"Nourishing yourself in a way that helps you blossom in the direction you want to go is attainable, and you are worth the effort." -- Deborah Day
There is nobody who should care more about you than you do. There is also nobody better equipped to take care of you than yourself. Self-care has a lot of stigma and shame associated with it. We often liken self-care to self-indulgence, narcissism, and hedonism. Self-care is not selfish, nor is it a product of an egocentric or conceited generation.
Self-care is simply any deliberate thought, word, or action of the Self for the Self. Self-care is the source from which self-confidence, self-esteem, and selflessness are fed. Without caring for our Selves, we have no reservoir from which to draw from in caring for others or pursuing those things in the world that make us come alive.
Taking care of our Selves means letting go of obsessively care taking others. Self-care means letting go of perfectionism, self-deprecation, and self-hatred. Self-care means letting go of unrealistic standards -- both for ourselves and for others. Self-care means taking full responsibility for ourselves and letting go of feeling overly responsible for others. When we are responsible to ourselves, we are able to better tend to our responsibilities to others.
We shift away from victimhood to empowerment when we able to care for the person we will be with and live with at all times -- ourselves. Caring for ourselves can mean "me first "on occasion. But more often than not, caring for ourselves means, "me too."
Caring for our Selves is not an excuse to avoid our problems or the world or to isolate in a cocoon of distraction. Rather self-care is the fertile earth from which we can sow the seeds of healthy and sustainable relationships with others and ourselves.
It is enough to be taken care of yourself. In the words of Melody Beatty, "Nurtured, nourished people, who love themselves, are the delight of the Universe."
• Take out a piece of paper and answer the following questions:
• What do I need to do in order to take care of myself today or in this very moment?
• What is and has gotten in the way of taking care of myself in the past?
• What false beliefs do I have about self-care that I need to let go of?
• What people and circumstances in my life do I need to stop feeling overly responsible for?
• To what people and things in my life do I need to say "no" and "yes" to today?
Mantra: I am aware of and practice what I need to do to take care of myself.