Time Has Told Me

The ups and downs of the last two years introduced many of us to self-preservation, the more intense version of self-care. Looking after our own well-being physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually has never been more important.

I was never interested in pampering myself, taking time to relax. I let work consume my time, stayed busy, pretended to be my own caretaker but in reality let things slide, buried them and moved on.

Others needed my attention, my focus, my time. I would tell them to cut themselves some slack, to give themselves time to reflect, to let me help them. I spent my time trying to make others happy, while never practicing what I preached.

I now know that, for the sake of being positive, to appear being in control, to look like things didn't bother me, I ignored, neglected and pushed away what I was really feeling. It would crack the facade occasionally, causing me to break down and fall apart, but only for small moments, replaced by a joke or a smile or me just being me.

I didn't check in with myself. I ignored my emotions, my feelings, determined they weren't valid or true or important, and moved on. I kept thinking things would work out, resolve themselves, or just go away. I was caught in an endless cycle of screw ups and hurt feelings, thinking I had learned something from the experience and was being molded into a better person, but in reality letting avoidance masquerade as the need to care for myself, making up the perfect lie that I was fine, letting hours turn into days and digging a deeper hole that I eventually found myself at the bottom of, broken, sad and making the lives of people around me miserable.

Life is intended to be filled with mistakes and miracles, used and consumed, saved and spent, felt and shared. That includes caring for ourselves in whatever fashion required, whether it is a day at a spa or a day with a therapist.

As much as we think they can, not everyone can read your mind to read your mind and act accordingly. We need to set our own limits, determine what it takes to make us happy, and to not let ourselves be spread too thin across everyone we feel needs our help.

Self-preservation is our strongest instinct; fight or flight or freeze is built into our being. We don't question the need protect ourselves physically, but not so much emotionally. What is our trigger for emotional stress, the one that tells us our emotional being needs to come first? Without it, excessive loads of stress will lead to burnout, depression, and emotional anxiety.

We are the machines that keep things moving forward; sometime we are everything to everybody, appearing to manage things flawlessly, without much effort, without complaints. Only we know the mental and emotional balancing we go through daily to maintain that appearance, keep those balls in the air, continue to look in control. Take yourself off of line for a while, tune into your self, attend to your emotional needs and start setting some healthy boundaries.