It was one of the best things I've done for myself in a long time.
It's not often we are given the opportunity to take a whole week for ourselves and focus on self-care and stress reduction, but this is exactly what I was lucky enough to do.
I left bright and early Saturday morning to catch a flight off to Winnipeg, where my best friend of many years picked me up, and we headed straight down to St. Paul, Minnesota for a concert (100000% worth it, best decision ever).
We got back to my home town on Monday, and I spent the rest of the week hanging out with my mom and dad, and my brother and sister-in-law. Yoga, hockey games, dinners, movies, making jewellery, pedicures, reiki, the works.
Taking this time for me was hard, honestly. I felt so guilty leaving my daily life behind. The timing wasn't great due to personal reasons, but I really felt that I needed to step away from everything for a while and just get myself and my priorities back in check.
I finally felt like I could breathe again.
So my message today, to you and to myself, is this: Self-care is SO IMPORTANT.
Self-care is not easy. Self-care takes a lot of effort. Self-care can feel selfish. Self-care can damn well seem impossible sometimes.
But it is SO SO SO SO critical and fundamental and essential and necessary. Taking care of yourself doesn't always mean taking a week off work and leaving the city and going away. Self-care really should be an ongoing process, taking a few moments every day to check in with yourself, see where you're at, and do anything necessary to keep yourself swimming. Self-care doesn't need to be a big, grand event. It can be remembering to take a deep breath a couple times a day. Going for a walk. Making time to do something you love - read a chapter of a book before bed, have a cup of tea when you get home, do a coloring page on your lunch hour, take a few minutes for yoga or stretching in the morning.
You can't pour from an empty cup. You can't stand tall on a broken base. You can't keep swimming if you've got too much weighing you down.
Taking care of yourself is more than just taking care of yourself. For me, taking care of myself means I can continue to take care of the people around me. It's a huge part of my thought processes to always be checking in on other people, and it's sometimes a struggle to turn that inwards. And let's be honest here: it's a lesson that I'm still trying to learn, and I'm honestly not very good at it yet.
Self-care is my mission this month. I am making it a priority to get a better self-care routine in place, to the point that it becomes a habit. I'm trying to take more walks. I'm trying not to skip out on my workouts. I've recently began seeing a new counsellor for my anxiety, and I'm making sure to give that my best effort. I'm trying to get out of the city more. To not feel selfish for taking time for myself. To know that nothing will fall apart if I step away for a few minutes. To know that it's ok to not be ok, and to spend time working on myself.
I'm trying.
"She made a promise to herself to hold her own well-being sacred" ~ Unkown
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