Financial Self-Care: A Personal Refl ection


By Caroline Wetzel, CFP®


will never forget that morning in the spring of 2016. It was around 5:30am and the sun was just beginning to cast bright beautiful rays through my window. As I got out of bed, I happened to glance at my pillow and noticed more than just a few stray strands of hair on my pillow. “That’s weird,” I thought. While I was used to my hair shedding in different seasons, there was more hair than I would have expected on my pillowcase. A short while later, as I rinsed out the conditioner at the end of my shower, my hands started to shake as I realized that sudsy water wasn’t the only thing seeping through my fi ngers and run- ning down my back. As I stared at the pile of brown wispy locks building on the drain I gasped and knew that something different was going on with my body.


I By this time in my life, I already was


aware of the importance of self-care. Prior to that life-changing spring morning, my husband and I had experienced several miscarriages in just over fi ve years. While I had tried to numb the pain of losing the pregnancies initially through eating, I learned quickly that the only things that I gained from emotionally eating were un- healthy pounds and even more frustration.


Healthier Ways to Manage Grief


With guidance from specialists in western medicine and complementary modalities, I discovered new and healthier


28 Natural Nutmeg - October 2020


, CDFA®


, AWMA®


ways to manage grief, lose weight, and gain renewed hope. Through changes in diet, exercise, and activities as varied as acupuncture, meditation, mindfulness, drawing, writing, yoga, prayer, and (silent) retreats, I came to appreciate the dynamic and integrated nature of health. I learned fi rst-hand that when it comes to health there are dimensions that we can control and there are elements that we cannot control or fully understand. I experienced the life-altering power that exists through self-care; I came to appreciate self-care as continuous connection with our physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual being.


As my new health condition in 2016


progressed rapidly, I quickly lost all my hair and was diagnosed with alopecia areata universalis. Thanks to the love of family and the self-care that had become second nature to me, I had the capacity to navigate this dramatic life change in authentic and relatively healthy ways. While some people with alopecia areata universalis choose to be bald in public, I aspired to create a look similar to my appearance before the condition set in fully. Thanks to the tip from a dear friend, I connected with a great wig shop and started sporting a slightly new hairdo. I spent hours researching makeup, watching online instructional videos, and learning how to apply fake eyelashes and draw on fake eyebrows. Over time, as I re- fi ned the art of literally putting on my face


every day, I offered prayers of gratefulness. While I could not articulate exactly what was happening, I knew that something was changing. While on the outside I looked almost the same; I worked for the same company, and I was involved with many of the same activities, on the inside I was going through a very real and raw process of reckoning and rebirth.


Giving Birth to a New Life And now years later I am privileged


to offer you this refl ection. The multiple unforeseen experiences of loss beginning in 2010 gave birth to new life. When life did not happen according to any plan that my husband and I (unconsciously) had for our little family, through self-care we as a team let go of previously held expecta- tions and aspirations that no longer reso- nated. And through letting go, I gained a renewed sense of personal purpose and professional direction.


Ongoing self-care activities enabled


me to acknowledge where I was on life’s journey. When I was at my lowest lows, I realized that I had choices: I could choose to stay there, or I could choose to stand up. I chose to stand up. Each day as I chose to stand up, I affi rmed (again) what was important to me. Each day as I affi rmed (again) what was important to me I ac- knowledged with greater conviction what I could control and what I could not control.


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