Embracing Self Care

“It takes courage to demand time for yourself. At first glance, it may seem to be the ultimate in selfishness, a real slap in the face to those who love and depend on you. IT IS NOT! It means you care enough to want to see the best in yourself and give only the best to others.” ~ Shale Paul

“If you are not taking care of yourself; body, mind, and spirit, the people in your life don’t get the best of you, they get what’s left of you!” ~ Lorraine Cohen

As women, we tend not to take care of ourselves, putting everyone else’s needs before our own. We are more about “embracing extreme self-neglect.”

In effort to fully embrace who we were created to be: women of passion and purpose, though sometimes that may look a little misty. To get clear on what our intentions for self-care are, we need to begin with self-care intention guided visualization.

One of the ways to take care of ourselves is to stay in the present moment. This is difficult to do if you are prone towards worrying about the future and fretting over the past.

The past has NO power and the future has NO presence
This behavior leads to fears, stress and anxiety. When we catch ourselves in one of those mental spaces, we must remember. One of the main reasons we get out of alignment with who we really are – which includes ignoring our self-care – is that we have stopped remembering.

Remember what? Remember who we truly are. The opposite of remember is not forget – We become ‘super hero’s’- scattered here and there, masters of multi-tasking. In order to pull ourselves together again and become whole, we must remember. What we are remembering is a feeling – the feeling of being whole and present.

Living your life for others is a very worthy sentiment. How can you care for others…when you are not taking care for yourself? Always putting others first can make you a doormat to be trodden on. Putting yourself and your need to rest, relax, have fun sometimes, and so on, will make you a better carer, provider or parent because you’ll be healthier and have more energy.

Here are some self-care practices that you can do on a daily basis in order to maintain a sense of peace and wholeness.

1. Set your self-care intention. Always begin your day intentionally. Remind yourself of your self-care feeling. The balance needed are these components:

• Harmony
• Balance
• Healthy lifestyle of exercise
• Beauty
• Inner Strength
• confidence
• self esteem

2. Three things you are grateful for. Start small, start with the basics: health, home, nourishment, friends, family, work…

3. Find a nutritious support person to check in with – this could be a good friend, an accountability partner, a life coach, a mentor – you don’t have to go through this transition alone; and creating new habits is transition. You can set up a time, preferably weekly, to get together.

KNOW YOUR OWN WORTH…KNOW YOUR OWN POWER

A few more things to remember; One of the things I have tried very hard to eliminate from my life is negativity. Negativity is nothing but toxic energy. This toxic energy can come in the form of toxic people, or energy whose only job is to suck and drain the life out of you; or toxic situations. When I find myself in one of these toxic environments, be it with people or circumstances, if I cannot turn the situation around, then I merely excuse myself and remove myself.

What you really want is to be surrounded by people you trust and treasure and people that cherish you.

“Breathing in I calm my body. Breathing out I smile. Dwelling in the present moment, I know this is a wonderful moment!” ~ Thich Nhat Hanh

When you are in doubt, when you feel frustrated, when you are angry, stop… and take a breath. Breathing is the one thing you can do anywhere at any time. It does not cost you anything, but it may gain you much. Remember that stopping is a spiritual action; and so is breathing.

Once you have made the decision to do so, these three practices will easily incorporate into your everyday life.

Set the intention to embrace extreme self-care!
Taking care of yourself is vitally important to a happy survival and by no means selfish.
Keep in mind that if you are happy, you will treat others with respect and respect is earned, not given. By not being happy, you become irritable creating a tendency to disrespect others. Disrespecting someone only creates negative consequences and so amplifies your unhappiness.

If you feel you don’t trust people, you are insecure in your own world and need to balance the three components. If you are worried about what everyone else is doing, you also need to even the scales as this shows a failure to do what you need to be doing.

If you are married, you must be able to keep your identity, do the activities you love, and take care of your needs emotionally and physically. Don’t fall into the trap of being detached from yourself by constantly focusing on fulfilling other’s needs while ignoring your own. If you have children, there is no reason why you cannot take care of yourself first. Enjoy time as a family but step out, take a walk, take a class, or have lunch with friends every week as this balances your life and creates happiness.

“Fear less, hope more; Eat less, chew more; Whine less, breathe more; Talk less, say more; Love more, and all good things will be yours.” ~ Swedish Prove

Be mindful on purpose.

Live passionately… what else have you got to do!