”We’ve all said these words or someone has said them to us. We say them especially when a person is unwell, when we find out that he or she is ill, is going to have an operation, is going overseas.
I recently said these words to a friend when she confided in me that she was starting a complicated and difficult treatment. It seemed to me that this “take care of yourself!” was too little, it was too poor compared to what I wanted to tell her. In fact, if I had magical powers, I would want to hold her in my hand and care for her, the way I used to hold a wounded butterfly in my hand when I was a little girl, blow healing, loving air on it, and as if by a miracle, the butterfly would flight, first clumsily, then harmoniously. That’s how I believed then, that my caring mattered and that I was helping it get back on its feet.
But it would be good for all of us to take better care of ourselves, and for this wish to be an exhortation to keep in mind daily, to say to ourselves as if we were each other’s best friend.
It is not at all an act of selfishness, on the contrary. If we are not well, we cannot contribute to the groups we belong to, we cannot support anyone else. If we are without strength or vitality, where can we give? In English there is a suggestive expression: “You can’t pour from an empty cup”.
After a summer without a single holiday, I went away for a weekend in October. The flight was short, about three hours, and where I went is usually where I’m better off than anywhere else. But, surprise surprise, the first day there was rough. My body sensed it could relax and stopped supporting me. So in the afternoon I had to retire to the hotel. Somehow, my body had sounded an alarm: if you don’t stop, I’ll leave you in the road.
Here are some ideas for nourishing ourselves, both from the perspective of body, mind and soul. They are not eccentricities, they are simple activities, but how much do we stick to them?
Take care of your body! How?
Walk every day;
Go to the gym;
Eat just enough to satisfy your hunger, not so much that you can’t move;
Select what you eat; pay attention to what’s bad for you and eliminate those foods;
When shopping, avoid buying what is not good for you;
Drink lemon water when you wake up in the morning, it keeps you hydrated and helps digestion;
Avoid excessive sweets;
Drink plenty of water every day.
Give yourself quiet time or activities that help you relax. For me, it’s important to have weekend mornings at home with a book and a coffee, to know that I don’t have an agenda.
Personal discipline is important, but sometimes it’s also good to laze around. After all, what’s good for everyone is good for everyone. The pressure we sometimes put on ourselves, all those social media “models” should be taken with a good dose of salt and pepper.
Take care of your own mind:
Read a few pages of a book every day; don’t let a day go by without reading or listening to something beautiful, Goethe said. It’s good to be careful what kind of information you let into your mind – if you sow wind, you reap storm! Put ideas and words that furnish your mind like the richest library;
Listen to podcasts; I listen to at least one podcast every morning when I get ready to leave. I also listen in the car sometimes, but I can’t always concentrate. Others have a higher concentration span when they listen, I have a higher concentration span when I read;
See a good film, be picky about what you choose;
Go to a class, it helps to learn something new, learn something new, sometimes even a foreign language;
Write, even if just for yourself;
Make holiday plans; it helps to have something to look forward to;
Sleep seven to eight hours on average a night; the brain needs rest to function well.
Take care of your soul:
Play with a child – from what I’ve noticed, children have good energy; it helps us put into perspective what really matters;
Write down every night what you did or happened that made you happy, who or what you are grateful for;
Do something for another person – for example, give a flower to someone on the street; or give a piece of fruit, a wafer to the person who sells it to you, you will surprise them;
Meditate for a few minutes, daily or at least once in a while;
Go to a classical music concert, to the Athenaeum, to the opera. It’s important to prepare for the concert, to think about how to dress, to feel good, to let yourself then be seduced by the music, carried into other spheres. Classical music can be balm for the soul;
Make sure you have a friend, a girlfriend, a mentor, with whom you can have more intimate conversations, to whom you can open up without fear of being judged.
These are just a few ideas, from what I’ve tested, that work for me. But it’s useful for everyone to find out what works for themselves. Beyond the lists, beyond the wellness fad, there’s still the exhortation: “Take care of yourself!”, which we forget to apply to ourselves.
We have so much on our minds that we put ourselves last on the list after the snowman. Oh, no, after the snowman there are a few more places, then we put ourselves.”
via: Forbes
