On a normal day our hours are filled with work, preparing for work, preparing food, caring for children, helping our husbands, helping our wives, helping our parents; but do we take time for helping ourselves?
When our body's hurt we take muscle relaxers, we take anti-inflammatories, maybe we even get a massage. When our stress levels are up we take pills, we vent or friends, maybe we get a massage. If we feel we need to lose weight, we take a cookie-cutter diet, we found someone else made for their body, we eat "diet food"; maybe even take things for weight loss.
And of course we do, we don't have time to take to do the proper self-care, we don't have time to take control of our own wellness, we don't have time to be responsible to figure out what is going on in our bodies and how to take care of it. We have to delegate this, we have to Outsource our healing and are wellness because we just don't have the time.
It's easy to justify anything we don't achieve when we think about the time we have in a day and what we do in our days.
Now, take the word "time" and change it for "priority". I don't have the priority to figure out what diet is best for my body; I don't have the priority to stretch and keep my muscles limber; I don't have the priority to take care of my body so it lasts me as long as it can. I don't know about you, but I would like to live a long healthy mobile life. At my age now in my thirties, I'd like to be able to use my body for, at the very least, 40 more years and honestly I would like 50 to 60 more good physically mobile years from my bones.
How to find the time to create the priority for your own self care might seem daunting and overwhelming but take a step back and evaluate what your day is filled with; what you do give time to, and see if it's something you really want to give priority to. Potentially, you can take away something or maybe combine things. Instead of just unwinding and watching TV, why don't you unwind, watch TV and stretch? It takes less then 5 minutes a day of stretching a muscle group, five to six days a week to increase flexibility. After your last meal of the day, take just a 10 to 15 minute walk, this reduces blood sugar spikes. Rather than allowing social media to take up your time and priority, why don't you do research on different ways of eating what might be most beneficial for you and your body?
With diet, with exercise, with meditation, there is no one-size-fits-all. We all need to take the time, takes the priority for our own self care, we need to find out what works best for us. In every avenue. What can we make the time and priority for, what do we enjoy, what makes us feel good, mentally and physically. Take the time to discover what works for you, so you can take the time to take care of yourself because you are a priority.
For myself one of my favorite practices of prioritizing myself is yoga. I recommend yoga for any of my clients that come in for a massage because even though massage is a way to take care of yourself, even though massage should be a priority in your wellness practice, it is in essence, another form of Outsourcing your well-being. That doesn't mean you don't need massages and that you shouldn't also get massages but think of it as compared to dental care. At home you take care of your teeth, you brush them, you floes them, you probably use mouthwash. However, you still need to go get a teeth cleaning every 3 to 6 months. The better you take care of your teeth, the last frequently you have to get your teeth cleaned and then of course sometimes you need more intervention if you have a toothache, you'll have to go in sooner. Massage is like the same practice, yoga on a daily basis mentally relaxes yourself with meditation, physically relax yourself with the posture, you can do challenging postures to build strength and calming and soothing ones for mobility. Then every couple of weeks come in for your massage, your muscle cleaning, if you will. And if sooner intervention is needed, you get a massage sooner. But you will find the more priority you take for your self care on a daily basis, the less frequently you will need intervention and you'll just be continuing with more of a maintenance massage.
This self care can and will translate to all avenues of your life Because the more you take care of your self, the less intervention you will need.
