Self Care

For 2017, I decided to make self-care one of my top priorities. Yeah, I know it seems weird that I would need to put “taking care of myself” on my list of shit to do, but it’s my reality for now because it’s a habit I need to build. Building a new habit is like breaking in a new pair of shoes. It can be uncomfortable and sometimes painful in the beginning, but with time and practice, it gets easier and feels better. I would favour a guess that I’m not the only one in this particular position.

I realized a little late in my journey that I am no good to anyone else if I’m not being good to myself. How on earth can I work to fill someone else’s cup if mine is constantly empty? I want to preface this by saying that I love my family very much and I enjoy doing things like grocery shopping, cooking dinner, washing dirty clothes, chauffeuring to sports and activities and all those things. I am blessed to live this life and to have the opportunities that I do. There are times when so much is needed from me, both in personal and professional matters, that I start to get overwhelmed and worn out before it even starts. If anyone ever got a look at the calendar I keep, they’d think I was nuts. I will never say that I’m busy because I hate the way it sounds. It’s always sounded so pretentious to me, like being able to claim that because you’re so busy that somehow makes you important. I can’t stand it and I really wish people wouldn’t use it as a way to describe themselves, but I’m pretty sure I covered that in a previous post (Holiday Hustle or perhaps maybe Payment Due). Your life is as full as you choose for it to be and how you feel about that will say a lot about you. I will always have time for things that are important to me. Anyhow, I’m getting off track.

A big part of self care is self awareness. I know somewhere in previous mind musings I’ve mentioned that if I talked to my friends the way I talk to myself, I wouldn’t likely have friends for long. So I want to ask you, sweet reader: how do you speak to yourself? Is your internal dialogue strong, uplifting and full of love for you and the magnificent being you are? Or does it need a little work, some fine tuning or reprogramming of sorts? Awareness of yourself and your positive/negative stimuli is key so take some time and get to know yourself. It all counts.

I’ve spent a lot of time over the last 7 years trying to figure out how to best take care of myself, but I always felt like I was missing the mark. As it turns out, I was focused on the outside. Eating right, regular exercise, that kind of thing. My missing link was that I wasn’t doing enough work on my mind and how I think. I used to laugh at the idea of reading books that came from the Self Improvement area of the book store. Now, I’m pretty sure I own most of that section. I’ve done A LOT of reading and listening to audio books, but I’ve always picked up the ones that were recommended to me by other people because SOMETHING in it had worked for them and if it worked for them, well why wouldn’t it work for me too? While all of them have been fantastic for me in many respects, I wasn’t following my intuition about where I needed to be focusing my efforts at that time. I was stuck in the mindset of if I fixed one thing the rest of me would fall into line and shape up. Turns out that’s not how it works.

If my cup is not full to the point of overflowing, I have nothing to share with anyone. I can’t pour into someone else when I am empty mentally, emotionally and spiritually. It is so important to invest time in yourself each day and I honestly believe it’s critically important to your physical and mental well being. Even if it’s 30 minutes a day broken up into 3 different 10 minute blocks, you need it. You are the only you that will ever be. While I understand that it is so easy to let yourself be pulled in a million directions a day, I have also learned how easy it is to fit in those 10 minute blocks IF you make an effort to do it. Choosing you for a few minutes a day doesn’t make you selfish. It makes you brilliant and loving. Invest in yourself. I promised myself that this year, I would seize as many opportunities as I could possibly fit in to grow and discover myself. So far so good.

I am grateful for going about it the way I did though because it brought me to today and to the point I’m at. So my self care journey for 2017 is starting with understanding my thought processes. Awareness is key when because once the mind gets going it moves like a runaway train. The direction it moves in is entirely up to you and, with all things, you’re either moving forwards or backwards. Standing still is simply an illusion. Deep, right?

Every day, we come face to face with an abundance of information about our world and the people in it and not much of what’s offered by mainstream (social) media channels is particularly positive and up-lifting. What we don’t realize right away is how the information affects us. Every piece of information that we look at, whether or not we think it registers, has an impact on both your conscious and subconscious mind. The same goes for the people we interact with. It is in these types of circumstances that you will come to learn about your triggers and how you react. Choose wisely.

Take yourself on a date. Tea, coffee, or be brave and go out for a solo dinner. Take a good book or a journal to write in. Really think about who you are, who you want to become and what it’ll take to get you to where you want to be. The hard thing about this whole self awareness and self care stuff is that it isn’t something anyone can do for you. You’ve got to do the work. Find a mentor or someone to help you stay real about the gritty stuff because there will be gritty stuff.

Do for yourself what you are so willing to do for others. Your time will be well spent and well rewarded when you do. The more love you have for yourself, the more you can share with your world.