Self-care. It feels ironic that it’s a single word made up of two other ones.
When things get chaotic, we tend to focus on the many instead of the singular. We spread ourselves thin to extinguish every fire without realizing that there’s a leak in the hose. And that metaphorical tool at our disposal is most often compromised because we’ve neglected it.
Maybe it’s just me, but whenever I hear that term, self-care, my mind immediately goes to the realm of mental health. Find positivity, express gratitude, ground yourself through meditation, practice mindfulness. And all these things are critically important, but it’s also only one piece of a much more complex equation. I’ve come to appreciate that firsthand over the past month or two.
For me, there’s another word that sidles up alongside other aspects of self-care before scaring it away into the shadows. Fear. What I don’t know can’t hurt me. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. These ruminations in my head keep trying their best to rationalize my malformed decisions. I’ve taken the necessary actions to engage in self-care on the mental front, but I’ve quickly realized that it’s not really all that effective if that’s the only place where your attention stays focused. There are these lingering (and niggling) thoughts tucked in your subconscious that keep reminding you that something is not quite right. But you keep pushing them away, because it’s easier (or at least you think it is) to ignore those alerts from an intangible source instead of facing them head-on.
That’s what I’ve been doing. My exercise plan has been abysmal. My diet has been all over the map. And most importantly, the attention to my routine physical health has been negligent to an extreme. It’s embarrassing to admit how long it had been since I had been to a doctor of any type. The only entity that might remotely condone that action (or inaction) is my insurance company. It took what should have been unnecessary intervention from my wife for me to make a change on this front, and I’m eternally grateful to her for doing so. The courage required to face the unknown after ignoring it for so long was real. And I’m not going to say it was easy, but it was imperative for me in so many different ways.
What is the first thing that the airline attendants remind you of during their safety briefing when talking about a loss of cabin pressure? Put your mask on first. You can’t help the person beside you if you don’t take care of yourself first. It’s the perfect example of self-care and how focusing on the singular allows us to better manage the many surrounding us.
Have I potentially tipped my scale beyond the balance point of physical, mental, social/emotional, and spiritual with my actions over the past month? Yeah, probably. I’ve been hyper-focused on reestablishing a level of physical health and well-being that has been neglected for far too long. But I know, deep down, that imbalance will be short-lived, because when those fearful distractions are removed from the complex equation of self-care, that energy is available to devote elsewhere, and it’s exactly what I intend to do.
Take care of yourself. All parts of yourself in equal measure. Each element (physical, mental, social/emotional, spiritual) is an integral piece of a larger puzzle that comes into focus when you assemble it and look at the bigger picture. It’s not called selfish-care for a good reason. It’s the least selfish thing you could do. For yourself, yes, but also for all the people who depend on you to be the most prepared and authentic version of yourself.
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