“You have the power to heal your life, and you need to know that. We think so often that we are helpless but we’re not. We always have the power of our minds…claim and consciously use your power.”
-Louise L. Hay
Let’s talk about self-care. At its core, it is giving yourself what you need to maintain a healthy lifestyle, at least that’s how I view it. There’s a surprising number of ways to boost how you take care of yourself and, therefore, the love you give to your body and mind. When we take steps to nurture ourselves, we start to grow, and that in itself is beautiful.
For me, self care looks like four things…
- Cleaning the space around me. A clean area makes a wonderful difference within my mind. When there is so much clutter, trash, dirty dishes, and anything else that can be messy surrounding me, my mind becomes a whirlwind and it’s impossible to filter my thoughts. I like to take either the time before I go to bed, or the time when I wake up in the morning to clean my room. Cleaning the papers and notebooks off my desk, folding that basket of laundry that has been dumped on my floor for three days, and tidying up anything that became unhinged that day. Starting the day with a clean space is refreshing for me and makes the day ahead seem a little less taunting. Turn on some music and just get to it, maybe have a dance party while you’re at it!
- Take a shower. I mean take a really long, nice, and peaceful shower. There is almost no other feeling in the world than being clean and refreshed. Take sometime to do some skincare too if that’s something you’d like to make a habit of. Water can wash away everything if you give it the chance to.
- Journal your heart out. Do a complete brain dump onto a couple notebook pages, or even the notes section of your phone. I am someone who has lots and lots of thoughts swirling around in my brain, some of which were not invited to the party. Writing down everything on your mind is a really great way to basically do a brain detox and set yourself up for more clear and positive thoughts.
- Something to calm your soul. This can literally be anything that brings you peace. Listening to music, reading that book I’ve wanted too for weeks, doing yoga or other exercise, and meditating are a few ideas that personally bring me some peace and tend to calm my mind. That’s the general goal of this part. When I get overwhelmed and start to not take care of myself in the way that I should, my mind gets chaotic and runs wild with no leash. Doing something like yoga with a calming playlist in the background can make a huge difference for me.
These four things are the base of me taking care of myself, but there are so many other things that we all can do.
The next big thing about self-care is getting a routine to structure your life around actually taking care of yourself. I am definitely not the prime example of this as I still struggle to do it myself. What I’ve found to help is to just commit to it. Find a way to build it into your routine and just say ‘hey, this is what I do during this part of the day.’ I think routines are really important, as long as they don’t suffocate or blind us from living in the moment.
As the quote at the top says, we have the power over our lives. We can choose to make the best of it by keeping our selves healthy and taken care of, or we can let that fall off the deep end. It’s all up to us, it our super power in a way. Let’s choose to use that power.
Until we meet again,
Stan
Long Drives in the Dark 