By Book Author Denise Turney (online at chistell.com)
One person goes wherever you are – YOU. Regardless of your age, background, worldly experiences, financial situation, or educational background, there is and always will be only one person you can be certain will always be with you. To repeat the refrain, that person is YOU. This fact should birth a profound sense of responsibility and power within. Another effect it should have is the surfacing of an acute commitment to make your life a priority.
Self-Care and Childhood Troubles
Oddly, inspiration for this blog post came from a movie. The movie was based on the life of a successful financial trader, a man whose childhood was far too hard, his father seemingly incapable of giving love, his mother too afraid to confront her abusive husband, leaving the child alone to fend for himself.
For her part, the mother dealt with the crisis by pretending that nothing was amiss, as if the abuse was merely part of a fairytale. For this reason, my anger towards the mother ran as deep and as ragged as it did for the father.
Curiosity swelled up within me too. This happened because, on the surface, the leaders at the financial firm, including the financial trader who’d been abused as a child, looked clear, smooth, and clean, a type of perfect many strive for but never achieve.
Care Enough to See What’s Happening
Twenty years in, the financial trader’s troubled past caught up to him, started to reveal itself to others. If only he had learned to love himself. If only we all would love ourselves, not through someone else’s gaze, compliment, gifts, or approval – but from the love that’s always within.
Abide long enough in this world and you’ll see that, despite how hard we may try to prevent it, we’re deeply impacted by what we see, hear, feel, and experience when we’re children and teens. In this way, our parents are like gods.
Then, we grow up and may not be aware that we have every right to re-parent ourselves, that we are not required to suffer or to repeat messages our elders laid upon us that are so clearly wrong and unloving, messages our elders believed and shared even though they had evidence that those messages also had hurt them. Set yourself free of carrying old messaging around, inside your head or depositing the messages inside someone else.
Care Enough to Look After Yourself
This is where you hold court; this is when you have true power. Start right now to care enough to look after yourself.
Change your personal history. In doing so, you can change the lives of those you interact with. Signs you might need to provide yourself with more love and care include:
- Consistent belief that you need to do more to feel worthy
- Comparing yourself to others
- Avoiding discussing childhood or general painful events (i.e., abuse, bankruptcy, depression)
- Focusing on perceived failures
- Engaging in addictive thoughts or behaviors, including gambling, gossiping, overspending or turning to food, beverages, sleeping pills, prescription pills, and/or narcotics to feel “okay”
- Feeling disconnected from your true Self and other people
- Investing in obsessive behavior (as if doing something “enough” times or in a “perfect” way will make everything better or cause you to feel safe)
Of course, there are other signs that you need to care for yourself, that you need to look after yourself. But how do you care for yourself when no one has ever taught you how to do that?
Ways to Care for Yourself
Start small if you must. You might even get a pet, something as easy to care for as a fish or a turtle. Pay attention to how you care for the pet. Afford yourself this same love and affection. If you’re giving love and affection and care to the pet, you know you can give it to yourself. Choose to do so.
Here are more ways to care for yourself. Try to incorporate three or more of these actions into your day. If it’s easier, choose caring actions that only take a few minutes.
- Take 10 deep breaths in the morning
- Shower or enjoy a relaxing bath daily
- Visit a friend
- Invest in a healthy diet
- Exercise for 40 minutes five to six days a week
- Practice yoga (great relaxer)
- Meditate two to 15 minutes a day
- Slow down and relax an hour prior to going to bed
- Fuel yourself with 7 to 9 hours of quality sleep
- Get outdoors in safe areas, enjoying a walk, bike ride, swim, etc.
- Join a support group if you need additional help
- Partner with an ethical, experienced, licensed psychologist if needed
- Write a letter to your younger self, acknowledging how much you have come thru and done
- Forgive yourself
- Forgive others
- Take 10 deep breaths in the evening
- Engage in a hobby
- Create artwork
- Write in a journal
- Listen to soothing music that you love
- Be honest with yourself
- Manage stress by first acknowledging that you feel stress (when you feel stressed)
Your Caring Brilliance Shines
Also, accept that you did not create yourself. Nothing you or anyone else can do or say will change your brilliance. Nothing will change your inherent goodness. Restoration is possible because you did not create yourself.
If you’ve considered a host of possibilities about yourself, consider that love and light created you to mirror and to extend itself. As you care enough to look after yourself, you might discover the courage to journey inward.
During this inner journey, don’t be surprised if you encounter jealousy, frustration, rage, exhaustion, conflict, and confusion – fear offshoots. Don’t stop there. Keep going.
At your core there is only love.
Go find your true Self.
It may take a lifetime, but it’s worth it. You have the courage to take this journey. Seek support, including professional support, if necessary. Above all, start now to care enough to look after yourself.
Trust that what created you loves you, a truth that may not feel like it’s being reinforced, validated, or witnessed to in this world, but is nonetheless true. Even more, early truths that you are loved may likely start with you loving YOU.
