Ok people…how many times have we told ourselves on a Friday afternoon that on Monday morning we would start:
Eating well
Exercising
Drink more water
Go to bed at a decent hour
Take care of ourselves
Meal prep
Read more
Register for a new class
And the list goes on…
And how many times… as the hours on that Monday passed hour by hour did we both rationalize and get down on ourselves for what we did not achieve? I am not sure if you all share the same sentiments, but one of the things that seems to be common practice is setting ourselves up for disappointment and staying stuck in that disappointment.
As I continue on this journey for optimal health and wellness with self-care being the focal point, I am always intrigued by where the breakdown happens for those around me who struggle to self-care. Now there are MANY (and very valid) reasons why self-care does not become a priority, BUT if I were to take a wild guess (and make some general assumptions) I would have to say that much of the difficulty that people experience is attributed to the pre-existing disappointment in a task that they haven’t even attempted – meaning we are already mad or annoyed at ourselves for not starting some aspect of self-care because previous patterns haven’t been good – and to that I say NO MORE.
Time and time again, and for an array of circumstances, we are told to press the restart button because every day is a new day – but legit the next day is a NEW FUCKIN DAY…so why get stuck on the things that happened the day before. I mean have you really ever thought about the liberties we have when it comes to achieving anything. We have 365 unique days to make shit happen and yet we constantly find ourselves harping on the one thing we didn’t achieve on that one day instead of achieving something different on a completely different day.
“We don’t realize that we actually experience a new beginning every time we wake up in the morning. Each new day brings us the opportunity to start fresh with a new attitude, with new resolve to make it the best day ever.”
~ Mary-Frances Winters~
Often when we think about self-care we think of it as a fulsome process that we have to embrace holistically and with open arms – and I would suspect that for many that is both overwhelming and daunting which is why it seems unachievable and a thought process I can certainly respect. But that is not the purpose of true self-care. True self-care is at a minimum an acknowledgement and recognition that your mental, physical, spiritual, emotional and/or psychological being needs attention. It does not begrudge your responsibilities as a mother, partner, worker, caregiver, etc. but it does require that you make YOU a priority in some capacity and in whatever way you deem is needed.
Like so many things that we have good intentions of doing, it is always easier said than done, but self-care does not have to be a chore, nor do we need to create unattainable goals that do more harm than good. Self-care should be seen as a daily devotion to our being – an opportunity to make a daily commitment or dedication to our self.
As I embrace and soak in the knowledge ascertained through my new certification, it is not the learnings that have me enthralled in this process – but a greater understanding at the simplicity of self-care and how our daily devotions can provide us with so much. That very list of things that I made mention of above that seemed so unattainable because we turned it into a task, can appear in our lives as a daily devotion – a simple commitment to take care of but one aspect of our self. And so I want to challenge you all. I want you to identify one simple daily (and I emphasize the word DAILY) self-care devotion that you are willing to do every day for the next five days that contributes in some capacity to your self-care and see how you feel. The intent is not to make this onerous and/or life altering, but more to explore bite size opportunities to check-in with your self to take care of YOUR SELF!
