Self-Care, Self-Esteem and Action

My life is a vicious cycle.

I have stopped to reflect on myself at different points in my life...It might be more accurate to say I never stop...

One of the things I keep coming back to is that I can never just learn something once and then keep it up! I seem to have to learn something and then relearn it and then relearn it again. Hence the need for constant reminders, even when you already know something well.

Over the course of my "adult" life I've taken a look at my self-esteem to make sure it was intact and balanced; neither too inflated, nor too squashed. Recently I discovered that my self-esteem mental software was allowed to become outdated. I have been too preoccupied and distracted with other priorities (big, important ones) to have the time to make the inspection and update the software of my mind. So I have operated poorly, living under the inaccurate assumption that my self-esteem was still in the healthy range. This led to faulty decision-making and reactions to things from a very low place which created bigger problems than I was even aware of.

Thankfully, this kind of thing can be avoided. Even in the midst of chaos and great, seemingly insurmountable obstacles, when I make myself take the time to perform self-care, I am not only in a much better position to help others. I actually have the capacity for clarity. And, from a seat of clear thinking, I can perform the actions of life. Without it, I become literally frozen, unable to break myself from circular, self-destructive thoughts.

Perhaps the types of self-care that do the trick are different for everyone. For me, however, it can be as simple as shaving my legs, eating a healthful meal or allowing myself to pour my heart out to someone regardless of the possible embarrassment.

There is definitely a difference between healthy self-care and unhealthy self-indulgence.

But that's another life lesson...and another blog post.