“Success” Isn’t Worth Your Health

A man too busy to take care of his health is like a mechanic too busy to take care of his tools.
(Spanish Proverb)

If you say things like…

“I don’t have time to make healthy meals…I’ll just grab a bag of chips.”
“I’ve got too much on my to-do list.  I can’t remember to drink water.”
“When I try to meditate, I can’t get my to-do list out of my head.”
“My morning is too hectic to squeeze in an exercise routine.”

…you don’t see Self-Care as a priority.

When we were babies, we focused a lot of energy on getting our personal needs met.  What was personal, was a priority.  We cried when we felt uncomfortable.  And people came to feed, change, hold, and play with us.

Somewhere, perhaps in high school, we learned that Public Priorities were more important than Personal Priorities.  Do the homework, get the grades, do well in extracurricular activities, impress the boss, serve the community, wow the committee - That’s what’s important.

Who cares if your personal needs are met?  Nobody’s going to reward you for drinking 80 oz. of water, or meditating 5 minutes a day, or taking 20 minutes to exercise or make a salad - So, they seem less important.  Right?

“Babies don’t have To-Do lists,” you add.  “If I didn’t have a To-Do list, I’d have time to tend to my personal needs.”

*   *   *

It can seem as though Personal and Public priorities are at odds - that the time it takes to make a healthy meal takes away from the time you have available to answer emails, help kids with homework, and update your blog.

In reality, though…

Self-Care SUPPORTS your Public Priorities

Don’t see self-care as something that will distract from everything else you do.  See self-care as something that makes you better able to do everything else you do.

How well do you juggle all the responsibilities you have when you’ve run yourself ragged?  How much better can you satisfy everyone else’s needs when your own needs are fully met?

Sipping water throughout the day, 10 minutes of exercise just 3 times a week, focusing all your attention on your breathing for just 5 breaths a day, replacing one candy bar or can of soda with an apple each day…These will help you take care of your “tools.”

As you take care of your number one tool - YOU - you will increase your ability to do everything else that is important to you.

*   *   *

3 Quick Self-Care Tips that Won’t Overwhelm Your Schedule:

1. Link self-care to another activity - Floss while reading emails.  Do 5 slow-motion toe-touches whenever you’re zapping food in the microwave.  Take a sip of water at every traffic light.
2. Get up 5 minutes earlier - DON’T use the extra time to get a jump on your routine.  Sit straight up in your bed, and just focus on your breathing.  Pretend you’re holding a microphone to your nostrils, and your mission is to hear every breath.  A 5-breath or 5-minute breathing meditation helps you center in your BEING - you are here, you are alive - rather than spending every waking hour DOING.  You are not what you do, you simply ARE.
3. Toss an apple in your bag - Apples are high in nutrients and fiber.  They are also great appetite suppressants.  If you feel less hungry, you’re less likely to grab that cookie that you know you don’t need.

SEE THIS 3min VIDEO for more Easy, Convenient Self-Care Tips:

Tweet This Post 

Make Time for Mommy: “How to Live Juicy” Video

Happy Mother’s Day Mommies!!!

Here’s the first video in the Make Time for Mommy series.  It’s called How to Live Juicy, and is all about Self-Care vs Self-Neglect (forgive the “squished” effect, still learning to use my new camera):

Mommies make the world go ’round.  So here at the Family Healing Institute we will be celebrating Moms and Motherhood all month long.

May is MAKE TIME FOR MOMMY month.  This month, you’ll enjoy a series of videos with fun SELF-CARE tips for Moms.  As they say, “If Mama Ain’t Happy, Ain’t Nobody Happy!”  Let’s take care of others IN ADDITION TO taking care of ourselves, not INSTEAD of taking care of ourselves.

Here are the four videos you’ll receive this month:

1. How to Live Juicy (today)
2. How to Be Real - Learning to Speak Your Mind With All of Your Heart
3. How to Be Fabulous - Overcoming Limiting Beliefs to Become All You Came Here to Be
4. How to Be Loved - Creating the Love Relationships You Crave

(Hopefully, sometime this month, I’ll learn to “set the widescreen flag” or whatever I need to do to make the video appear less squished.  Until then, bear with me.)

Click Here to submit a topic you’d like me to include in this (or another) video series.

Enjoy the Day!

Venus

Tweet This Post 

Self-Care: Organizing as an Act of Self-Love

I haven’t blogged for nearly two weeks. “Why?” you ask?

Because I had to take some time to prepare my bleeping taxes.  Ugh!

Every year it’s the same thing:  I drag my feet, dreading to dive into the ocean of unorganized receipts.  I fret.  I whine.  “I don’t wanna do it.”  My stomach gets tight.  I can’t sleep.  I can’t smile.  I’m haunted by images of “Uncle Sam” hanging over my head waiting to pounce.

Then, when I can’t afford to put it off any more, I reluctantly get started.  Stuffing the receipts into manilla folders marked, “Advertising,” “Office Supplies,” etc.  …It always takes less time than I imagined it would.

Then I dig out my old calculator, with the receipt tape.  And before I know it, I’m actually having fun.  Getting drunk on the click-click-churn of the gears on that thing.  Ripping the receipt tape.  Stapling totals to the front of each folder. Making everything nice and pretty to hand over to the accountant.

I noticed, this year, that I really liked that sense of order.  Those neat stacks of receipts.  Those tidy little folders.

The more organized everything became, the happier and lighter I felt.  My bedroom-slash-office began to feel like an inviting retreat space, rather than a torture chamber.

I’m at a place in my life where I can acknowledge that managing my physical and emotional space is a great way to take care of myself.

Two of my favorite people in the world have shown their love by cleaning up for me.  My now husband (then, boyfriend), and my lifelong best friend, Sue.  In both cases, it was my car they cleaned.  For no reason.  Just because it was a mess and they loved me and wanted to do something nice for me.

I felt so tenderly loved.

This year, I’m committed to showing that kind of love to myself.

I’ve revamped my filing system to make it more fun and accessible.  I’m looking forward to tallying up my little receipts quarterly instead of waiting until the end of the year (or next April).

Stress-and-Release is a familiar pattern for many of us.  We may even prefer to work that way - I always have.  I’m a great problem-solver, so sometimes I procrastinate so I’ll have a bigger problem to solve.  It gets my creative juices pumping.  It’s such a rush!

But as my life and my business continue to grow, that level of stress is no longer fun.  It’s counter-productive.

Are you facing a similar dilemma?  Are your familiar old habits not suited to the new life you’re working to create?

Are you realizing, in the words of Marshall Goldsmith and Mark Reiter, that “What Got You Here Won’t Get You There?”

Seeing “organizing” as a way to love and care for myself, instead of as a burdensome obligation, will make this new growth effort fun for me.

What old practices are holding you back?  What new practices would support you in creating the life you really want?

What would make it fun for you to replace old, unproductive habits, with new, supportive ones?

Click below and share with the class.

~ Venus

Tweet This Post 

Living Juicy: Prioritizing Self-Care

There are those of us who put the needs of others over the needs of ourselves.

WHY DO WE DO THAT?

I, for one, have prided myself on the extent to which I can neglect my own needs.  I’ve always thought of myself as “stronger” than other people because I can do without pampering and self-care.  (I think maybe it came from those years of reading about the virtue of being “longsuffering” when I was bored in church as  kid.)

A few weeks ago, I was knocked out by a urinary infection.  It’s only the second one I’ve ever had, and if you’ve never had one, let me just say, there’s no pain like pee pain, ok?  (Let’s be real.)

I know EXACTLY why I got the infection.  I was so focused preparing for my business launch that I went days without drinking water.  And to top it off, I was so caught up in what I was doing I refused to get up and use the bathroom when I needed to.

MY ENTIRE LIFE I’VE NEGLECTED MY BODY…

Partly because I HATE routine.  Having to do the same thing, repeatedly, bores and annoys me.  That includes taking a sip of water every few minutes, and running to the bathroom all the time.  It may sound crazy.  But when I am focused on something, I HATE to be interrupted, even by life’s little necessities.

Another reason I habitually neglect my body, is because, as a child, to survive years of sexual abuse, I trained myself to “live in my head, not in my body.”  (So that the “real me” wasn’t being affected.)  So when I’m busy doing head-work, I tend to completely ignore my body.

BUT THIS RECENT AILMENT WAS THE LAST STRAW…

A few really good coaching sessions with a dynamic new family coach, Sylky Resnicoff, helped me realize that if I don’t take care of myself, everything else that I pour my energy into will suffer.

If I’m not healthy, how will my business be healthy?  If I don’t take care of myself, how can I take care of my family?

I’VE DECIDED TO LIVE JUICY…

Instead of living a dehydrated, shrunken-down-like-a-raisin life, I am committing myself to full-out self-care.

I’m calling this campaign: Live Juicy

Borrowing imagery from a lovely book, entitled, Succulent Wild Woman by Sark (www.planetsark.com), I am on a mission to re-hydrate my body and my life.

For the past 2 weeks I’ve been armed with a 40 oz stainless steel water bottle filled with water, or water + cranberry juice, or water + liquid chlorophyll.

I’ve also been salads filled with succulent spinach, juicy tomatoes, and rich avocadoes.  And snacking on juicy things like oranges, apples, and grapefruit - instead of starchy things like rice and potatoes.

Breaking an old habit like self-neglect takes concentration.  But so far, I’m enjoying this new approach of LOVING my physical body.  I naturally care for anything I love…now I’ve just added my body to the list.

WANNA JOIN ME?

Comment on this post.  Let me know if you’ve also struggled with self-care, or if you have a really good idea about how to incorporate self-care on your list of priorities.

Let’s LIVE JUICY together.

Tweet This Post