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Self-Care Tip #206 – Write your letter to get what you’re looking for from self-care.  Be a friend to yourself.

So why am I so interested in self-care?

I’m not sure who said this first, but I heard it from speaker and author Peter Rollins, and it rings true.  People write letters not necessarily to communicate to others but because they needed to hear the words themselves.

For example, the smooth Paublo Neruda wrote in his poem XVII (I do not love you…) as translated by Stephen Tapscott,

…I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where.
I love you straightforwardly, without complexities or pride;
so I love you because I know no other way

than this: where I does not exist, nor you,
so close that your hand on my chest is my hand,
so close that your eyes close as I fall asleep.

You may also remember this verse from the movie Patch Adams.  I think Paublo Neruda must have really wanted connection.  And so with me, I’ve been writing my own letters of sorts – every day about self-care.  What do you think about that?

The truth is, it’s not hard to see why I’d need that.

This leads us to victims.  We’ve all seen them, and probably been them at one point or another.  Parents who blamed their kids behaviors for their feelings.  Spouses who blamed their Other for their feelings.  Physicians, nurses, accountants, judges who blamed their colleagues, who blamed their employers – “Every day there is just so much work put on me.  The system’s corrupt.”

What I realized is that I was also living like a victim.  I wasn’t taking care of myself.  No one can give what she doesn’t have.  And I didn’t think I was responsible for this.  I actually thought at some conscious and including subconscious levels that all these other things in life were reason enough to suffer like me.  Many of us think this way – stress leads to poor treatment of ourselves.  It may, or it may not.  But all we can have any control in, is our own selves.

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This was my ah-ha.  Self-care begins and ends with Me.  This became a passionate love-letter for me even though I’m still not above “victimhood.”

For us who were “ruined” by their circumstances, tired and loveless because someone cheated us, mad because of thoughtlessness – we were in need of Love.

No one is responsible for my emotions but “Me.”

Questions:  Why are you interested in self-care?  What letter have you been writing?  Please tell me your story.

Related Articles

• Take Care of Yourself Better by Knowing What That Means. (friendtoyourself.com)