7-6-22 Many of my conversations lately have been focusing on self-care and learning to truly appreciate ourselves for being the amazing people we are on this often-difficult human journey. I find that most of us don’t even know what self-care means. Or more importantly, as I personally found, we don’t realize all the things that take us away from valuing ourselves, acknowledging our bigness and being kinder and more compassionate to ourselves.

Sometimes, it’s because we’re too busy taking care of everyone else and making them more important than ourselves. I am guilty of that in my life when I think in terms of what I “should do”, or when I value other people’s expectations more than my own needs. Sometimes, it’s simply a matter of time…if I’m too busy rushing around (even with fun things) then there’s no time to deeply pay any attention to myself, to connect with my heart and see if I’m truly taking good care of myself (you know, the kind of advice we’d give to someone we loved).

 It took me a long time to also learn that whenever I judge myself when I don’t measure up to some impossible standard of being perfect (and there were a lot of them), it takes a big toll on my health and well-being, not to mention keeps me a victim. I used to use those thoughts to beat myself up, keep myself small. My story was all about poor me in an unfair, unkind world. I was never perfect enough in my own mind.

I started to redefine the word “perfection” many years ago, when I took the following words from A Course in Miracles to heart: “Deep within you is everything that is perfect ready to radiate through you and out into the world.” And that perfection was big enough to help me love myself just the way I showed up while inspiring me to show up as Love more often. That new definition of perfection was strong enough to hold everything I was, all my pieces, skillful or otherwise.

Our thoughts and where we are in our consciousness are probably the biggest aspects of self-care. We are spiritual beings, and Love is our true essence. Yet we are living in a human body so it is inescapable that we will also have human experiences that just don’t feel good. Sometimes life is not pleasant, sometimes it’s downright hard or unfair or painful. Sometimes we make mistakes or aren’t as skillful in our words and actions as we’d like, and we don’t show up the way we’d prefer. Nonetheless, YOU AND I ARE POWERFUL. Nothing I say or do can ever take that away from me unless I let it, and that goes for you, too. We don’t have to let our negative story define us. We can cultivate self-care and hold that aspect of ourselves in compassion, in unconditional love.

Today is a good day...and I make it so!