How good are you at carving out time for yourself to do the things you love?
Believe it or not, this is something I sometimes find very hard to do, and I write a lot of my blog posts encouraging my readers to do this very thing - They say you teach what you most need to learn right?
What I know for sure, is that when I do carve out time for myself to do the things I WANT to do, not what I feel I NEED to do, I always feel better about myself afterwards. My aim in life as I get older, is to live a life with elevated energy levels. When my energy levels are boosted, I feel so much better about myself, my day seems to flow with more ease and the energy infusion enables me to then focus my attention on the things I feel I NEED to attend to as well.
Do you struggle justifying to yourself that your worth taking care of too?
I really really struggled with this concept for a very long time. Being the natural care giver that I am, I’m so much more comfortable caring for others and in the past, I could easily, give, give, give, give and almost always to the detriment of my own physical and emotional well-being. I didn't realize at the time that it was important for me to learn how to take care of myself first, in order to be able take care of others in the way that I wanted to.
I was your serial people pleaser, who really struggled to say NO to people and subsequently, I put myself in positions that I didn't want to be in. At home, I sometimes felt I needed to justify to my husband, why I wanted to go and do things for myself and in a way I was seeking his approval, because for me to go out and spend time doing what I love, meant that he would need to help me out more at home and I often felt guilty about this because he already spends a lot of his time working hard for our family.
The thing is, I too work hard, taking care of our family, our home, running my own part time business as well as helping my husband with his business, and this year I've put my hand up to coach both my daughter and my soccer teams. Now I really really LOVE my life, however, to be able to manage this kind of load, it's important that I factor in "KAYE" time to do whatever I feel I need to take care of myself.
For me, this is a non-negotiable because letting myself get run down is not an option.
Living a life filled with love, laughter and meaning is what I aim for each day and any thing that does not fit into this criteria, is intentionally omitted from my "to do" list.
Each morning, before I get out of bed, I spend a few minutes meditating, writing in my dream journal and setting an intention for my day. Whilst I'm thinking about the day ahead, I make a mental note to carve out some time for myself around my scheduled commitments. This could mean, heading to the beach for a swim after school drop off or enjoying a a couple of hours to myself before I sit down to work. I love listening to inspirational podcasts and I also love a long chat with a good friend. Sometimes I'll even take the entire day off, just to slow down, relax & re-charge.
Getting a good night's sleep is pivotal to my emotional state and I aim to be in bed by 9.30pm to get at least 9 hours sleep. I know that if I don't get a good nights sleep, it's pretty much guaranteed that I will be pretty grumpy the next day (just ask my family). My exercise needs are factored in this year as I've signed up to play soccer and I love to walk with our dogs around our neighbourhood. I'm not rigid about how I take care of myself, I just know that my emotional, physical and spiritual well-being is my priority and I find a way to make it work each day.
Carving out time for yourself can include making time to sit down and enjoy a relaxing cup of tea, reading that book that's been sitting on your bed side table forever, taking yourself out for a solo lunch or even fitting in a lunch date with your hubby, whatever your heart is guiding you to do, just do it!
Think about this.....
You probably already spend so much time taking care of others and how can you continue to do this, if you're running on empty? Just like a car, we need to carve out time to stop at the petrol station to fill up the tank, schedule in our car servicing, so that it can continue to function properly and the same goes for us as human beings. If we don't do this for ourselves, we will end up breaking down.
When you can learn to prioritize your emotional, spiritual and physical well-being and not have to justify it to anyone, you will begin to live a life which is far more meaningful than the one you're living now.
xxxxx