Taking Care of Myself: Another Journey on My Path to Self-Love

Self-care has not been a strong-suit for me in the past and, to be quite honest, is still a skill I am learning to master. I’ve always been more of a maestro at taking care of everyone else around me. While others may be better skilled than I am at this particular endeavor of self-care, I am very proud of how far I have personally come with regard to learning this element of loving myself. Although it takes a conscious effort on my part, these days I usually do pretty well. However, in adjusting to my new life here in in a new town and at a new school, I can see that there is room for improvement still. Yet, I have a lot of faith in my ability to make the adjustments I need to in order to succeed in reaching my goals, both personally and academically.

I have been responsible with regard to my presence (both physically and mentally) in my classes, studying, and doing my homework in a timely fashion. Likewise, I am financially responsible- what financial problems I do have were created by my ex-husband and I am working toward trying to correct them one day at a time, trying not to let them stress me out too much and keeping everything in perspective. I eat healthy, go to bed at a decent time to get enough sleep, avoid alcohol and drugs, and surround myself with loving, positive people who I can trust, connect with, and feel inspired by when I’m around them. However, the biggest way I take care of myself is through my self-talk and attitude, which I proactively choose every day. Charles R. Swindoll has written about this one thing, which is so crucial, more than once. He writes:

Words can never adequately convey the incredible impact of our attitude toward life. The longer I live the more convinced I become that life is 10 percent what happens to us and 90 percent how we respond to it.

I believe the single most significant decision I can make on a day-to-day basis is my choice of attitude. It is more important than my past, my education, my bankroll, my   successes or failures, fame or pain, what other people think of me or say about me, my circumstances, or my position. Attitude keeps me going or cripples my progress. It alone fuels my fire or assaults my hope. When my attitudes are right, there’s no barrier too high, no valley too deep, no dream too extreme, no challenge too great for me.

 

Swindoll also maintains that “The pursuit of happiness is a matter of choice…it is a positive attitude we choose to express. It is not a gift delivered to our door each morning, nor does it come through the window. And it is certain that our circumstances are not the things that make us joyful. If we wait for them to get just right, we will never laugh again” (as cited in Coast, n.d.).

I wholeheartedly agree with Swindoll’s assertions and believe the research related to the budding field of positive psychology seems to only bolster his statements. Due to the impact one’s emotional well-being has on one’s physical health and life overall, I think this is the ultimate way one can care for oneself.

However, while I am caring for myself in many ways, I am guilty of occasionally failing to maintain balance between working on helping those in need, pursuing my education, and taking time for myself to both care for myself properly, as well as just relax. It’s needless to say that never having any downtime is not healthy for anyone and I am failing to take care of myself when I don’t allow for this in my life. This balance is the one area that I must continue to work on with regard to self-care and I am a work in progress. Each day, I get a little more skilled at finding that balance and I know that one day I will master that, too. In the meantime, I look to others that may know how to achieve such balance and learn from them as they part their wisdom on me in little doses. It is for this reason that I collect, if you will, mentors I admire in various ways. To model myself after the qualities I admire in them and hope to achieve in myself one day. This, too, could be considered caring for myself, I suppose.

With all things considered, I feel that I am right where I belong and that these challenges are helping me to become a better version of myself- the best me I can hope to be today, tomorrow, and going forward. I am grateful that there are so many wonderful opportunities to grow as a person on so many different levels here at my new school and in my new town, from the inspiring and intellectually brilliant professors who students can learn from both academically and personally to the supportive friends I have made so quickly here. While this adjustment period has presented some stress for me temporarily, it’s also just that- temporary. I’m not worried at all about how I will adjust and I know that this is part of the process in becoming the person I want to be one day. Therefore, I welcome these experiences with open arms and nothing short of excitement.

Works Cited

Coast, M. (n.d.). Quotes About Life. Retrieved October 18, 2013, from Live With Passion Now: http://www.livewithpassionnow.com/quotes-about-life/

Swindoll, C. R. (2009, January 20). The Value of a Positive Attitude. Retrieved October 17, 2013, from Insight: http://daily.insight.org/site/News2?page=NewsArticle&id=13123

 

 

Even Mistakes Have Gifts in the End

I loved the quote by Sol Gordon that “In living your life, you will learn lessons. There are no mistakes, only lessons [and they] will be repeated until they are learned.” The reason I love the quote so much is that I have had some pretty hard lessons in life that I kept coming back until I finally learned what I was supposed to with regard to self-love, love from others, relationships, and domestic abuse. The domestic abuse was introduced into my life early in childhood, which can explain why I had lower levels of differentiation, lacked healthy self-esteem, and didn’t know how to find healthy relationships since I had never had one modeled for me. While I tried to avoid ever becoming a victim of abuse in my adult life, I simply hadn’t learned what I needed to in order to be successful at that. What I’m referring to covers many things from “how” to learn to really accept and love myself in a healthy manner, what healthy boundaries are, how to avoid or eliminate enmeshment in my relationships, and (most importantly) what the warning signs of domestic abuse are, as well as that I “can” do better and even deserve more than that. That I am truly worthy of love without abuse, and even that I am better off to be alone than with someone who doesn’t treat me right. When I lacked healthy levels of self-love, I felt like I needed someone else to love me “for me,” if that makes sense. It was very difficult for me to learn that I needed to love myself for myself before I tried to be in a relationship with anyone else. Some of my relationships I couldn’t even recognize that I was being abused because it wasn’t physical abuse. When it came to verbal and emotional abuse, I didn’t recognize it as such and, worse, I treated myself just as badly inside my own head. However, as the years went on, the abuse in my relationships seemed to escalate until it was full-blown life-threatening events that finally got my attention. This is what it took for me to learn the aforementioned lessons, though.

Unfortunately, having been through such extreme abuse included having to deal with physical injuries and related medical issues, PTSD, financial destitution, and even homelessness for a period of time. These are not the easiest things to endure and some take a very long time to from which to recover.  Almost three years later, I am still dealing with the effects of the financial abuse my husband subjected me to and I will be for years to come even though I have left the relationship. While I no longer deal with physical and emotional abuse, the aftermath of the various ways I was abused continue to impact my daily life and add a lot of stress to my life. In addition to the financial problems and their fallout, I also still deal with health issues that the abuse resulted in, which is difficult when you have no medical insurance and are already dealing with financial devastation.

I have given so much in my past relationships to my own detriment, time and time again, and have been left with nothing to show for it and instead have been left cleaning up other people’s messes left behind in their path of destruction. However, I am not bitter and even feel blessed. When people ask me how I can be so happy after such great trauma, how I can approach the world with so much love and resiliency, and basically imply or even come right out and say that these experiences are all so terrible, I always correct them. It hasn’t been all bad. It is because of what I’ve gone through that I am the person I am today. It’s been my own great suffering that has gifted me with such great levels of empathy for others. It’s these hardships that have gifted me with the wisdom to help others in a way that I would otherwise be unable. It is my trauma that has revealed to me how strong I am and gifted me with a confidence that I can survive anything going forward in life… because I already have before. The extreme tragedies I’ve experienced are also what gifted me with an unusual amount of drive and passion to achieve certain goals- a drive unparalleled to anything I had ever seen or knew before. There are so many beautiful things that have come from my hard-knocks in life and, while I consider the catalysts to be a traumatic experiences in themselves, the end results- what I have created with the broken pieces of my life and self- are now amazing blessings and gifts. They simply came in ugly wrapping paper. I wouldn’t change it for the world, though, because I am happier and healthier now than I ever was before. So, you see, lessons do repeat themselves until you have learned them, but everything is a gift. There are no mistakes to regret, only ugly wrapping paper to see beyond. That is what my mistakes have taught me.