Self care, it’s your birthrite! Claim it!

As a self care coach, I focus on helping my clients improve the quality of their lives. Frequently it is about helping them start and maintain a new healthy habit surrounding how they do the work they do. So they’re less stressed, in less pain, but overall still productive. But whatever the goal, it starts with helping them learn how to take better care of themselves. Self care is such a buzz word these days. But sometimes buzz words are buzz words because they signify the importance of the concept and how we apply it to our lives.

Life does not move forward without relatively healthy beings to do the things that need to get done. Someone doesn’t have access to the food they need, if they don’t create the conditions to receive food however they do so. Your life does not forward without expending energy on your morning routine before heading to work or any other responsibilities you have the day.

"But sometimes buzz words are buzz words because they signify the importance of the concept and how we apply it to our lives."

But you know what? If you’re not healthy enough, life comes to a standstill. This can happen from a serious illness or from the commonly enough known about, ‘burnout.’ Where you just kind of lose function for your entire life, but maybe only the most basic of functions like sleeping and eating. It’s a more common occurrence than one may think.

You know what helps not getting to a standstill? What prevents these more serious health complications? What makes life better if you’ve lost function?

Self care.

Self care is the loving act of looking after yourself, so you can live, period.

"Those needs range from quiet time, to rest, to being listened to and heard, to activities that are fulfilling, to play and fun, to romance, to sensual touch and more. And when these needs are not being met, we breakdown."

It’s the most basic ingredient to a life well lived. And messaging from the overarching systems of family, work, our overall economic system – capitalism - tell us to do something for our spouses, children, co-workers, family members, or our country – before – we take care of ourselves.

As they say, the math isn’t mathing.

I’m not saying something revolutionary. But I am saying something that could easily be repeated a thousand more times and it still would not be enough to hammer home the point of how important self care is. Our conditioning towards doing for others first, especially as women - but this happens to men frequently enough to – creates a kind of blindness to your own needs. Those needs range from quiet time, to rest, to being listened to and heard, to activities that are fulfilling, to play and fun, to romance, to sensual touch and more. And when these needs are not being met, we breakdown.

The solution?

Yes, but also...

Self care. The difficulty? Breaking down those mental and lifestyle barriers to engaging self care with relish and vibrancy. As a movement, it is heartening to see so many individuals beginning to engage self care. But if the numbers on burnout, experiences of depression, and the happiness index are any indication, much self care work remains to be done. A joyful, healthy self is your birthrite. Claim it by doing a healthy, caring, loving action for yourself today.

Love & Light

Santee Blakey is a Life Coach and Licensed Massage Therapist at Soul Growth Wellness. When she's not biking, reading, or biking, or reading (she needs new hobbies, suggest her some:-), she'll be writing and enjoying a caramel frappacino in her favorite cafe. Follow her on Youtube for her series --> Self Acceptance: What It's Really Like (A Journey).

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