Self Care works when you align yourself with yourself.

My mother had me when she was thirteen years old, and I was temporarily awarded to the state. A month later, I was brought to my 29-year-old grandmother’s home to be raised with my 4-and-a-half-year-old uncle. Self care was not on my list of survival skills; however, my grandmother, Ann, would often say, “Be who you are, as loud as you can, because you are enough.” Growing up I didn’t know anything about self-care. I did not know how to unpack and compartmentalize the things I inherited and survived. I never heard the words self-care. One afternoon my daughter Zoa said to me, “Daddy you’re grumpy”, so I began to dig deep into my behavior and discovered a term called dysthymia, an unpleasant mood. Having my daughter, Zoa, was one of the joys of my life and she helped me see I needed to address my personal trauma so I could be a better father.