After a month-long journey of understanding oneself and prioritizing oneself, I have now reached a state where I need to have some downtime, a place to rest and relax, and time to care for myself.
I found many books that guided me systematically to care for myself. Yeah! It seems very promising and good, but after a while, even though they are very good and meet my requirements, I give up. I don't want this kind of self-care, which I have to start all over again and again.
Reading this book,
Take Time for Your Life, introduced me to the very puddle I always find myself in and struggle to find my own life. I still remember my younger days when I used to sincerely journal. These journalings have helped me to pour out my emotions and vent well, and hence, I have much clearer views of my life.
Today, I realize how much harm I have done myself by not journaling all these years. I feel I am becoming the same lost and confused me from which I had come out. This reviewing of myself all started as I read Shirley's story.
Shirley managed 75 employees in her sales division. She was responsible for a 25% increase by the end of the year. She was stressed out and overworked. In order to thrive on this, she would have coffees every hour or so and was even frustrating her staff too.
I can relate to this quite well because recently I have again become someone like Shirley, just focused on achieving and achieving. Without the strong foundation of my life, I see that the success that I have achieved is not up to the mark that would help me do what I want.
It all starts with putting Shirley first. We saw that she receives so many voicemails. Assigning an assistant to handle them saved much of her time. Now 90% of the calls are attended by the assistant. This gives her more time for things that are important. Secondly, she made a commitment to leave the office by 5:30. This gave her time to spend with her husband in the garden, which she relished so much to relax. Now, having organized her life to relax and delegate her work, she is now more productive by being present to her staff and giving them necessary guidance they need.
These things are all continuously drawing me to my own life situation, which I also have to work out like this. For years I have been trying to achieve that, but I have not been able to, even though I am capable. I could not understand why this was happening to me. This story opened my eyes, and now I have to work in this fashion.
1) Put myself at the top of the list: Our life is more than our work. Yes, we need to work, but not so much that we forget that we too have needs. In this section the author puts a question, "What will you do if you weren't working?" This is the scariest question I faced when I was about to leave my first job. We are wired such that there is nothing other than our work. When I was jobless, that was the time I started to put myself first. At that time my mind was rumbling: you are jobless, and everybody is questioning why she is jobless. Time was tough to focus on self with all these voices within. I had no option but to put myself first. A high-quality life starts with a high-quality me. I wished to do anything but to escape all these haunting words, but then my inner self was not at all finding peace. This was the time of extreme self-care-putting my self-care above everything else. This means saying no to everything until it is an absolute yes (even the job), choosing my time and energy that bring me joy, and making decisions on what I want and not on what others want (the job I am really looking for).
2) Get my priorities straight: This section talks about how we make excuses to be in the chains of busyness at work. It talks about making big choices, which might not be easy.
3) What is draining me?: We need to find out what is draining our energies.
4) Invest in my financial health: Yes, money doesn't bring happiness, but scarcity of it does put us in painful situations. Taking care of money is integral to having the quality of life I desire.
5) What is fueling me?: This is an interesting section that introduced me to premium fuel and junk fuel. I have to work on myself to find on which I work.
6) Build a soulful community: Yes, I have felt this many times. Once, my mother said, "You don't even talk to me." I used to live like a machine in my own home. When she said these words, I realized what I was doing. I then started to build connections that touch our hearts.
7) Honor my spiritual well-being: This brought me to some of the harsh truths, which we do to do temporary repairing, but once again, when we go back to the rat race, we become the same. What spirituality means to me is what we have to define. It is the deep feeling of inner peace that convinces us that whatever will happen will work for our best. It took me years to reach this calmness. Achieving it one time is not enough; you have to work out every day to make it sustainable for a lifetime. This is where I am struggling now. I need to restart to find this inner peace.
This self-care is what I have been longing for. I had done this before, but somewhere I got lost in the craziness. I need to restore it again. My next post is on intuitive guidance.
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Staying connected with our inner self is truly important.Success may not always spell fulfillment. Your pointers to connect with yourself and review your standing in life is really helpful.
ReplyDeleteThank you for grasping the essence of my post. Yes, connecting with our inner self works wonders.
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