building Self-Care Capacity Through Trauma Therapy
The gap between dysfunctional coping and genuine self-care often requires therapeutic intervention because trauma fundamentally disrupts your relationship with self-nurturance—teaching you either that you don’t deserve care or that hypervigilant self-monitoring is the only safety.
Related reading: Trauma and Relationships: When Your Professional Strengths Become Your Relationship Blindspots
A trauma-informed therapist understands that before you can maintain elaborate morning routines or exercise regimens, you must first address the core wounds that make self-care feel either impossible or like another performance to perfect. Through therapy, you explore what “self-care” meant in your family of origin—was it selfish? Weak? Non-existent? Did care come with conditions or criticism? These early templates explain why attempts at healthy routines might trigger anxiety, shame, or self-sabotage, and why you might need 101 self-care suggestions when it all feels like too much just to find one that feels safe enough to try.
The therapeutic work progresses from insight to embodiment: first recognizing maladaptive patterns (using wine to self-soothe, scrolling to dissociate, overwork to avoid feelings), then gradually experimenting with genuine care practices while processing the feelings that arise.
Your therapist helps you tolerate the discomfort of treating yourself well when your nervous system expects neglect, supporting you through the guilt of boundaries, the anxiety of rest, the foreignness of consistency. Together, you build routines that match your actual life—not Instagram-perfect practices but sustainable rituals that regulate your specific nervous system, whether that’s three minutes of morning stretching or a firm 9pm phone boundary.
Most powerfully, therapy provides the consistent care that models what you’re learning to give yourself. Week after week, session after session, you experience someone who shows up reliably, maintains boundaries while offering warmth, and demonstrates that care isn’t conditional on perfection.
This corrective experience gradually rewires your nervous system to accept nurturance, making self-care feel less like betrayal of old survival patterns and more like natural extension of the healing you’re already experiencing. Through this process, what once felt impossible—believing you deserve care, maintaining routines, protecting your energy—becomes not just possible but essential to the thriving life you’re building on increasingly solid foundations.
Wrapping up.
I want to be clear about something: this was me, too.
25-year-old Annie’s self-care rituals (there were barely any and they were dysfunctional at best) does not look like 40-year-old Annie’s routines.
Between then and now there was a solid decade of trauma therapy work (and tons of EMDR) to help resolve my unprocessed trauma and lay the groundwork for more functional ways of being in the world and more helpful ways of thinking about myself.
So if you found yourself overwhelmed or even triggered by this essay, feeling despairing and despondent about how you would ever do any of these rituals (and let’s be clear, these are what work for me, they may not be best for you anyways), I want you to know that no matter where you’re starting from, change is possible.
Especially with the right kind of support.
Here’s to healing relational trauma and creating thriving lives on solid foundations.
Warmly,
Annie
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Sometimes it’s just putting on a Taylor Swift song and dancing, or getting on the ground and building a “college for big girls” out of Magnatiles, I make time for a few minutes of play with her before our days begin to be present and connect on her level. Plus it helps lighten up my otherwise pretty serious and efficient nature. - class="wp-block-heading" id="h-self-care-ritual-
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It’s common for driven, ambitious women to struggle with guilt around self-care, often stemming from a deep-seated belief that productivity equals worth. Start by reframing self-care not as a luxury, but as a vital practice that fuels your capacity to achieve and thrive, both personally and professionally. Recognize that tending to your well-being is a productive act in itself, creating a sustainable foundation for all your efforts.
You’re not doing anything wrong; this is a common experience when self-care becomes prescriptive rather than intuitive. True self-care should feel nourishing and restorative, not like another obligation. Try tuning into what your body and mind genuinely need in the moment, allowing flexibility and choosing activities that truly resonate with you, even if they’re simple.
Making self-care non-negotiable involves a shift in perspective and consistent boundary setting. Begin by scheduling your self-care activities just as you would any important meeting, treating these appointments with yourself with the same respect. Over time, as you experience the tangible benefits of these practices, your commitment will naturally deepen, reinforcing their essential role in your life.
Absolutely, it’s more than okay. Authentic self-care is deeply personal and should never be about conforming to external expectations or trends. What truly nourishes you might be vastly different from what works for others, and that’s precisely its power. Embrace what genuinely replenishes your unique spirit, knowing that prioritizing your specific needs is a profound act of self-love, not selfishness.
When navigating self-care with a history of trauma, gentle and intentional approaches are key. Focus on activities that promote a sense of safety, grounding, and control, starting with small, manageable steps. Consider incorporating practices like mindful breathing, gentle movement, or creating a comforting environment, and always honor your body’s signals, pausing or adjusting if anything feels overwhelming. Working with a trauma-informed therapist can also provide invaluable guidance in building a personalized and safe self-care practice.
Further Reading on Relational Trauma
Explore Annie’s clinical writing on relational trauma recovery.
- Narcissistic Abuse & Recovery Guide
- Childhood Emotional Neglect Guide
- Attachment Styles Guide
- Complex PTSD Guide
- EMDR Therapy for Women
- Inner Child Work Guide
- Trauma and the Nervous System
- Intergenerational Trauma
Both/And: Self-Care Is Serious Work — and It Doesn’t Have to Be Perfect
One of the paradoxes I’ve lived with in my own self-care practice is this: the same driven, ambitious part of me that leads me to overwork also, at times, leads me to approach my self-care with a rigor that defeats the purpose. I can create a self-care protocol that is, in its own way, another performance I have to optimize.
The Both/And truth I’ve come to is this: your self-care matters and it doesn’t have to be perfect to count. The days when your practice is abbreviated, inconsistent, or looks nothing like what you planned — those days still count. The ten-minute walk you took instead of the forty-minute run counts. The chapter of the novel you read instead of meditating counts. Imperfect self-care is still self-care, and an imperfect practice maintained over years is infinitely more valuable than a perfect practice abandoned in March.
I’ve also come to understand that self-care for women healing from relational trauma isn’t simply wellness — it’s political. When you’ve spent years believing your needs were inconvenient or excessive, choosing to tend to yourself is an act of resistance against that original message. The resistance doesn’t require you to do it correctly. It just requires you to keep doing it, in whatever form fits the actual day you’re actually having.
The practices I’ve shared in this post are mine — built from years of trial and error, from my own therapy, from the accumulated research I’ve engaged with professionally. Some of them will resonate with you and some won’t. The ones that don’t tell you something true about yourself, too: about your nervous system, your rhythm, your nature. Both the resonance and the resistance are useful data.
The Systemic Lens: Self-Care in an Era That Commodifies It
I want to be honest about something: self-care has a complicated cultural life right now. It has been co-opted by wellness capitalism in ways that simultaneously pathologize ordinary stress — turning it into a consumer opportunity — and exclude the people who most need genuine rest and support from the resources that would actually help.
When self-care becomes a product to buy, a practice to optimize, or a performance of having-it-together, it becomes yet another arena in which driven women can measure themselves against an impossible standard. The Instagram version of self-care — the artfully photographed morning routine, the $40 face cream, the hot yoga membership — has little to do with the actual nervous system regulation and relational repair that traumatized women need.
True self-care is not glamorous. It’s the difficult conversation you finally had. It’s the boundary that disappointed someone and you held it anyway. It’s the therapy session where you touched something real and cried in your car on the way home. It’s saying no to something that would have looked impressive but would have cost you something you couldn’t afford to give. These practices aren’t photogenic. They’re also the ones that actually change something.
There’s also a systemic accountability question embedded in the self-care conversation. When organizations promote self-care as a solution to workplace burnout, they’re often shifting responsibility from the systemic conditions that cause burnout — overwork, inequitable labor distribution, lack of psychological safety — to the individual worker’s self-management. Genuine self-care does not substitute for systemic accountability. You can build the most restorative personal practice imaginable and still be working inside a system that’s making you sick.
This doesn’t mean personal self-care practices are worthless — far from it. It means they’re one part of a larger picture that also includes advocating for yourself in systemic contexts, building relationships that actually support you, and choosing environments that don’t require you to chronically override your own needs to survive in them.
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Annie Wright, LMFT
LMFT · Relational Trauma Specialist · W.W. Norton Author
Helping ambitious women finally feel as good as their résumé looks.
Annie Wright is a licensed psychotherapist (LMFT #95719) and trauma-informed executive coach with over 15,000 clinical hours. She works with driven, ambitious women — including Silicon Valley leaders, physicians, and entrepreneurs — in repairing the psychological foundations beneath their impressive lives. Annie is the founder and former CEO of Evergreen Counseling, a multimillion-dollar trauma-informed therapy center she built, scaled, and successfully exited. A regular contributor to Psychology Today, her expert commentary has appeared in Forbes, Business Insider, Inc., NBC, and The Information. She is currently writing her first book with W.W. Norton.
