Taking Care of Yourself

How many of you actually do that? Take care of yourself? How much time a day do you spend taking care of yourself? Do you even take time to nurture yourself?

I suggest you spend 15 minutes a day “recalibrating” yourself. I like to do this through writing about my day or things that are going on in my life. I have about half a dozen notebooks around the house that I write in whenever the moment hits me with an idea, a thought, whatever comes to mind that I need to get out of me and out there to the universe and God! This helps me to get it out and refocus on my goals. If I didn’t do this, I think I would self implode!

This may sound a bit overboard to all of you, but to those of you that like to write, it may be right on target for you!

There are several ways to nurture yourselves and I am sure some of you have some ideas in mind already! Maybe a bubble bath is right up your alley or a few minutes playing a video game is just right for you! Whatever it is, do something for 15 minutes a day to relax your mind and refocus your energy.

You will find that doing this will help you relax and enjoy your loved ones more! So don’t think that you are taking time away from your loved ones if that is what you are worried about! Think of it as you are taking time for you to be refreshed and relaxed and able to fully engage in the time with your loved ones.

If you STILL have excuses, just try it! You will see that once you start to take care of yourself and do something for you each day, you will feel better for it! I challenge you to do this for yourself!

Hello world!

Yay! I am so excited this is my first blog to the world! Hello World!

First I want to start with a visual for all of you to focus your mind on others. Imagine you are looking at the Earth from space. If you could impact all of those people on Earth, would you try? Now imagine you are able to impact all of the people in America, would you try? Now imagine you are able to impact all of the people in your state that you live in, would you try? Now imagine that you are able to make a difference in the lives of the people in your county, would you still try? Now imagine that you make a difference in 25 people’s lives, would it be worth you trying? Now imagine you make a difference in 5 people’s lives, would it be worth you trying? Now imagine, you make a difference and impact 1 person today, would you try?

What are you feeling right now?

That is the topic of our blog today — feelings. Some of you may be cringing with the word “feelings”! Ewww you say! I’m not allowed to have feelings! Well guess what, you are allowed! It was reminded to me recently that it is SO important for us to show our emotions and feelings to each other and to our children as well. My oldest goes to a therapist for her “fight or flight” dissociation. A lot of her feelings deal with anger and she isn’t quite sure how to be happy yet. The therapist reminded me to show my feelings to her in a moment in order for her to associate those feelings with facial expressions and moments of human behavior.

I recently got the chance to show her some feelings in a moment of anger over a situation. Instead of dismissing her, I told her I was angry and showed the emotion through facial expressions. I briefly stated a simple version for the anger and the possible resolution. It is important to be careful not to seek our children’s sympathy for our emotions or feelings. That is definitely not their job to take care of us adults, we are to teach them! The result was that  she actually became empathetic and said to me, “You need a chill pill! Time for you to have a minute rest!”

It is not only important for our children to see our emotions and feelings, we need to connect with each other as well. It is important to talk about issues as they come up with each other and to encourage good communication. This helps strengthen bonds between each other (friends, co-workers, spouses, family, etc.) and relieves stress by talking about the situation instead of keeping it inside.

I am really thankful for my friends that I can talk about issues with and really tell them how my day went or what happened the other week that went bad. I don’t have to say “Oh, I am doing fine…” and that is it! It is important for us to share with each other to help carry the loads of life and laugh that weight off! Usually we end up laughing by the end of the conversation and laughter takes away so much stress that we carry around every day!

You may find that people actually seek YOU out for a good laugh. People need YOU out there! YOU have something to offer someone and that person might need your smile today. I want to challenge you to smile today. Think of one thing that makes you smile and use that smile on everyone today. If they don’t smile back at you, that’s ok — go on to the next person! Just think of that one thing today and smile!

Okay – I know what you are thinking: this sounds hokey. Well that is what I thought until I tried it myself in the midst of my “poor is me” mindset. Yes, that’s right! Quite a few months ago, my mindset was “I am so sad. I will never be able to be happy again. WOE IS ME!” So what are you thinking now? Hmmm…that isn’t the Gabby I know, right? It took some work. It took some learning and practice… AND it also took some watering from some friends. I couldn’t do this by myself! I wanted to but luckily God wouldn’t let me! He sent me some really great friends to help me smile again. Now that I’ve gotten this far, I wanted to share some of the things I have learned with all of you out there because something tells me that you might need to learn this too. If it helps at least one of you, then I’ll know that it was worth it!

I know I started with that visual, but I am going to end with it as well:

Imagine you are looking at the Earth from space. If you could impact all of those people on Earth, would you try? Now imagine you are able to impact all of the people in America, would you try? Now imagine you are able to impact all of the people in your state that you live in, would you try? Now imagine that you are able to make a difference in the lives of the people in your county, would you still try? Now imagine that you make a difference in 25 people’s lives, would it be worth you trying? Now imagine you make a difference in 5 people’s lives, would it be worth you trying? Now imagine, you make a difference and impact 1 person today, would you try?