Art Joy by Marie Schem
Self-Care Tip #88 – Win yourself over. Be a friend to yourself.
Dr. White works with mostly women in primary care medicine. She tells me that her women so often come in tired, overextended, and they say they don’t feel good. She wonders why they think they can run 2 full-time jobs (parenting and employment) without suffering for it. Her counsel is to down scale.
My patients do so much better when they are working part-time.
Christie, a mom of 3 who works full-time, tells me tonight,
It’s hard.
That’s not new news but nor is it small news. How many of us nod when on the subject of self-care. We sagely stroke our chin yet are nowhere to be found on the list of topics of interest. Do we even get pleasure out of taking care of ourselves?
I think there’s a misperception here. The hard part is not doing the 2 jobs that Dr. White’s patients work. It is working our own person. Maybe if we found more pleasure in caring for ourselves we would. Maybe if we connected that caring for ourselves is the minus-1 to the starting point of caring for others. We can get hooked. We can. But it won’t be the same for all of us. Any way you turn it though, we have to make it sticky, linked to pleasure, and making sense.
Question: Is there anything specific you can think of that contributes to self-care being a positive thing in your life? Please tell me your story.
Related Articles
- 5 principles of self-care for health professionals (kevinmd.com)
Self Care is Self Love
(If I may quote myself in the spirit of self love)
Hello Miriam! Nice of u to comment. Short but sweet. Hope u r doing well. Keep on!
Dear Sana, Thank you for sharing and also thank you for your generosity in letting some of us express ourselves. I found your question very provocative. Let me reinstate it…Is there anything specific you can think of that contributes to self-care being a positive thing in your life? Please tell me your story. Hummm! I have three motivations for self-care. (1) It is a daily acknowledge that I give to myself that despite of the good and bad around me, I choose to not let me change what I am and what I represent. (2) the previous statement leads to the other motivation, and this is what I represent. I not only represent what I am, but I represent my kids, my husband, my parents-brother and sisters, I represent my organization, I represent my profession, I represent my friends, I represent my students, I represent my gender, I represent a mother, and my roots (and all that it implies), and ultimately (3) I am an open book that someone can see Jesus through me, and I must take care of myself because God is nothing careless. Yes, SELF-CARE is vital and can be the inner core of what we do, we are, and we will.
yummy! great comment! thank you so much Bertha. that third point was especially rich. getting friendly w ourself is friendly to God and everyone we r connected w.
How nice to “meet you” Bertha. I love connecting with others so you reading and writing is just great for me too! many thanks and keep on!