Understanding Self-Care: One Must BE Ready, Willing and Able

The Understanding True Self-Care Series

This is an EXCERPT from Oddball: Building Resilience With Self-Care

“Love is the outreach of self toward completion.” —Ralph W. Sockman

“I’m Too…” The Reasons and Excuses for not Engaging in Self-Care Which Builds Resilience

I’m too busy this that and the other so I don’t can’t do that

I have a lot of money so I don’t need that

I have kid(s) so I can’t do that

I have to make a living so I can’t do that

I’m too sick so I can’t do that

I’m tired so I can’t do that

That’s stupid so I won’t do that

I’m scared so I can’t do that

It’s sin so I can’t do that

I’m young so I don’t need that

I’m too old so I can’t do that

I’m too poor so I can’t do that

I’m with my boyfriend/girlfriend/husband/wife so I don’t need that

I’m not worth it so I won’t do that

I’m too comfortable living out of balance so I won’t do that

I know all this already so I don’t want that

So what is the THAT we are talking about here? Self-Care.

I’m referring to the systematic and conscious care of yourself so that you build resilience, become balanced and gain health. From resilience, balance, and health the world is our oyster. Self-care has a lot of loose definitions out there. Let’s tighten that up and talk about self-care for chronic stress and pain. Self-care is about something we forgot to do: that is to listen to our body, mind and spiritual needs. It consists of actionable, conventional and unconventional tools and techniques, including using beauty to relieve chronic pain and stress (Beauty Heals Pain).

This can be any of the following: general mindfulness of your breathing, water, shelter and rest, addressing family, financial, professional, social and spiritual issues that are causing chronic distress. This includes consciously establishing new and healthy habits while eliminating unhealthy ones with a specific plan.

Self-care has to be customized and crafted to meet your specific needs. There is no one-size-fits-all.

We humans can be particular about how we receive and interpret information. For the sake of simplicity and to make these ideas easily applicable, we need to organize and categorize them. I try to do that by talking about care of the self in terms of the physical, emotional, and spiritual. But they are all connected and interrelated. If you don’t believe in the spirit then do your best to focus on your physical and emotional well-being. Your spirit will thank you.

The care of one’s self is all-important to me. I often use the term “power self-care” because of the effectiveness of balancing one’s life and reducing pain self-care has. So here power self-care and self-care are used interchangeably. I realize that at the moment the latter is a trendy term but for me it is a fundamentally part of my life that gives me a semblance of relief from extreme and chronic physical, emotional, and spiritual pain.

Self-care is a huge topic. So big volumes can be written about it. It ranges from basic hygiene to creating boundaries against hurtful people, things, and places. Traumatic events and chronic stress I have experienced that led me to make this transformational shift. A few specific reasons include include:

1) The various physical and emotional injuries I suffered,

2) The religious and cultural upbringing conditioned and emphasized I was of a lesser value than others around me, and

3) The mega mistake I made to care for everyone and everything else, instead of focusing on my own healing first, to the point of imbalance, left me ill and depleted.