I saw a tweet recently from someone whose goal is to “drink more water”. This is the world we live in now….. a world where we don’t prioritise our own needs, not even our most basic need to stay hydrated!
It might just be me but I find this incredibly sad and I hear my internal voice of desperation asking “what on earth are we doing??”.
I also wonder how many people find expectations of self-care just another stress to add to the pile of other things “I’m not good enough at”.
It’s all with good intention but it’s not getting to what really needs to be got at.
Yes, look after ourselves better but not in this way.
Not when looking after our own health is a to-do list or goal.
I have a lot of time for you Michelle Obama (assuming she actually said these words in the quote!) but self-care can’t be attached to a “we need to” i.e. “we should”. Anything along those lines is a force, a push, a cajole, a tell, an expectation that’s being put on us from outside of us, a standard that if we fall short we’re rubbish (and then we give up).
Yes, look after ourselves better but not when we believe we have an important role to play in getting things “right” with our health and wellbeing, because the more we do this the more we get in our own way.
Layering our thinking and piling expectations into our heads only takes us further away from our innate wellbeing that we already have inside us; in all of us. It takes us away from letting our system right itself, which it does all the time if we stop meddling.
Instead, when we drop all that thinking, looking after ourselves becomes the most obvious thing to do. Anything else just looks bonkers! And we don’t need someone outside of us to tell us what to do or how to do it.
If you’d like to talk more about what this means for you just get in touch.