Taking Care of Yourself
It’s vitally important we take care of ourselves, yet sometimes, we subconsciously outsource this job to other people. We might not mean to - but it’s all too easy to expect someone else to take care of us, particularly with regard to romantic relationships.
How many times have you come home from a bad day at the office and wanted your partner to do something to make you feel better?
It’s perfectly natural, normal, and healthy to feel this way - and leaning on those that you love is not an issue… but, for some people, there can be a chronic pattern of over reliance where they feel it necessary to be taken care of, or provided for, on an emotional or practical level, by someone else.
Similarly, on the other side of the coin we often tend to find it easier to look after other people and take care of their emotional needs, better than our own. Whilst, at the other end of the spectrum you have those that are fiercely independent and “don’t need another person in order to feel good” - but they have gone a bit too far the other way, and are closed off to receiving the level of love, care and support that is healthy within a relationship.
What it all boils down to, is that there’s a need to learn to take care of yourself - just as pilots say to their passengers, you must first secure your own oxygen mask before helping other people (including your children) as if you’re gasping for air you’re not going to be able to help others… and when you look at this an emotional metaphor for life, you can see there are many people gasping for air, but are trying to take care of other people.
Sometimes this can be a sign of avoidance; as it’s often a lot more comfortable to help other people with their problems rather than deal with your own… though, often, it is more an issue of having a busy lifestyle where we are running around to take care of everyone else whilst putting ourselves last.
In any event, it’s important we learn to take care of ourselves, and this article is going to suggest a few aspects to focus on within this vein.
YOUR HEALTH
Your health is your foundation, as without it, you don’t have very much at all. It’s important to look after your health and get regular check-ups then do the necessary research to learn what lifestyle changes or additional support you require in order to live optimally.
For instance, if you were diagnosed as being pre-diabetic this is a good wake up call to let you know that you need to change your diet, exercise more, and start looking after yourself better. Similarly, if you were to go for a hearing test and learn more about hearing aid styles, or an eye test and find out about laser eye surgery. It’s all about being in the empowered position to make the necessary changes to have optimal health.
YOUR HAPPINESS
With such busy lifestyles, we often put our happiness on the back-burner, waiting for better days… but in doing so, we are putting off life, and there’s no guarantee of tomorrow… we aren’t immortal, and there are only so many days, weeks, months and years you have left on this planet. It’s therefore vital you incorporate fun and enjoyment into your life, today, no matter what.
Today, some people feel so disconnected to themselves that they have forgotten what makes them happy. If this resonates with you, then it might be good to create a vision board or a bucket list to offer some direction in terms of what makes you tick… and then start ticking things off your list; life is for living and it’s so important you do things that make you happy.
YOUR MINDSET
A positive mental attitude is clearly going to bring about better results than a negative mental attitude; yet, we live in somewhat of a negative society where advertisers for instance focus on our insecurities in order to sell us their solution, and the news is filled with horror stories of disasters and tragedies.
It’s therefore important you feed your mind with positive material, a lot like watering a plant, or putting fertiliser in the soil of your flower beds - the more you nourish yourself with positive thoughts, stories and images the better your life will become, as it will shift what you focus on, and what you focus on is what you feel.
Indeed, our focus governs our lives.