The Little Frog's Guide to Self-Care

This week I received a box of affirmation cards in the mail. They came from a friend that is another sister friend from 40 plus years ago. I celebrated a recovery birthday last week and she sent me a gift in celebration. She is an artist and I would have preferred a painting, but I will have to tell her that.

I thought I may write about one a week. The first weeks card I picked up was to "Look in the mirror and say; You are beautiful. That means the most coming from you!"

Please try these self-care tips along with me. I already forgot to say it yesterday. Some days are tougher than others to be nice to me. Have you found that to be true?

Many years ago, I was told:

1) We deserve to be happy! And we painted signs that said, "I deserve to be happy" We painted two, one for the bathroom mirror and one for the refrigerator.

I thought it would take no time at all by saying this affirmation twice a day. I took me 6 months of saying the affirmation twice every day without fail.

2) My sponsor asked me to sell Avon. After starting she said, "You know, you will sell more if you wear the product." To prove her wrong, I started wearing the brightest blue eyeshadow you can imagine, like cleopatra eyes or Barbies from the 50s and 60s.

She was right. The blue eyeshadow began to sell! I wasn't in that town long enough to see if the trend continued but when I moved I told my new sponsor what I was doing in the town I moved from and she thought that was a great idea only she encouraged me to sell Mary Kay.

Now, I wasn't just wearing the product, I was dressing for success as the lead consultant always talked about.

3) What did this have to do with self-care! I learned the importance of self-care in sales, and in my life as a woman in recovery. My friends participated along with me and thanked me for helping them to better care for themselves. And this is where the gift came from. One of the Mary Kay friends.

She talked about helping so many others to feel good about themselves. She told me even though she never made much money, she helped others to find recovery.

Going to Dallas for a Mary Kay conference was a good time and definitely a time of self-care for me and another Mary Kay friend. Without Mary Kay, we never would have taken the time for ourselves, to travel and pamper us.

This friend resigned from a job that was mistreating her, and she decided she could get by on Mary Kay sales until something better came along and it did! That is self-care! She has thanked me for introducing her to Mary Kay, and how perfect it was in her life at the time.

4) Because of what I was learning, I would often tell friends about doing too much. That appeared to be a common thing I was now telling friends. So much so that it would come back to me too. Take it easy. Let's do some self-care today. So we would go thrifting, we would do art, we would go to a movie, etc.

5) I started telling others my Native American name from the Ojibwe language. I got my "Ojibwe name" when young. It is wagosh bimibatood indizhinakaz and it is abbreviated. These words say fox running is what I am called. The long form is red tailed fox, running with the stars.

My full name means that I am the fox. (translates to beautiful), and I then say that part fit even better when I was younger. (I get some laughs) Then that all of you are the stars! I love that, as whomever I am with are stars! And that includes all of you that are reading this today!