The Importance of Self

There is nothing more important than ones self; it is something that is constant need of love, care, and attention; and something that most people tend to neglect at times because they don’t understand how important it really is. We get so busy with life that we forget that our body, mind, and soul are in constant need of upkeep and attention, because if we forget about our own needs, we stop existing. Life is very important but if we forget that we need take care of ourselves, then nothing really matters because we won’t have a life in the coming future. The importance one's self carries is greater than anything in the world that could be going on; its like the saying goes, you can’t love others until you learn to love yourself, this is true.

I want to give a few examples of what I mean when I say neglect our selves and forgetting to give out mind, body, and soul attention; in these examples I will also give some advice on upkeep.

1. The Day-to-Day

We get so busy with the day-to-day grind that we don’t feel like we have time to stop and check back in with our internal gatekeeper and find out with it that we may need. I would suggest that we try to take at least an hour to unwind and check back in with ourselves and find out how we are doing and what we need to work on and fix for the next day.

2. Leeches and Parasites

Sometimes it's not just us causing the issues that plague our mind, body, and soul; sometimes it’s the people around us that are doing most of the damage to us without us realizing it. These people are like leeches and parasites sucking the life right out of us without missing a bit in their own lives; the constantly ask you to help them and not giving anything in return. My advice for this is to learn to say no when you just don’t have the energy to help these people because they are not going to go away until you do. These people will continue to drain you until nothing is left and you have no choice but to tell them no or face wasting into nothing.

3. C.R.E.A.M.

Even your job can cause you to lose yourself and become so distracted that you don’t realize that you have forgotten to check in and make sure you are OK and still healthy. We all need to work to make a living but when that is causing you internal stress, its time to let that go and focus on what is truly important and get back to the basics. My advice for this may not work for everyone and is just what I would personally do; take stock in what you like to do and find something that you could make money at. If you love what you do, then it won’t feel like work and you will have a happier life which will help with the rest of the things in our life.

4. Unhappy Place

The last example I will give is feeling unhappy with the way your life is going; this can cause a host of issues but the main issues that it can cause is the complete defeat of your self-esteem. This is what you use to tell us that we are good enough and worthy of some ones attention; if it gets below a certain point, we can feel like giving up on everyday life. My advice for this is to always know your worth and have a mantra to say when ever you start to feel like things are spiraling out of control, this will help tremendously. Bringing up you self-esteem will make you feel better about your life and want to get more done in you world that will show people you are greater than ever.

So far we have talked about why it is important to take care of ourselves, but we have not talked about when we should take care of ourselves; we need to do this when we start to feel run down and like we can’t go on. There are some times when we don’t even notice it because we have gotten so used to it that we have trained ourselves to just chalk it up to life and tell ourselves that we will put it off till later. That may work for a while, but eventually, we will have own up to our situation and take care of it; we will have to stop and regroup and reform ourselves. Taking the time out to fix what we know does not work is not a bad thing nor does it make you look weak; it is something that we all have to do when the time comes. This is something that will not go away on its own and will continue to grow until it has gotten so out of control that it begins to crush us with the weight of it, we need to get a hold of it and deal with it.

I leave you with these last few thoughts; taking care of yourself is something that will always be a need no matter how old you get, and the reasons for why will constantly be changing to fit your lifestyle. There are so many factors that go into why you may need to check in with yourself; most of which involve the world around you, which include people and other factors of that nature. Timing is everything when it comes to self-care and knowing when to say enough is enough is the key; if you wait too late, the damage could be done. Take time out to give yourself the freedom breath and heal the wounds of life no matter how big or small. There are so many things that I say about this, but at the end of the day, it is always up to the person to decide to take care of themselves and their own personal needs. Don’t be afraid to look inside and see what is going on in there and take stock in what is a priority and what is just something you can ignore.