True self-care is an important part of maintaining balance and well-being. People often associate self-care with activities like taking time off, getting a massage, dining out, etc. As we expand our view of true self-care it becomes more inclusive of where and how we invest our personal energy.
Consider these powerful and effective ways we can care for our self and boost our resilience.
#1 Stop Comparing.
Whether it’s on social media, in workplace conversations, or at social gatherings, stop measuring success and happiness based on someone else’s life. When comparing our life to others, we generally don’t get the whole picture anyway. We see what is outwardly presented but we don’t always see the inner struggles, worries, anxieties, or insecurities.
The energy we use to compare with others can be more effectively spent unlocking our heart’s potentials to make our own life better. Comparisons are tempting for all of us but with genuine intention, we can guide ourselves around these energetic sink holes.
#2 Replace self-criticism with a new attitude.
We can be pretty tough on ourselves and as a result we’re unintentionally reinforcing negative thoughts about our self. Applying self-care in this area would be to make sincere effort to catch and replace self-critical thoughts with a positive inner message. Self-criticism can be tricky to change because we can do it so quietly and nobody has to know. However, it’s a habit of self-programming that creates limitation and has cumulative stressful consequences.
The upside is that we can replace these unfulfilling energy drainsas we learn to add the quiet strength of our heart to our intentions. Life feels better as we fade out our criticism of others and ourselves. It’s not the highest reflection of who we really are – and our heart reveals this to us as we learn to listen.
#3 Get quiet and listen.
Making quiet time to connect with our heart’s intelligent guidance and insights increases our effective choices and supplies the resilience for anchoring these choices in our daily routine and interactions.
This practice helps us to listen more deeply to others and can be the difference between truly connecting in our communications – or causing downtime and stress from misunderstandings and mistakes which lead to serious resilience drains and low energy. Taking quiet time to connect with our heart feelings is a source of resilience. Explore this natural gift.
#4 Forgiveness.
It’s worth a reminder that forgiveness benefits us more than anyone else. It is an act of self-care. Letting go of what has happened and moving forward is key to our resilience. It takes energy to maintain a grudge or resentment. A wise person once said holding onto resentments is like allowing someone to live rent-free in your mind.
It’s obvious that some issues will take longer than others so be patient and approach forgiveness from the heart with ease. Remember that forgiving and releasing ourselves from the pain, is high on the list of self-care benefits — mentally, emotionally and physically. Forgiveness is an important step for accessing deeper peace and feeling better.
Increasing the awareness of our mental and emotional expenditures is an important approach towards self-care. As we learn to economize our personal energy we’re also building our resilience reservoir. This allows for more energy to go towards enriching our life experience, deepening our heart connections and cultivating our highest potential.
