Category Archives: Self-Care

Gratitude Friday

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This post is a mashup of The Little Bliss List and Joy Jam, and as such is meant to celebrate: the little things that brought me hope and happiness this week, the sweet stuff of life, those small gifts that brought me joy this week. By sharing them, I not only make public my gratitude, but maybe also help you notice your own good stuff and send some positive energy out into the world.

1. Fall. I know, I can’t stop talking about it, but I love Fall in Colorado–cool temperatures, the golden light, the green turning to yellow, red, and brown. I long during this season to stay outside, to take longer and longer walks, to sink into the tempo, the slowing down this season brings.

2. Fellow bloggers, who are also the kindest and gentlest of readers. Erica Staab and Sherry Belul and Sunni Chapman, who all offered me such pure comfort and genuine kindess this week.

3. So many good books. Right now, I’m reading Tammy Strobel’s You Can Buy Happiness (and It’s Cheap) and Christine Rosalie’s A Field Guide to Now, and next I’ll read Brene’ Brown’s Daring Greatly and Elizabeth Lesser’s Broken Open. And I’ll keep working my way down this pile, with Pema Chödrön’s new book and Erica Staab’s The In-Between on their way to be added to the stack. So many good books…

4. Self-Care, a warm shower or a nap or exactly what I want to eat for breakfast–a commitment to maintaining my awareness of my needs, being curious, having the intention to provide what I need, what I want, what would make me happy or give me comfort or make me laugh or feel good. To be able to finally do this for myself in the way I’ve always been able to do it for others makes me so grateful.

5. New music. Yesterday, I listened all day to Greg Laswell, (thanks to this post by Judy Clement Wall on Zebra Sounds) and today it’s Meg Hutchinson, (thanks to this post by Jen Lee).

Bonus Joy: Love notes from Eric. My heart fills until it almost hurts with the comfort and joy that these tiny slips of paper give me.

Three Truths and One Wish

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1. Truth: Self-care doesn’t always look how you’d expect. I don’t know about you, kind and gentle reader, but sometimes I confuse self-care with either total indulgence or complete purity, weekly mani-peds and daily bubble baths or becoming a vegan who meditates two hours every day. I get caught up in either being a pampered princess or a minimalist nun, or some weird mix of the two extremes. In fact, self-care is just that: taking care of yourself, that simple. Some moments that means a whole, organic, meat-free or even entirely raw meal, but other times that means a long morning nap followed by pancakes for lunch, watching sitcoms and staying in your pjs all day.


2. Truth: Self-care requires self-awareness. You have to know and love yourself really well to understand what you need and when, what is a real need and what is an attempt to resist reality, avoid the hard stuff. What you hunger for, what you need and want, is a constantly shifting and evolving set of desires. There won’t be a list you make at one moment of your life that applies to every other moment. Developing a relationship, a friendship, a full on love affair with yourself, a deep down knowing, a wholehearted connection, is what will enable you to provide the very best self-care, and oddly enough is also the most direct path to being able to help others.

3. Truth: I am the one and only constant in my life. I will be separated from all others at some point through changing relationships, geography, and death, but I will never lose myself. Any abandonment or loss of self is simply a momentary confusion, a crisis of faith. That higher, true, core self is always there, that basic goodness that is wise, compassionate, and powerful. It will only die when I do. We will never be separated.

One wish: That we all have a deep, healthy, sane, wholehearted relationship with ourselves. That we have faith in our own capacity for wisdom, compassion, and strength. That our connection to ourselves and others gives us confidence and courage, knowing that we are never alone.