Self-Care Tip #87 – Be a rebel towards your own intuition.

My husband was telling me about how consumers are demanding a more human approach to industry.

In the 1990’s the film written and directed by Nora Ephron, You’ve Got Mail, showed us how the small personal touch was muscled out of business by the book-superstore.  Today, my husband told me that the inverse is happening now because technology allows it to.  Counterintuitive to thinking, the very thing that took out the mom-and-pop store is the very thing that is bringing it back.

Author of the blog CreatingBrains, Joana Johnson, wrote a post, “Is Barnes & Noble Changing for the Worse?”  She describes their palliative efforts to feel their way through the current changes in the book sale market.  Clearly, buyers and readers are wanting something different from the superstore ambiance again.

Readers have written in to me about their demands for a more human approach to their own selves.  Here are 2 recent examples.

My mother always said that it was selfish to attend to your own needs when you were a wife and mother.  I’m happy to see a Christian woman refute that so eloquently.

I have been recovering from a complete emotional breakdown for 16 years and… the hardest thing I have had to convince myself to do for nearly 70 years now is learn to be a friend to myself.

These women are rebels in their own way and time.  I’m not a sociologist but I see these changes influenced also by technology and information.  It’s not so easy to stay barefoot and pregnant these days even if you wanted to.  “All things bright and beautiful” beckon to us.  Nor is it quite as easy to fool ourselves into believing that we’ll be able to take care of anyone – children, work, rescue dogs – if we haven’t taken care of ourselves first.  And although we still try to all the time, we just can’t believe any more that we can give what we don’t have.  Our current upside down economy is also testimony to that.

I wrote a blog post some time ago titled “A Woman’s Work,” that largely speaks to this as well.  Because of many contributors, including temperament and conditioning, in many of us self-care is not intuitive.  It is disruptive.  Taking care of ourselves is even a bit scandalous …but it is more humane and it is possible.

Self-Care Tip #87 – Be a rebel towards your own intuition.  Be a friend to yourself.

Question:  What barriers are you passing to care for yourself?  What is making it possible?  Please tell me your story.