The Homage to Self-Care welcomes Jackie Walker’s perspective on self-care, relationships and self-love.
When Sandi asked me if I’d like to do a guest post on self-care, I jumped at the chance as this is exactly what I’ve been putting in place for 8 years now. In the process of learning, I’ve had hurdles, I’ve had setbacks, I’ve had jubilant moments of gloriousness.
It’s been a roller coaster of self-care. And that’s ok because if you even know that you’re on the roller coaster, you’re mastering the art of self-care!
Building a relationship with yourself is one of the hardest things to do. It seems counter intuitive at times, until you learn that it’s the whole point of your life. Everyone else and everything else is simply there to give you a chance to notice where you aren’t caring for and loving yourself.
There are so many tough lessons for us all to learn, until we realise how to make it easy on ourselves. A lot of that is down to resistance and perspective. Without resistance things flow. To stop resistance, change your perspective.
If only it were that simple!
I got into the world of personal development after my marriage broke down. Or, I’d be more correct in saying after I broke down in my marriage.
The people who show up in a relationship are often not themselves.
I wasn’t, and I’m sure you’ll have been in a relationship – business or personal – when you haven’t been yourself.
So if the person who isn’t showing up, then chooses to show up, it’s almost like an affair, there’s a third-party. Given that all day, everyday, you are relating to others, it would be extreme self-care to relate as you, the real you, the one you sometimes don’t like and would rather you’d left at home!
One of the things that used to stump me was knowing who I really was in order to be that person. When I started paying attention to my thoughts, my feelings and my body, I soon found what felt good and what didn’t.
I spent ages just getting to know when I was feeling naturally good, and when I was feeling unnaturally charged or drained. Unnaturally charged or drained seemed to come about through the wrong food, the wrong situations, the wrong company, the wrong words, the wrong answers etc. Following the advice in the rest of this glorious series, will give you starting points to help you find the natural you.
If you knew how to turn up as yourself in your relationship, what would that mean you had to start doing, or stop being?