A few weeks ago, I wrote an article titled "11 Things You Need to Start Doing to Improve Your Overall Wellness."
I received some positive feedback from the article; however, I also received some negative feedback, and comments from people such as "well self care isn't even that important" or "I don't have time to worry about myself."
We're all busy, people (I'm pretty sure I said that in the last article too). This is not an excuse to neglect your body. If you are a workaholic, you must keep yourself well. Remember, if you don't take care of yourself and you get sick, you'll have to miss at least a day of work... A little bit of self care goes a long way for your long term health.
This is a little bit of personal testimony, and some insight into why I feel so passionately about self care. I always struggled with self esteem. I had a lot go on in my life that really skewed my view of myself and my worth. I struggled with depression and anxiety, which ultimately just led to a ton of weight gain and unhealthy habits. Once I started to gain weight, I stopped caring about the way I looked, so I stopped exercising and I stopped paying attention to the food I ate. I bet you can predict the rest. Gained the weight and then got depressed that I was getting fatter and fatter when all I wanted was to be skinny and pretty. This really pulled me away from my faith, and from pretty much everything in my life for that matter. I did horribly in school. All of this fueled my desire to party and drink to forget everything that I was struggling with. This just got worse and worse and eventually, things got out of control. Alcohol poisoning is nothing to mess with...it was time for me to take a stand. I decided to go back to the gym and start dieting again. It was for all the wrong reasons. I wanted to see fast results. Oh, and I was doing it for a boy. I figured that a boy would like me better if I was skinner. I couldn't have been more wrong. He loved me just the way I was. I wanted to still continue eating healthy and going to the gym though, because I realized that it had great effects on my entire body. Eventually, I let the new couples' laziness phase get the best of me, and again, I started to gain weight. And no matter what, I couldn't pull myself out of the cycle of depression and anxiety. I got a job over the summer at a church camp, where self care was emphasized. Here I finally realized the importance of self love as a part of self care. Ever since I began making self care a priority in my life, everything has been easier. I do better in school. I feel so connected in my relationship with Christ. My relationships with other people are stronger. And I've stayed committed to my diet and workout plan. I could not feel better, and I'm on a HEALTHY track to overcoming the chains of true self loathing.
My point? YOU CANNOT TAKE CARE OF YOURSELF UNTIL YOU LOVE YOURSELF ENOUGH TO TAKE CARE OF YOURSELF. Think about the people in your life that you care about the most. Would you take care of them if they ever needed something? Would you not ensure that they were getting care that is above and beyond what they need? Right, so just think about that. If you're not taking care of yourself, it's because you don't love yourself enough to care about yourself.
My list of basic self care habits that everybody should incorporate into their daily lives is exactly what it says: basic. Everything on that list is very doable. If you haven't read it, I'm sorry to spoil the ending for you, but number 11 is "love yourself." So often we get caught up on our flaws. We obsess over the things about us that we wish that we could change. We have a hard time seeing beyond the mistakes we've made in the past. We completely neglect to celebrate our successes. We don't take the time to appreciate our unique traits and talents, and so eventually we don't see them anymore. We are clouded by a storm of negativity, all of which is directed towards ourselves.
Self love is a choice. But more importantly, self love is a process. It takes baby steps to learn to love yourself, especially if you've gone through something in your life that took away that ability. Eventually, it gets easier. And eventually, loving yourself enough to take care of yourself just becomes a habit. It takes time (at least 30 days, in fact) for something to become a habit. Really commit to making those things habits, and then it gets easier. Eventually, you'll want to explore with new healthy foods. Eventually, it'll be impossible to get you out of the gym! And eventually, you will be able to stand in the mirror and love the man/woman you see. You won't pick apart the flaws, because you know that you are a work in progress. You will instead congratulate yourself for the small achievements you made that day. Every victory, no matter how small, is still a victory!
I'll close with this great quote by Lucille Ball: "love yourself first and everything else falls into line. You really have to love yourself to get anything done in this world."
