
How are you taking care of yourself and your needs? Are you fulfilling your soul's desires and the needs of your heart? Do you spend most of your time taking care of others and making sure that their emotional needs are met? Do you have a tendency to run yourself into the ground before and then have to nurse yourself back to health?
This is quite common in this day and age. Frankly, it is something that has been going on for far too long. Everyone is stuck in the rat race of consumer driven, climb the corporate ladder mindset. Our ability to take care of ourselves gets pushed to the back burner as we do our best to survive.
I have to admit that for the majority of my life I have had a difficult time asking for help. I have wanted equality when it comes to being treated fair and just. I wanted to feel and look strong, so I pushed myself to the brink. I had to be extremely desperate if I actually asked anyone for help or even admitted that I needed help. This began because I experienced double standards in treatment from my father. As you can imagine I was in trouble a lot because I just wanted to be able to do everything that the boys could do also. I couldn't stand being restricted. This caused some inner turmoil for me. I know now that he didn't know the damage he was causing, and he was doing the best he could to protect me. At the time, all I felt was pain and anger.
It took me years to really start taking care of myself properly. I had to stop worrying about what others thought of me and my life. This included people pleasing and trying to earn love and respect from anyone, especially my father. My worth is not dependent on anyone else's thoughts or opinions. My worth is not tied into how much I work or earn. My worth is not reliant on what I can do for others. I am worthy just by existing. It was damn time that I start acting on that, right?
As I learned and relearned what was good for my soul, what my body needed, and what my heart desired, I slowly began letting go of all that doesn't serve me. I have not stopped having a huge heart and wanting to help everyone though. Perhaps I just tweaked how I did things. I learned that the only way to really help anyone was to allow them to be themselves. I learned to love them in all of their "imperfections", just as I learned to love myself in that aspect. We are all divinely perfect as we are, and any improvement is really just an unveiling of what was already there.
When we choose to take care of ourselves first after many years of self-sabotage, it may feel extremely selfish. While it may look that way to those who haven't realized this, when we show others that we do indeed matter, it creates a space for others to see their worth as well. We are all just reflections of each other and what we do creates a butterfly effect to the people around us. See, we are all connected. So, what you do greatly affects everything that exists. Show love to yourself and you are showing love to the entire universe.
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