Self-Care Can Be Free and Freeing
Don’t worry about sounding professional. Sound like you. There are over 1.5 billion websites out there, but your story is what’s going to separate this one from the rest. If you read the words back and don’t hear your own voice in your head, that’s a good sign you still have more work to do.
Be clear, be confident and don’t overthink it. The beauty of your story is that it’s going to continue to evolve and your site can evolve with it. Your goal should be to make it feel right for right now. Later will take care of itself. It always does.
For example:
”No, I can’t make plans for Saturday (I’ll be in bed recharging my social battery). “
“No, I can’t listen to you talk about the same 3 subjects for hours on the phone everyday (I love you, but I have stuff to do!)”
“No, I can’t donate a dollar to whatever charity you are collecting for at the register today, (I donate to charities I choose, and I know you big corporations are just doing it for the tax breaks!)”
Saying no to people, places, and situations that drain us, or that we simply don’t find appealing, is a HUGE form of Self-Care and can often be the first step that many of us take on our healing journey.
Now obviously there’s a lot more to it. Self-Care can be really fun and simple or hard, soul-searching work - but it is absolutely vital to our bodies and souls.
Many of us have found ourselves in roles in our life where we are overfunctioning, and we rarely say no: to our spouses, children, friends…. but understanding your own independent feelings and energy is one of the most important steps toward true healing. Loving and protecting ourselves and our own energy is not something most of us were taught as children. In fact, most of us were taught just the opposite - we were taught to always say yes, to give our time and energy freely to others, to please the people around us with our willingness to be helpful, pleasant, and work hard.
Self-Care, true Self-Care, asks us to look at the patterns in our lives and relationships and see how they may be hurting us. How “going with the flow” when it’s not what we truly want often causes us to swallow our own exhaustion and resentment. This isn’t to say everyone we interact with is draining and should be avoided, it is simply a call to wake up and look clearly at our lives and relationships.
When do we say yes? Do we say it out of love, integrity, and joy? Or do we say it with hesitation, do we say it automatically because we have been trained to be people-pleasers and overfunction to our own detriment? Do we say yes to things we don’t want and swallow our resentment to “keep the peace”?
I encourage you to look at your life and start your Self-Care journey here - identify the people, places and things that don’t fully resonate with your soul. You may not be able to say « No » to thém right away, or ever (they could be your boss, your best friend, a beloved relative), but you can learn how to feel your feelings and protect yourself in any situation. At the core of all Self-Care is really Self-Love, and isn’t that a beautiful thing?
No one is ever going to love and cherish us as beautifully and unconditionally as we can ourselves. And when we do start to radiate with our own self-love and care, that is when true healing can happen - within ourselves, within our families, within our communities.