How much time each day would you guess you devote to YOU?
I’m not asking this in a ME-ME-ME selfish sort of way. What I really want to know is how often you consider and support your own physical and emotional well-being in any 24 hour day.
That shouldn’t be too hard to figure, should it?
Then again, so many of us feel so pushed and pressed and stressed and torn and shredded in handling everyone else’s needs throughout the day, that it can seem nearly impossible to connect the dots between “care for self” and our own names.
You’re not one of these, are you? Oooooo no, poor baby.
It’s hard, though, isn’t it? There are so many demands on your time.
Maybe you’re better at dealing with such things than I am. I’ll be the first to admit that I am worthless to anyone or anything else if I cram myself and my well-being down to the bottom of my life’s daily laundry basket and keep taking from the top. Unless I’m right there at the head of the priority list, I tend to not even be on it. And that’s not good.
But we do that, don’t we?
Just take a quick look at your schedule for the average day. How much space is open wide enough for you to write your name on it – even to pencil it in as a “just maybe”?
I know. “Everyone else NEEDS you.” Oh boy, do they have you hornswoggled!
How many times have you heard the directive to, “Place your own oxygen mask on your face before putting one on the CHILD needy person next to you.”? (Of course, if you’ve never needed one, the oxygen mask thing is easy to forget.) But just go with me here for a moment.
If you’re as pushed and hassled and stressed out as most people I know, you need an oxygen mask. Well, maybe you don’t need a real oxygen mask, but you need something like it . . something life saving . . something nurturing . . something with your name and answers to your needs written all over it.
Ready for a quick, pain-free fix?
Boy, do I have something for you! And it’s warm and it’s fuzzy and it’s all filled to the brim with support for people whose stress levels are climbing over the top. Like you?
Ready? Here you go:
Jen Louden is one of my personal heroes. She also happens to be an amazing writer and totally supportive mentor and retreat leader. (I know. I’ve been to one of her retreats!) And, Jen’s getting ready to do her 2010 Virtual Comfort Retreat! Just imagine: Jen and 13 other incredible teachers. And it won’t cost you a fortune. It can’t get much better than this!
Actually, it can: You don’t eve have to leave home to participate. You don’t even have to leave your pajamas. Do yourself a favor and check it out. You’re going to love this down to your very soul! She is so cool!
See? Just one simple thing. It won’t gnaw at your precious time. It won’t make you crazy. It will be like a hot sudsy bath, and a good dose of wine and chocolate on the side. Yes, Jen is THAT good. Just check it out and see for yourself.
I can see you unwinding as I write, and you haven’t even gone to the site yet. It can only get better from here.
(Oh, and just in case you’re wondering: If you decide to sign up, I get nothing from it . . except a really good feeling for convincing you to do something to take care of yourself. So go. Do it. And when the retreat is over, drop me a note and tell me how much brighter the world suddenly looks.)
I’ll just be here with a silly grin on my face, looking forward to hearing back from you. Now go.
Keep growing my friend,
Gail
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{ 4 comments… read them below or add one }
You are so right, Gail, about putting our own oxygen masks on first. This past month I have had a vivid lesson about what happpens when I don’t do this (even though self care is a key part of what I teach & coach other women to do!)
I almost went “down with the ship” until I “reversed my course.” I’ve been blogging about this recently, too. It is so critical!
You DO know what I mean, don’t you Bonnie. And we do it to ourselves all the time. In fact, for far too many amazing and over-stressed midlifers, this sort of putting ourselves at the end of the line becomes a way of life. The sad thing is: This is no way to live. It also isn’t necessary.
When it comes right down to it, the only way to care for and about others is to care for and about ourselves.
BTW: I’m glad you saved “the ship”. – gail
I do, indeed, know what you mean, Gail. I’ve just turned 60 so I’m no longer at mid-life (unless I’m living to 120 which I doubt). And still I fell into the no time for me trap. You think I’d know better by now. In my defense
, this is rare for me and in this case we were deep in the midst of a family crisis.
I’m glad I saved the ship too. Much more fun than going down with it!
Aha! There’s the glitch! Let’s take a quick look at your definition of “mid-life”, Ms Bonnie. The way I read your note, you have the whole of mid-life crammed down to one teensy-weensy point in time – the assumed exact mid-point . . whatever that might end up to be. I, on the other hand, see mid-life as being somewhere – anywhere – between the beginning and the end. Usually I focus that down just a bit to the years between about 40 and 75. But, I’m flexible.
So you see, my friend, you’re at midlife as long as you choose to be. Hell, you’re at midlife at 99 as long as you haven’t bought into some old scrooge’s idea that says otherwise. It’s all a state of mind in my picture of the world.
As for the trap you found yourself falling into: There’s no need to explain. Traps like that are all over the place. We step into them. We step out of them. Of course, they’re of our own creation so we get to choose which ones we want to fall into – even when we don’t realize the choice was ours all along.
It’s all about staying in the moment, whatever that moment might be. And it’s about remembering that we deserve as much love and loving care as everyone around us.
Keep paddling my friend. Shore’s just over the horizon. – gail