“What I’ve learned about self-care: If you don’t make it a part of your life and practice, you will be forced to.”
— Taryn Toomey
NOTE- Article adapted* from https://medium.com/@caylavidmar/too-busy-for-self-care-not-after-reading-this-889a23672e73 by Cayla Vidmar and https://www.marcandangel.com/2015/06/10/4-things-to-remember-when-fear-is-holding-you-back/ by Angel Chernoff
In one of his amazing articles, Benjamin Hardy talks about how airplanes arrive at their destinations:
“Despite turbulence and other conditions keeping airplanes off-course 90 percent of flight time, most flights arrive in the correct destination at the intended time.”
They arrive on time at their destination through constant course correction during the flight. This struck me, especially this week, when it felt like my course got seriously derailed by things going on around me. My perception of my abilities, and my messages to myself were skewed by my fears.
Self-Care is Course Correcting
There are a million things that are begging for our attention in any given day. It’s actually incredibly easy to get distracted and thrown off course. So, if we’re not spending our time doing things that make us healthier, make us joyous, and help us stay grounded in our truth, then we can quickly get swept up into fear, driven by the chaos of the world. That is where self-care comes in.
By taking care of our mind, body, and spiritual connection, we live life from a place of serenity and joy, and we stay grounded in our truth. From this place, we make better choices, we don’t rush to make snap decisions, we flourish and thrive. Self-care is course correcting at its finest.
Daily self-care allows us to live from this place of health and grounded truth every day. It might include exercise, yoga, cooking, eating healthy foods, getting enough sleep, a soaking bath, visiting with a friend, meditation, gardening, spending time with myself, art, listening to music, spending time in nature, crafts, hobbies, journaling, reading, exploring travel destinations, taking a class in something that interests me, exploring starting my own business and more!
It helps our bodies stay healthy, it helps our minds function well, and keeps us grounded in our truth and intuition.
Self-care routine shouldn’t be once a week or just when we have time. It is in our best interest for self-care to be a daily routine, to help us live from a place of truth, health and authenticity. Self-care is not an option, it is not selfish, it is not something to do ‘when I have time.’ Self-care is a necessary part of staying on course, making the right choices, and staying grounded.
Fear = life turbulence.
Fear possesses the ability to seize and derail our lives and put us in a state of internal turbulence. It manifests itself in many ways and if we aren’t vigilant, it can bring us to our knees. Self-care gives us the foundation to manage our fears more effectively, if not altogether eliminate some. Here are four things, associated with fear, to remember once we’ve established our foundation for self-care:
1. Overthinking everything accomplishes nothing.
Fear lets us fall prey to paralysis by analysis. When we allow fear to permeate our lives, it can stop us dead in our tracks. We become paralyzed by the mere thought of pushing past and making our way toward a more positive emotion. We become stuck in the cycle of ‘what if ____?’ … conjuring mental images of various worst-case scenarios. Our brain, riddled with fear, ceases to acknowledge past successes and becomes wholly focused on the perceived terror of the experience to come. Unease and uncertainty paralyze us, and we become stuck in a downward cycle.
The solution? Stop thinking and start doing… Don’t fear change. Change fear. Step by step.
2. You are not physically broken, even though fear makes you feel that way.
Once upon a time, the physical manifestations of fear worked in our favor: The fight or flight response, the flood of adrenaline in our system, and the sense of our body on “high alert.” These physical sensations saved us when confronted with a situation that threatened our survival.
These days, moments of true physical danger are thankfully few. And, while our conscious brains may register this fact, our subconscious bodily instincts are slower to learn. As a result, when we feel fear (about a life-event, about a new opportunity, about how someone thinks of us, etc) the emotion sparks this same physical cycle to occur. Our feelings of fear place our excitement on pause because we begin to physically break down. These sensations, from heart palpitations to rapid breathing, ignite even greater feelings of panic and fear.
But it’s all in our head. Take a deep breath and re-focus on the truth. Your truth.
3. You are good enough right now.
Fear sparks the impostor syndrome. What if we aren’t good enough? What if we aren’t strong enough? What if, what if, what if…
When we allow our brains to spiral into this thinking, we’ve surrendered control to fear. We question the very opportunity we’ve received (the new job, the new relationship, the enjoyment I get from doing something I want, etc.) because we are fearful others will discover who we really are. Fears disrupt our ability to think clearly and experience the excitement the situation warrants. Fear pauses our positivity because we’ve subconsciously convinced ourselves that in this situation, we are frauds who aren’t good enough. Fears lure our brain into thinking past successes have had nothing to do with us and were a result of luck or timing. Excitement about the new opportunity is stopped.
It is in our best interest to flip the switch on this kind of negative thinking. No one and nothing can make you feel inferior without your consent. Period.
4. You are not alone in feeling fearful and alone.
Perhaps the most powerful way fear places our lives on hold is it signals us to retreat. When we allow trepidation to override action, we become simultaneously embarrassed and afraid. We convince ourselves no one else has experienced what we are going through or would ever feel the way we do. We become wrapped up in how overwhelming and powerful our fear feels. Devoid of any joy, embarrassed and scared, we retreat into solitude and more overthinking, which in turn further feeds our fears.
But you are NOT alone! So many of us are fighting the same exact battle alongside you. We are all in this together. We can break the cycle. We can push back fear and strip it of its power to derail our lives. Seize the feeling of fear and shift it toward gratitude. Remind yourself of the silver lining contained in every seemingly fearsome situation. Take action. Moving toward what we fear, gradually, is the first step in seeing the reality is never quite as scary as it seems. Remember, it starts with daily self-care, which calms the turbulence and helps keep us on the course we want.
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*For KC CoDA purposes, articles are edited to come from an "I/me" perspective. They also may have edited content and format.