Everything you read nowadays focuses on how to better yourself and how to put what matters to you above other unimportant details. It’s a good message to spread, but if you’re anything like me, taking time to fully take of yourself makes you feel guilty. Guilty because you should be taking care of others before you even think about yourself because that’s what you were taught.
From a young age, I learned that although making sure I was okay is important, making sure those around me are okay overruled my feelings toward self-care. I had to please everyone around me before I could even take a second to look in the mirror and ask myself the burning questions I so easily asked others. Are you okay? Is there anything I can do for you?
It’s time to take all those years spent worrying about others, who only took it for granted, back. The time to focus on you is NOW. And I mean it. Because at the end of the day, you only have you. No matter how great your friends are, how attentive your family is to your needs, or how sweet your significant other is, at the end of the day, the person you go home with is yourself.
It’s okay, in fact it’s more than okay, to take a minute out of your day and think about your well-being. Take more than a minute. Check in with yourself. How’s your day going? Is anything making you upset? Are you overwhelmed? Take the healing energy that you would usually direct towards others and use it to care for yourself.
A task as simple as taking a breath can be an event to make you realize that either everything is great or something is off. We live in a fast-paced world filled with a mantra that screams work, work, work. When you can’t work anymore, you’re expected to do something productive because you can’t just sit around and do nothing. Everyone on social media is either advertising a new company they’ve been collaborating with or posting pictures of grind sessions with their friends. What happened to just taking a moment to slow down?
Life is about balance. You can check in on yourself, check in on the people that are important to you, and check in on your work.
There’s a quote that says, “The problem with putting others first is you’ve taught them you come last.”
There’s nothing wrong with speaking your truth and establishing your boundaries. Care for others, but care for yourself and don’t be ashamed of it.