It’s Valentine’s Day this week, and it’s always nice to give loved ones a treat of some sort, how about giving one to yourself? We talk a lot about self-care and the importance of it for a reason. If your well is dry, you don’t have enough energy to care for your loved one. Noble surely to keep up the pace, but no one wins if you’re energy is depleted.
The act of self-love is necessary both during and after your caregiving days and something to be conscious of. Loving yourself means permitting yourself to take a day or some time off. It can be as simple as a bubble bath or as much as asking someone to care for your loved one for a bit so that you can go and enjoy things that bring you joy. Or if your loved one has passed taking an extra day to do something that fills your heart. Perhaps it’s writing in a journal about your thoughts, hopes, fears and what you’re grateful for. And maybe it’s as small as taking the time to stop by a mirror and saying ‘thank you’ to you.
Beating ourselves up for not doing things the ‘right’ way, rushing around to the point we make ourselves sick, going over and over again in our heads about how we could have done it differently can make us crazy. Yes, I said ‘us’ because to this day I can catch myself saying “If I had only asked Mom………”, and then I pause and remind myself that I did my best.
Deepak Chopra in his book of the Four Agreements wrote a chapter on ‘Always Do Your Best.’ In it, he says “Under any circumstance, always do your best, no more and no less. But keep in mind that your best is never going to be the same from one moment to the next. Everything is alive and changing all the time, so your best will sometimes be high quality, and other times it will not be as good.”
Give yourself an allowance for doing things wrong, and a ‘thank you’ in the mirror for all you do/have done every day.
“When you make a choice, you change the future.” ~ Deepak Chopra
I send you Valentine’s wishes of thanks, for being you. You are without a doubt, amazing.
Bigs hugs,
Cyndi