A big part of my role as a massage therapist is to listen to clients express goals for their health and to find solutions together on how to get there. A pattern that I notice so much is that there is always somewhere we “should” be that we’re not with our overall routine. There’s always the yoga that we’re not making it to yet, but will soon. There’s the sleep we’re not getting to, the water we’re not drinking enough of, the exercise that we once did but aren’t doing as much now. There are these nagging things that we know we should be doing that we’re just not really doing. Yet.
What if we just for a moment throw away all of those “shoulds” and “really need tos” and just breathe deeply for a moment.
There is another way of looking at self-care, health, well-being and happiness that takes into account how much true satisfaction and contentment might play a role in every other part of your body’s health. There are so many layers and levels to your body’s wellness; your mind, your physical body, your sense of self and fulfillment, your emotional self, your spiritual side, your social side and beyond. Considering that nurturing each of these sides of ourselves is important for overall wellness, why do we focus only on the physical so much of the time? Why do we only see stretching, the gym and eating a certain way as the entirety of our self-care repertoire?
The other day I woke up to a sunny Saturday late morning and even before I was really awake, the usual shoulds of what my day might look like came to my mind. These included a yoga class, yard work and some other things that can be put in the “making the most of my Saturday” category. I decided to start the day with a ridiculously engrossing book and cozy in bed, I just kept on reading right past yoga, past breakfast and past the rest of my day, basically. How awesome to spend a whole day like that! I felt renewed and overfilled with self love for letting myself do what I really wanted to do that day. My mood was elevated and in turn, my body felt great, rested and in tune.
I’m not promoting that reading a book all day is equivalent to a yoga class for anyone else, but for me on that day, it was. What feeds your soul? What are the juiciest things you would love to be doing right now if you had an entire day to really choose? Remember your favorite, most peaceful and balanced moments in life and recreate them or invent new ones. Sometimes it takes a little love from deep within to refuel and re-inspire our idea self-care.