I have returned after taking a week to just relax and be and to take care.
There is a lot of information online about self-care. We hear about it in pretty much every area of our lives and the importance of it. I personally found, however, depending on where you look, self-care can easily become another “to-do” that we check off after pick-up dry cleaning and a dentist appointment.
Perhaps talking to people in your life you can hear about self-care as a sort of mythical unicorn. This elusive, fantastical thing that isn’t for most people and evokes laughter or grunts of, “yeah that’d be nice.”
I am personally thinking that we have it all backward. We treat self-care as this task we do when we are feeling burnt out and exhausted or perhaps to fend off exhaustion. What if self-care is more than we ever thought?
What if self-care is supposed to be the first thing we learn? What if it’s importance as a foundation to consciously building and cultivating our beautiful lives is paramount to the happiness we experience as adults? Perhaps it is as important as breathing and should be that one thing from which all things are built?
Imagine a world where everyone, aligned with their highest truth, was able to sit and say, “this is what I need. This is what I love and this is what supports me” and then, focus on creating that. What if as children we are encouraged to listen to ourselves and messy as it can be (much like when kids learn to paint) find our own alignment. We find out what foods feel best, how much sleep feels good and the type of places that support us (crowded playgrounds or the quiet corner of a library). Imagine if your whole life you don’t wish for the day where you have time for your dream but rather have created a life that holds space only for those things and people that support your dream.
What if self-care was the first thing we planned for each day whatever that looked like for us? If we made self-care so important that it was able to effectively squeeze out and shine a light for us on everything that does not serve our highest selves and our aligned purpose. If by focusing on that which makes us feel best we were able to wake one day and realize that our dream is sitting at the kitchen table, coffee at the ready, a big smile saying, “let’s do this.”
Until next time…
-Michele, aka The Dreaming Dilettante