Hello!
It’s been a long time since I blogged last. Even though we are in the middle of social distancing and changes in what our work life looks like, I have been extremely busy. I was recently caring for eight puppies and I also have been helping with updates to some commercial and residential property. The adorable puppies are all now in their forever homes. I do miss them dearly, however, being a mom to eight Goldendoodles is a time sucker! My son and I decided to purchase some investment property, and it has been a long eight weeks since taking possession….many updates and lots of sweat equity being built. I will forever be indebted to my husband for helping with so many things!
Amidst all this craziness, I kept telling myself that I needed to “find a word”, because I needed to keep up on my blogging. I then realized that I shouldn’t force “the word”. It will come when the time is right. By forcing it, I was creating too much resistance, and wasn’t allowing flow to happen. When I let it go, the word came…SELF-CARE. It was right in front of me the whole time.
It’s ironic that I am writing about self-care, because I have been teaching others about self-care at work, and I have been participating in a self-care book study with a dear cousin, but sadly I haven’t been practicing self-care. My cousin and I have been reading and discussing, The Art of Extreme Self-Care by Cheryl Richardson. I realized that I have all the tools, but I haven’t set the intention. How many of you have told yourselves you’re going to do something, or you know you “should” choose differently, but you end up doing the same thing? My guess is that several of you have been in this same predicament that I am in right now. There’s good news! We can shift our mindset and make a strong intention to begin taking better care of ourselves right now.
Self-care is an important part of your overall well-being, which I wrote about a few weeks ago. I will give you a little summary of the information I have recently reviewed from Richardson’s book. She teaches us that it is important not to fall into the craziness of life and deprive ourselves of the things we need, like sleep, physical activity, peace, hope, etc. She teaches us about the importance of self-love, the need to disappoint others sometimes, the power of rhythm and routine, and giving up control of the things we do not need to control. There is great information in this book about the importance of your physical space, your physical health, and your emotional health. It’s an overall great read if you want to dive deep into “extreme self-care”.
I have also been joining Zoom meetings with Oprah and her WW community the last two Saturday mornings. I always find her messages inspiring. Oprah’s first session was about “Focus”. It’s been difficult for many of us to stay focused in this time of the Corona Virus Pandemic. Many people are home-bound for work, school and socializing – all with your nuclear family. It’s too easy to lose focus and forget to care for yourself, along with the other new job descriptions you have been handed. Have faith that you can start making small choices now to better care for yourself. Those small choices will add up, you will start to feel more fulfilled and you will build up a momentum of health and happiness!
Some of the things you may want to start thinking about are the areas of your life you are most passionate about. If you begin your self-care journey with an area that you can get excited about, you’ll have more success. For instance, your physical life, spiritual life, emotional life, intellectual life, social life, environment, etc. are all areas you can begin to assess if they need tuned-up. Please know you will benefit by intentionally allowing time for yourself each day. We all need time to just be still. For some people, that is taking a walk alone. For others, it is meditating. You’ll have to explore and find what works best for you to have alone time. Another big part of self-care is eating healthy and physical activity. The emotional self-care we need is the self-love we all deserve. When is the last time you pampered yourself? When is the last time you told yourself, “good job”? These are musts to add to your self-care list. I encourage you to look on Pinterest or do a web search of “self-care ideas”. You will find hundreds of ideas. Start a small list of things you can begin to do today!
A few questions…
- What is your belief about self-care? What was your parents’ belief about self-care? Has their belief impacted your decision about self-care?
- What are some ways you currently practice self-care? What can you add to the list to ensure you are balancing self-care in all areas of your life?
- If you start to do more for yourself, it will likely cause you to have less time to do for others. Who do you think will have issues with you setting boundaries? How will you handle the push back?
Growing word by word,
Jackie
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