Are you taking care of yourself? Are you taking care of yourself FIRST? Are you taking care of yourself AT ALL?
As a nurse, I learned that I have to take care of myself BEFORE taking care of others. Sometimes that is a luxury that is hard to come by. Call for support if you need to.
And while we’re on the subject of support, wouldn’t you be HONORED to help a friend? It makes you feel good, right? When you could use a little help, reach out & let one of your friends feel good, too- let them do for you what you would love to do for them.
I used to have a journal that I referred to as My Bi*ch Book. The theory was, if I had one place to put all of my complaints, I would “get them out of my system” and not complain or think about them again. In actuality, the opposite was true.
Bringing all of those complaints into physical reality by writing about them solidified them, making them more tangible and concrete. It put more negativity into the universe.
Now, instead of focusing on the negative, I choose to focus on the positive by “expanding it,” a concept from Rick Hanson’s book, Buddha’s Brain.
I look for the positive, even the littlest things, and in all experiences.
I spend a few seconds focusing on the positive experience before moving on.
And I imagine absorbing it into my bones or in my core being, as a sponge absorbs water.
As a child, I always loved celebrations. Birthdays were an opportunity to make loved ones feel special, and holidays were an excuse to gather with friends and family.
Now, I care more about celebrating little things; life and daily interactions. ~ working out when I didn’t feel like it ~ participating in a new and challenging activity ~ completing a project ~ enjoying time spent with friends and family Any achievement or moment will do.
Putting more positivity out into the universe trains my brain: to see that, yes, I CAN do these things.
Celebrating solidifies my accomplishments, bringing more pleasure and joy.
Creating positive experiences helps me develop more resilience when my usual stopping points pop up. I move past them more easily as I have “proof” of doing so in the past.
How do you feel about working out? I have a love/ hate relationship with it. I love how I feel when I work out regularly. I don’t like it when I haven’t been consistent and want to start up again.
“It’s going to hurt.” “This is going to suck.” “I don’t have time.”
I want to be physically fit and healthy, but this is actually more about being a loving family member.
I know how amazing it is when I feel strong, confident, sexy and when I don’t let the “it’s going to be hard” or “this will suck” hold me back.
The way to move forward is to see why working out is important to me and to take small steps forward.
This photo was just about a year ago. It was the night before I started my first coaching course. Looking back, I remember feeling both terrified and thrilled. I have since learned that feeling both terrified and thrilled (often at the exact same time) is a clear sign that I’m up to something great.
And it was true when I took this photo- I was up to something great. This course, the coaching, the tools, and the knowledge I learned changed my life. And let me tell you- if I can do it, you can do it, too.
And here we are today, celebrating our 15th Anniversary. (Well, a week ago yesterday.) We’re happier together now than we’ve been for the past decade. What??!! Yes, it’s true. Our friends and family might be surprised to hear this- we looked okay on the outside, but we were very not okay in our relationship.
For us, each of us was unhappy within ourselves, and then we did not bring our best selves to our relationship. We had a slow and insidious decline of our marriage, over a decade long; it was barely noticeable until we couldn’t NOT see it anymore. We were no longer on the same team; we no longer supported each other to be the people we wanted to be; we no longer respected and honored each other as we should.
Because we were at ground zero, we had a unique opportunity to decide if we wanted to be together and fight for this relationship rather than fight with each other- because that was no longer an option. We had nowhere to go but up or out, and as always- there were choices.
In the end, we picked each other again, but this was just the beginning. The good news is: it worked- we’re happy together. We started to rebuild our relationship and our love. We took the time to find happiness within ourselves before bringing each of us to our relationship. I did my work, he did his work, and we did our work together. Let’s be clear, this was not an easy journey, and it’s certainly not a “one and done;” we have until the rest of forever to work on and improve our relationship, but we’re doing it, and we are happier for it.
By the spring of 2019, 6 months into voluntary unemployment, I was more miserable and unhappy than ever. It was wearing on my family. My marriage was on edge (for reals). I had everything I wanted, and I was still not happy. One particularly bad day, I heard a clear voice in my head say, “Stop looking everywhere else and look at yourself.”
This realization stopped me dead in my tracks. I thought, “Oh my gosh! I HAVE been looking at everyone and everything else, and not at myself.” I knew right then and there that I had to get myself straightened out. If I had myself in alignment, true to who I want to be, and how I want to show up and was still having problems, then I could better deal with those problems, from that place of alignment. I would know that it was not me causing or creating these problems, but truly whatever else was outside of me. And so, my journey began.
When I came across Jenna’s post in February of 2019 (see previous post), I was six months into voluntary unemployment. My husband loving refers to it as my mid-life crisis. I prefer my version- I was figuring out what I wanted to be when I grew up. I had a strong nagging feeling that there was something different, better, more for me to do with my life. I ignored this feeling for ~ 2 years; I kept trying to work with it. Instead, it was like I was playing a game of Tetris- trying to make all the pieces of my life fit together just so, but I kept running out of space and losing the game.
In the summer of 2018, I did the math a zillion times over & decided that yes, we could afford for me to not work for a while. Little did I know that upon quitting, I would lose myself even more. I lost my identity as a nurse and a manager, lost friends that I would see daily at work, and I fell further into unhappiness because, after all, I SHOULD be happy by now- I was doing exactly what I wanted, wasn’t I?
When I first scrolled to this post in February of 2019, I sat and stared at it. Hard. For a long time. And then I got tears in my eyes. I knew I had magic, but I did not know what it was. I had completely lost myself. I didn’t know what I did like, what I didn’t like, what I wanted to do. Somehow, somewhere in the mix of life- marriage, mortgage, family, and work, I lost myself. I didn’t know where or why or how, but I knew that I no longer knew who I was or what I wanted anymore.
Somehow, I had stopped paying attention, and the worst part: I wasn’t even aware of it. I had a vague feeling that “something” was missing from my life for many years, but I could never put a finger on it.
Then I’d scroll to a post like this, and I started to pay attention and think about it. Hmmm, what was missing?
Do you know you have control? Do you know you get to choose how to be; how to handle things? Do you know that it is within?
I’ve had two conversations with two different people this past week about things going on around them they didn’t like. Why me? Why did they do that? Why is this happening? It’s life, that’s why. Sometimes crappy things happen to good people. (And these two people happen to be extremely kind, loving, supportive, and giving people.)
PUT THAT DOWN.
It’s a choice- maybe not a natural choice, but it’s still a choice. Stick to the facts and review the situation. Just the facts- no emotion, feeling sorry for yourself, baggage, story, anything extra. Now look at it and think: what are my options? What can I do about this? What small action will move me forward? Then do it. And again, and next, and keep going.
Ain’t nobody got time for that!
Do you want to spend time, energy, or effort arguing? Proving you are right? Poor me, I didn’t deserve this; I’m a good person. You could spin around forever with that, or you can take action and get it done.
Consider: who is this serving? Is this helping me? Does this feel good? If no, then shift. What is more interesting? Where would you prefer to focus? What does feel good?
One way to start small: choose love over fear. Say- thank you, fear, but I’ll be over here with love. Then take action- an actual step toward that love.
Keep moving, one step forward, consistently, and you’ll get there.
