Care For Yourself So You Can Better Care For Others

Something many people have difficulty with is taking care of themselves, making themselves a priority. I saw it regularly when I was a personal trainer and even more in people’s personal and spiritual lives. Think about this for a minute: how do you take care of yourself? Do you take 5-10 minutes a day to stop and be connected with the Higher Power you believe in? Do you take at least 90 minutes a week to give your body the exercise it needs? Are you a good example to your loved ones of caring for yourself emotionally?

In your hectic life it’s easy to get carried away with “doing” and never find time to just “be”. Most people are not usually still long enough to notice that they’re exhausted. There is only so much energy in you and unless you take steps to replenish that energy, you will run out. This takes many forms such as: sickness, stress, unhappiness, fatigue, irritability, different forms of dependency issues, etc. Your body, mind and spirit will slow you down in one way or another unless you take care of them. The sad part is most people think living under these conditions is normal. We are NOT here to suffer, we are here to live!

When you care for yourself, you feel better physically, you’re happier, you’re capable of more and you can care for others more effectively. One of the most important things you can do for the loved ones in your life is being a living example of self-care. If you want your children to love themselves and take care of themselves, you need to show them how by doing it for yourself. This isn’t easy, especially as a parent we want to put our kids first, but all that is teaching them is to put others ahead of themselves. Of course we have to put them first in many situations however they also need to see us taking care of ourselves…otherwise how will they learn to do it for themselves?

In order to have peace in your life, see how you can best set your priorities as follows:

1. Source – put your Source of power first, your Higher Power. The focus of your faith, that which you believe in and depend on for meaning, peace and love in your life needs to come first.

2. Yourself – take care of you! If you are not taking care of yourself, you’ll be incapable of being the optimum expression of The Divine that you can be. Give yourself what you need to be happy, healthy and connected.

3. Others – since you’ve done the first two, you’re now capable of giving your best! Now you can be the best father, mother, brother, sister, friend, employer, employee that you can be. Now you can excel at helping others as well as provide them with an example of self-love, self-care and a happy life.

I love the adage used in case of emergency before a plane flight: When the oxygen masks drop, FIRST put yours on THEN put your child’s on. You’re of no use to anyone if you’re unconscious!