Self-care

One of the newsletters I subscribe to had an article about self-care. The article was titled Taking Care of Your Best Asset - here is an excerpt:

My first breakthrough in self-care was to get my front tooth fixed. I figured this was a highly irresponsible thing to do, given my credit card debts. Shortly thereafter I got a raise that more than covered the extra expense. Then I hired a personal trainer and a few months later got a bonus at work. Do I detect a pattern emerging? As I started taking better care of myself, so did the people around me. While I was regularly saving 10 percent of my earnings, paying off my debts, and doing things to perfect the present, more money started coming in from unexpected places. In three years I went from being in debt to having over a year’s living expenses in savings, and I didn’t suffer in the process.

This topic feels really pertinent to me right now, especially given the level of stress under which I am operating these days. So, I am going to undertake two self-care issues tomorrow.

One, I am going to park in a different parking lot when I go to work tomorrow than where I usually park. This has to do with an ongoing issue I have with this parking lot that I have not been able to resolve yet. I have several reasons why I prefer to park there, but I also get really frustrated and angry about this unresolved issue. Then I get hard on myself for getting so worked up about it.

One of the reasons I use this particular lot is because they accept payment by credit card through an automated system - no cash out of my pocket. I'm not familiar with the other parking lots in the area so I don't know if they would accept payment by credit card. However, as an act of self-compassion, I am going to try out one of the other lots, even if it means paying cash out of my own pocket. I need to give myself a break here and stop bringing myself into this environment where I am experiencing so much emotional distress - at least until I can get my anger under perspective.

As my second act of self-care, I am going to take a break during the work day tomorrow, go to an empty meeting room and just do some of my own writing.