I recently had a conversation with a friend about self-care. We discussed how self-care is extremely important, but what we often call self-care is actually after-care. We care for ourselves only after we’ve neglected ourselves and need help. I jokingly told him how we all know the correct “care” order is God, marriage, family, kids, work, friends, pets, neighbors, lawn, housework…and then you, but only if you can’t find anything else to put ahead of you. Unfortunately for many of us, this joke has some degree of truth to it.
I define love as the unrelenting commitment to the care of yourself. You care for yourself because you know it’s what you need to grow and flourish. You commit to your care so you follow through regardless of internal or external circumstances. This keeps you from making your love conditional (including the condition that it should be unconditional), and instead make love conditioned through your actions.
Given this definition, self-care, (aka love) is something you need to do as you live, not after you live and are burning out. For instance, over a year ago my business coach told me to block out an hour in the middle of every work day to care for myself better. I was fearful at first, but it turned out to be incredibly good for me, my health, and my business. Whatever I was afraid of losing in terms of income and clients was easily made up for by the impact of my self-care.
Good self-care will also take pressure off of your next vacation to be the thing that is going to somehow make you feel all better. And it often does make it better…until the vacation ends. The commitment to the love and care for yourself keeps you from becoming dependent on something or someone else to take care of you and sustain you.
In Liked, the call is to actively and intentionally engage in your acceptance. Can you do something today, like taking 10 minutes for you, just to show yourself you care?
If you are interested in one-on-one or group coaching, let me know. If you have any questions, feel free to contact me at ben@thebenthompson.com.
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