LOVE ME A LITTLE...
We live in very unique times today. Where a lot of people are going through roller coasters of emotions which are coupled with lots of life’s uncertainties, that most can not bear on their own. Nobody will be able to verify that you are good to talk to at that time, or whether you are even okay at all. This is because, we are all required to be at our 100 percent at all times, whether we are perfectly waking up from our beauty sleeps, or, wearily slumbering our day away into the night. We are are just expected to be at our best always. However, that said, the elephant in the room would be in asking, are we always at our best all the times? How even possible is that?
Mostly it’s been discovered that these high expectations don’t come from outside forces but rather from our own internal dissections. Our own internal judgements and pushes that make us flip over the edge. Why? Because, we are either pushing ourselves harder than we should, or we are having the most outrageous expectations of results that we should produce. Occasionally, we would expect these pushes to come from external factors, which may actually do sometime, but most of the time, we are both our doing and undoing by being too hard on ourselves.
A lot has be spoken about selfcare, beginning from what is self care and who should embrace self care. There could be a million articles on this topic and forgive me for adding yet another one million and one about it. I am choosing to view self care from a point of self assertion, self recognition, self intuition, individual well being, both emotionally and physically. Has anyone ever asked you, upon meeting you or after greeting you, that, are you okay? Why is this important? Because, being okay can be observed from your outward physique, where your body may be portraying the illnesses within it, or your responses may be expressing that you are either feeling down because of one thing or another. Being okay assures them that you are in the right mind frame for them to engage you at that particular time.
Self care to me, is not just taking care of your emotions, but also having power over them if you have to. We take care of our emotions so that we don’t become enslaved to them, and also, so that we possess power over them. This is mostly because we want to be in control over what we feel all the time. Emotions may present themselves to us in different ways, where, when we are happy, we express our happiness, by either smiling genuinely or laughing from the heart. Equally, when we are mad, we express that emotion by exploding with anger and having infrequent outbursts. When we get hurt, or when we become sad, we express this emotion by either crying, keeping to self, or at times, anger too can be a way of an individual expressing hurt. All these emotions that we portray and possess at times, may tend to get the best of us. And what happens when they get the best of us, they make us not be able to be our 100 percent.
Self care is an apparatus like a thermometer that can gauge the different temperatures of our life. It can tell us when we are either too high or too low. It also has the normal measurements which can tell us that we are operating within the norm and that we should maintain if we can, because, that is where we are at our best. Knowing that anger is a trigger that comes from being mad at something or someone, self awareness is in the acknowledgement that one, you are indeed angry and offended, and two, self care is what helps us know how angry would you want to be, how long would you like to stay angry. Remember when we started, we said, most of our emotions are as a result of our own internal dissections. So, understanding that self care is choosing to know how long we would like to stay angry is mostly an internal factor within our control.
I thought of writing about this because, many a times, we are our own worst critics. We forget that we are also too human to fail. And that, it’s not always that we are good at something. We need to appreciate that we can fail or we can even have a shortcoming and that its normal. This acknowledgement however, doesn’t flow out naturally to people because no one wants to be marked as a failed project. This in the end makes us harbor emotions within us that we shouldn’t. These emotions of failure eventually may end up making us become depressed beings. Depressed because, we simply didn’t live upto expectations as we ought to and we are now mad at ourselves for failing. Self care is, acknowledging our shortfalls, see if its things we can work on for the better and if we cannot, then have the heart of letting go, and letting things be.
An emotionally worn out being is worse than a physically injured person. Because, unlike a physical injury, which can be seen and treated with an external person like a doctor or something, an emotional injury on the other hand, calls for you to do more of internal healing. Even when you choose to see a counsellor, in the long run, what will make you feel better eventually is your own effort towards internal healing. Where you will be required to accept your feelings, become weary of your emotions and have control over them too. Having control over them will allow you to know how much longer you can hold onto a certain emotion and when to let go. Equally, having power over them, means that you know how to react to those emotions too, so that they don’t get the best of you. Just because someone does something unpleasant to you, it’s not obvious that you should be angry with them. There are times where you can just ignore and assume that, that occurrence didn’t happen, unless it becomes repetitive.
Self care is allowing yourself to be in the state of mind, body and soul that suits you best all the time. If happiness suits your posture and stature, then always choose to be at that state all the time, every time if you can. This can be done by choosing to engage your mind and body in activities that bring you happiness. If being angry brings out the worst in you, in that, it incapacitates you from being your best, then choose not to be angry. Ask yourself things like, what exactly am I angry for? How does being angry affect me? How does my anger affect other people? How does being angry make me feel? Once you can give yourself elaborate answers to these questions, then you will not only have mastered having control over your anger but also, amassed total power over it. Self care is choosing to be in the emotion that puts you at your 100 percent at all the time.
Aside of emotions, self care is also an attitude. An attitude of self love. Choosing to shower yourself with accolades of love and care as opposed to a dozen angsts of criticisms about yourself. Self care is also mastering on the art of giving, by choosing on when to give, and what to give ,because, sometimes we can give a little too much and end up being left with nothing. We can give love to others but remember to retain some for yourself. This love is what you will ultimately need on those days where you will be required to do internal healing. On those days when people have criticised you to the bone, that’s when you will unwrap your self love package because that is the self care you would need at that time. This love will assure you that even though things are not on your side at that time, you are still loved.
Learning to say no also is a part of self care. Saying no doesn’t mean that you are a bad person or a mean person, it only means that you are just setting boundaries for your relations. Saying no, means that you have exhausted your yes limits and anything beyond or above that, would be eating up on your ability to be at your 100 percent of giving comfortably. Learning to say no only means that you can only give as much and nothing more. If you give more than what you should, then it means that you are giving even what is rightfully supposed to be yours. This giving could be anything, like your time or your effort and not just monetary, but anything that would make you go out of your way in favor of someone else.
What does self care mean to you?
To me, it means taking care more of the inside. Taking care of the unseen before taking care of what gets seen. If one is emotionally distressed, chances are that, it will explode to your outward physique. You will look not only look worn out, but also, you will feel hopeless and become helpless. Equally, a person that is emotionally satisfied, one who chooses to take care of their emotions , you will need not to ask if they are okay, you will see it for yourself painted on their faces, their smiles and even if you choose to ask if they are okay, their response will always be, a genuine yes!
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