Me Me Me Time !!
Have you ever wondered why you don’t cope with things sometimes, when only last week you managed to juggle everything without dropping one ball? It’s all about having emotional resilience or emotional padding. I think if it as we are all emotional debit cards, you can’t take anything out of the emotional bank if there’s nothing in it.
The best & probably only way I know of filling this emotional bank is me time or self care. We can all suffer from compassion fatigue or burn out just by living our daily lives. We listen to our friends & family tell us about their dramas, trials, hurts & pains & then try to cope with our own. Self care & Me time gives us the ability to fill out that emotional bank. I’m not talking about expensive facials or massages every week, I’m talking about the smaller, doable things like saying no to someone when you just don’t have the time or availability, giving yourself a manicure or pedicure, taking a bubble bath, now the weather is cooling. It’s as simple as that.
Being able to give ourselves the ability to be off the clock & not available to anyone is incredibility important. It allows us to take a breath, reassess & then move forward. I’ve been practicing self-care since I first started studying back in the early 2000’s. At least once a week I give myself permission to have a day off, I give myself a pedicure every Monday, I try to exercise several times a week. I’ve also been given a few adult colouring books & some beautiful Derwent pencils. When I finish a working, some days I just sit & colour in, it’s actually quite amazing how relaxing it is & restful I feel when I finish. I also give myself permission to feel what I need to feel without judgment or criticism.
When was the last time you did something nice for yourself? When did you last say no to someone & not feel guilty that you let them down? What would it be like to have emotional resilience all the time so you could cope with everything you want to? Well it’s as simple or as complicated as you want to make it. So what are you going to do today that you haven’t given yourself permission to do yesterday? I would love to hear your answers.