If charity begins at home then surely so does self care and making time to put your feet up.
Taking care of ourselves is really important, we’re all good at looking after the kids, boss, friends and even strangers sometimes, but what about us?
What do you do for self care? How’s your stress management? (Check out our Getting Real with Stress Course) Your diet?
Staying present to where you’re at
Sometimes we’re conscious of this, we try to do our best – most of the time though….we’re just busy. And we fall into those traps; skipping meals, eating on the go, grabbing something from the store, you know the one, the NOT Wholefoods one, Starbucks maybe! Yes coffee becomes our friend, chocolate (duh) and we run out of time to exercise the way we want to, or to take time to just do something for ourselves – the very things we know keep us grounded and vibrant and onto it, are the things that slip away right when we need them.
Don’t beat yourself up
And then we make it worse by beating ourselves up about it! Boy are we good at THAT! I mean how can we be choosing this for dinner, we know we’re going to regret it later – but the better choice is hard and expensive and right now we just want to make the crap choice. Ugh I can hear the self talk now – yada yada mean stuff, yada you’re not good enough, yada why can’t you be perfect yada blah.
You’re not perfect, don’t try to be
The thing is we’re not perfect, no-one is, perfect doesn’t really exist. What we are is human, flawed, doing the best we can with what we’ve got.
And what we’ve got is a pretty crap food supply, where food-ish substances are everywhere, actual food is scarce and harder to come by, genetic modification, Glyphosate, gluten-free-all-natural-paleo type catchwords making us feel less than good enough and wondering what we’re supposed to be eating anyway. And even when we try to make better choices, some of the time we fail because – oh yeah – WE’RE BUSY!
The thing is, food CAN make a huge difference to the way you take care of you. The trick is to forgive yourself, forget about being perfect and just make the BEST choice you can in any circumstance. Try to make better choices more often. Before you down the complete block of chocolate ask yourself “is this my best choice? What else could I choose? Do I need to eat the rest of it or am I actually done?”.
Hang on to those joyful moments
Long hours, high stress, kids, chores, bills, bills and more bills – you know, ugh. Sure there’s bits of joy in there, and we need to hang onto those, notice them and make a fuss of them, because otherwise it’s too easy to just see stress, chores and the mountain of things we need to do before Friday.
Notice the joyful times, practice gratitude every day, build a habit of saying what you’re grateful for. Why not celebrate all the things you HAVE done instead of ruing all the things you haven’t?
Don’t wait til you have time – make time
Stop saying “I don’t have time” and start making time. If we look at it honestly, we’re choosing other things; we’re choosing “the kids have to go to a party”, or your friend needs you more than you do right now, or work, laundry…We have to make the tough decisions sometimes, learn how to say no every now and then.
Come to think of it, what are you saying no to and what are you saying yes to? What else could you say no to? Are you even on the list of things you need to do today? Did you write it down? Like you did all the other things you have to do? Or are you assuming it will just happen, or the ‘you’ things are not as important as everything else.
Think about it, we make time for work, every day, because it’s important, because we need the money. We make time for food, to do special things for the kids, heck we make time to go get coffee.
Yes many things are important, and no there’s never enough time, you’re right. But are you making the best choices you can in these circumstances? Could you check in, and ask yourself some new questions and maybe just look – where could you make some time for you. Just you.
Create some good habits
Do you have rituals, stress management tools in your tool box, ways to release and let go? How’s your time management these days? Your diet? How do you pamper yourself?
We need to build those good habits, find the things we know work for us and don’t let go of them. If exercise is important to you don’t give up on it just because you don’t have time to go to the gym or whatever, find 10 minutes and go for a walk or something. It’s a commitment to you, it’s making time and creating a habit. It’s about not letting you slip off your list, even when things are not perfect.
Get some tools
We need tools. Knowing what to do isn’t enough any more , we need to be able to DO what we know to do, we need TOOLS, resources that make it easy for us to do it, because life went and got a bit cray cray!
You need to find a way to cook a healthy meal quickly and without having to worry if it’s GMO or not. You need people on your side, who get you and will listen without trying to fix you. Go find those people, those tools, learn some life skills and honor yourself for being so blooming awesome.
In the meantime, put your feet up and ponder these questions.
- When did you last put your feet up?
- How do you recognise when you’re out of whack?
- What’s getting in your way?
- How can you get it OUT of your way?
- Does coffee make it better or worse?
- Does your gut need some healing?
- When did you last give yourself a hug or a pat on the back?
- When did you last celebrate a small success, achieving a small goal not just the big ones?
- What are you grateful for today?
- When did you last take a holiday? A real holiday where you went away and didn’t think about work or chores?
- PLAY! Find some ways to play and laugh and be silly. (This is not a question, this is an order.)
I’m sending you hoorahs and calls of “YOU ROCK you spectacular, saucy piece of awesomeness”.
And I’m challenging you to find the tools, products and resources that make doing all of the above achievable and convenient so you can succeed even when you’re busy and too pooped to care.
Please take care of you, the world needs you.
