How To Look After Yourself...

Claire Chamberlain wrote a little gem of a book entitled "Self-Care".  I picked it up at Barnes and Noble the other day for $6.98.  Published last year, Chamberlain's book is full of short, sweet, and simple ways we can practice being present (mindful!) and caring (as she puts it) for our own "mental, emotional, spiritual, and physical well-being".

For those who have little or no idea what "positive self care" means or looks like in actual practice, this is the book for you.  In the meantime, I am going to include here some of the quotes I found especially helpful from Chamberlain's book:

"Self-care means giving yourself permission to pause."

"It's not selfish to love yourself, take care of yourself, and to make your happiness a priority.  It's necessary."

"Love yourself enough to set boundaries.  Your time and energy are precious.  You get to choose how you use it."

"Rest and self-care are important.  You cannot serve from an empty vessel."

"Self-care is never selfish but may feel that way when you live a frenzied life."

"Time you enjoy wasting is not wasted time."

"Almost everything will work again if you  unplug it for a few minutes, including you."

"When you say "Yes" to others, make sure you are not saying "No" to yourself."

"It's only by saying "No" that you can concentrate on the things that are really important."

"Lighten up on yourself.  No one is perfect.  Gently accept your humanness."

"Self-compassion is simply giving the same kindness to ourselves that we would give to others."

"Belonging is NOT fitting in;  belonging starts with self-acceptance."

"Be nice to yourself.  It's hard to be happy when someone is mean to you all the time."

"Seasons change.  People grow together and apart.  Life moves on.  You will be o.k.  Embrace it."

"The only person who can pull me down is myself, and I'm not going to let myself pull me down anymore."

"Change your thoughts and you change your world."

"Be thankful for what you have;  you'll end up having more.  If you concentrate on what you don't have, you will never, ever, have enough."

"Laughter is an instant vacation."

"We set the standard for how we want to be treated.  Our relationships are a reflection of the relationship we have with ourselves."

"The present moment is filled with joy and happiness.  If you are attentive, you will see it."

"Although the world is full of suffering, it is also full of overcoming it."

"Wherever you are, be there totally."

"Surrender to what is.  Let go of what was.  Have faith in what will be."

"Every act of self-care is a powerful declaration:  I am on my side."

"If your compassion does not include yourself, it is incomplete."

"Tension is who you think you should be.  Relaxation is who you are."

"Sometimes the most important thing in a whole day is the rest we take between two deep breaths."

"Do something today that your future self will thank you for."

"Take care of your body.  It's the only place you have to live."

"Your diet is a bank account.  Good food choices are good investments."

"Sleep is the best meditation."

"Self-compassion soothes the mind like a loving friend who's willing to listen."

"The more you eat, the less flavor.  The less you eat, the more flavor."

"Rainy days should be spent with a cup of tea and a good book."

"I think in life you should work on yourself until the day you die."

"We are all of us works in progress."



...until next post.

Dysfunction Interrupted: The Power of NEGATIVE Influences!

Negative influences, and influencers, constantly surround us.  We have all had our experience(s) with people, circumstances, and situations that influenced us more negatively than positively.   The problem is that typically, we don't get it when we're in it.  We don't understand why we feel more bad than good as we rush out our front door to make it to work on time.  We have no idea how what we ate, drank, listened to, observed, and otherwise volunteered to participate in---messed with us!

Let's break down a typical day in the life of "Joe" to exemplify what I mean here:

Joe has to wake up each morning around 5:30 because he is responsible for opening a local bistro cafe by 7:00a.m.  Joe is the day shift manager.  Joe is also 28 years old and lives by himself with his cat Grumbles in a local area apartment complex.

Joe begins each day with a vape.  Before he even goes to the bathroom, he reaches for his pen.  Joe's t.v. is still on as Joe can't really fall asleep unless there's "noise" in his bedroom.  Joe likes REELZ best as far as stations are concerned;  right now it's an episode of "Broke and Famous" featuring the life story of Michael Jackson.  Joe's too tired to channel surf now.  He goes into the bathroom to clean himself up and get ready for work.

As he's in the shower, Joe is thinking about that *$@# Derek that probably will come in late this morning making Joe's job harder---or might not even show up at all.  Derek is related to the owner of the bistro café, so there's no way to fire him in spite of Derek's wicked substance abuse patterns.  Joe finds himself getting agitated now and wishes he had a CBD gummy within arm's reach to pop into his mouth right now.  No such luck;  his stash was down to zero days ago.

Joe is shocked when he realizes he doesn't have any clean pants to wear to work.  F!!!  He examines the pair he wore yesterday to check for obvious stains and any nasty smells.  UGH!  One wet washcloth with some shampoo mixed in it later, he's cleaned up his pants as best as he knows how.  Reminder to self:  buy some damn fabric freshener at Rite Aid after work today...

Grumbles is starting to piss Joe off.  The cat is rubbing up against Joe's leg and its hair is sticking to one of the wet spots.  Really dude?!

Now it's already 6:45 and it takes 10 minutes to get to the bistro.  With no time to do anything but run out the door, Joe runs out the door.  F!!!

Turning on the car, the radio starts blaring this stupid song that "she" liked OMG this is happening RIGHT NOW?!  Joe basically punches the audio "off" button and tries to get his bearings.  Joe is hungry, Joe is thirsty, and Joe has to open those doors in 14 minutes at the bistro.  And now, Joe just realizes that Grumbles' food dish and water bowl were both empty when he ran out the door AND his gas tank is basically on empty in this moment.  FML.  F-M-L!!!

So....what did "you" notice reading this short account of Joe's day between wake up and leaving for work?

In a nutshell, it's amazing what we don't notice when we choose not to notice it, isn't it?

"To be present" is a catch-phrase we shrinks use on purpose when working with clients.  When a person can be "present" in their own life and day, as their day unfolds before them, they can and will notice what needs immediate attention, what can wait, and what can be ignored....and then do it!

I had a friend as an 18 year old who was a big time cigarette smoker.  Whenever I spent the night, she woke up in the morning immediately reaching for the ever-nearby cigarette to light up and smoke before she even got up and out of bed.  Huh?!  Since when does cigarette smoking "make" for a good or better day before it even begins?  It isn't like lit cigarettes are the equivalent of taking a mega dose of Vitamin C, correct?  Yet this was her habit.

(Ironically, she never got lung cancer; I, on the other hand, did!)  This year in May, however, I am CF 5 years!  Can I get a woot-woot?  ;-)

What do YOU do every morning, the moment you wake up, without thinking about it too deeply...and/or at all?  Is that thing you do or not do, ingest, drink, or smoke truly good for you?  Why or why not?

I have another friend that wakes up every morning to 90s dance tunes after her alarm goes off.  She has Alexa on her nightstand for this purpose.  She then uses her spot in the bed to start stretching exercises for approximately 5-10 minutes.  Like a cat, as she puts it.  Then, after she's done, she will google on her phone her favorite site for today's daily affirmation/positive thought/scripture verse.  After she reads it, she gets up and goes to the bathroom.  While showering, she will think about what she has read and how that particular thought/affirmation/scripture relates to her own life "now"...or perhaps in the past.

This same friend rarely has any "surprise" issues around her wardrobe or any related malfunction issues because she makes a point to have everything ready and on her couch in the bedroom from the night before.  She is ADHD (predominantly inattentive type), so she learned years ago that to be surprised by what she forgot on any given day can rob her of her inner peace and happiness...when she allows it to!  As such, she is a good-enough keeper of "mini lists" as she calls it.  These lists keep her on short notice when she runs out of something (no matter what it is!)...so she can pick it up en route before or after work!  "Meijer's and Walmart exist for a reason as the best of the one-stop stores", she has often said.

Although these two people have very different patterns associated with the way(s) they each start their day...so do we all.  When I weighed nearly 300 lbs., guess what?  I made sure my refrigerator AND cupboards had in them enough a variety of my favorite "morning" junk, "lunch" junk, "dinner" junk, and of course "snack" junk.  How could it not?  Kind of like the time a former roommate and I went to care for a dog when her coworkers were out of town for the weekend.  Weighing in at a combined 600 lbs. at the very least, walking into this couple's house was like being in a straight up party store.  I never saw so much soda pop in cases (on the floor in their utility room), candy, chips, cookies, and other high processed junk food in one spot other than 7-11!

Funny how what we want for our own "pleasure", we make sure to have plenty of it around for our own on-demand usage.  Yet what's truly good for us versus truly pleasurable to us can represent a gap as wide as the Pacific Ocean just sayin'!

What is truly good for us long term versus what FEELS truly good to us temporarily...now there is a challenge for all of us to think about!

Here is a list of some "negative" influences discovered as part of work done in my own office with clients:

The national and local news...

Not realizing how so much t.v. prime-time programming makes doing and being 'wrong' the new normal...

Just walk into a store today and listen to the lyrics, I mean really listen to the lyrics, of the current songs being played.  Especially if you are in what would be considered a "hip" store for kids or young adults.  No wonder each generation gets more and more screwed up about what's "the right way to be" in their social relationships.  Very few lessons, but lots of glorification of self, sex, substance abuse, and violence.  Wow.

Being attracted to people who are like the people who hurt me the worst from my past;  as if I am going to 'fix' the new people because I couldn't fix the old ones...

Being stuck in sh**ty relationships now because I don't believe I am good enough for a higher quality relationship.  Like I'm doomed to fail but then again, I AM when I keep picking these type of relationships over and over again...

Hurting myself as in physically hurting myself through whatever I do so I can gain access to those opioids...  It's all about the opioids when I can get them...

Re-enacting old situations I've been in a thousand times before with the hope that "this time" that other person will change the way I want them to....

Waking up...and then deciding this will be a "do nothing" day...and then doing nothing.  And then I wonder why I can't keep a job for more than a year regardless if I am there---or not there.

Believing more of the lies I've heard about myself over the years...and living my life as if all those lies are absolutely true about me "now".  Even though I'm like 20 years older now and not a kid anymore!

Believing that if I want something, anything...I'm being a selfish *$)@!  Since when is wanting to take care of myself being selfish?  Since when is telling my mother or brother or sister "No!" being a total b$*)@?  It's not!  I get to take care of myself!  I get to be "me"!  I am not here on earth just to make sure these people are always o.k. before I am o.k. myself!

Listening to podcasts that are really more depressing, angry, and anxiety-provoking than they are any "good" to me or for me.  I had to stop that...

I had to stop spending money I didn't have on stupid sh** I didn't need.  I turned that around big time by selling online all the junk I've acquired over the last 10 years...much of it with the tags still on them!  UGH!

I had to stop being so easily angered AS IF everyone is supposed to know, in advance, what pisses me off instantly.  I am not the Grand Poobah Emperor or Empress of the Universe.  Why did I keep thinking, feeling, AND behaving like one?

I had to stop being so under-responsible in general.  I am not a 15 year old kid anymore.  I can't keep rebelling like this against "all" authority as I perceive it.  I am about to be married;  what kind of partner am I going to be if I just keep doing whatever I want...and not care how it negatively affects other people?

I have to stop picking people as best friends or lovers who will do whatever I want.  I know how to pick those easy marks.  These are the same people who have said later on how much I ruined their lives and broke their hearts.  And I did.  I know I did.  I can't do that anymore....

I have to believe in me for once.  I have to trust my own judgment.  I have to treat myself as if I am truly my own best friend.  I would never do to any of my real life best friends what I have done to me...

Until next post....