Take Care Of Yourself
How often do you really care about yourself? And I mean not from ego point of view, but really care; when you do what is good for you not for 5 minutes or for a day but in a long run?
Unfortunately very often we make the decisions unconsciously, we don’t think too much about the future. And by taking this wrong path we can hurt ourselves. In the past I used to think that pain is not a big deal, and it is partially true. Pain is just a signal. But there is absolutely no need to look for it! There is no point to create the situation which will hurt you in future. And the interesting thing is that most of the times we know all the answers, we know that some of our choices can harm us. But we still doing these wrong things because they bring us short-term pleasures. With this behavior we put ourselves in constant stress which leads to health issues.
I made a lot of mistakes in my life, and I know that I will make more, but you grow old and you learn something. And I want to share what I learned with the hope that I will be able to help someone.
Please don’t underestimate the importance of self care! We cannot think greater than we feel. If you are in the constant emotional pain, you cannot be productive. And if you cannot use your potential, you cannot be happy about yourself. And it becomes a vicious cycle. Day after day the same situation, the same thoughts, the same worries. It is so much more joyful to live in peace. And everybody can find this wonderful place within themselves. It doesn’t depend on anything external. It all depends on your choices. If you chose to be happy, you will be!
So what do I mean when I am talking about self-care? Of course we need to eat healthy, work out and have enough sleep. I am not extremely knowledgeable in areas of diets and workouts. I have my own routine and I am trying to avoid processed food. So I won't go too much into the details of this part of self-care. In this article I want to focus on other things which are very important and from my point of view are undervalued in modern society.
1. First of all, if you care about yourself you need to learn how to be mindful. I don’t think that each and every person has to meditate in order to be joyful, but you need to find your way to learn how to control your thoughts. Check all your thoughts if they are serving you or not. It is extremely important! It is very hard, but very useful! All thoughts produce chemicals within your brain and body. And our cells get adjusted to these chemicals, you can become literally addicted to the particular emotion if you think about the same events and ideas over and over again. And you create your reality with these thoughts. I would say that stimulation of negative thoughts is the same as you if you’d be punching yourself and complaining “How come I have all these bruisers on my face?” So if you really care about your wellbeing, try not to let any thought come through unchecked. And if it is not serving you, change it as fast as you can!
2. The second thing that is important for your happiness might seem weird and illogical, but I truly believe that if you want to be in peace, you need to remember about it. So what is it? It is giving! If you build your life around giving and not taking, you will be able to decrease the level of your stress dramatically. So if you care about yourself you need to take a pause and think how can you and your unique qualities be useful for others? How can you make this world better? When you know the answers to these questions, you become more peaceful and focused, you stop torturing yourself with expectations, you become more creative and your life becomes more fun!
3. And please have a faith! It is another great quality which can improve your life. Remember that universe cares about you. And there are problems that you just need to let go and give opportunity to some greater intelligence to solve them for you. We often don't trust our life and trying too hard to get something. It causes stress, we stop being creative, and we putting ourselves into the situation even worse than it was before. If you don't believe that you deserve something, you would never get it. When you love yourself, care about yourself, you know that your life loves you too, and that sooner or later you will see how the problems go away without any significant input from your side. What you need to do is to believe. This is the hardest part but at the same time it is the most rewarding.
4. Live in line with your values every single day! And be honest with yourself about that. The easiest way to do that is to write down the list of your values. Try to google "Franklin's List of Virtues" as an example. I think his method is awesome. The idea is to write down characteristics which can inspire you, which according to your beliefs system will represent the ideal version of yourself. Because if you don't know what matters to you the most, and if you live your life not by these rules, it means that you don't care about yourself at all and you just go with the flow. You are amazing, unique and wonderful! You need to make your every day special, you have the right to live by your own rules. This list of your values will become a great tool for using your potential. And by using your potential you will make your life joyful.
5. Learn new things. This is so important! Read books, watch documentaries, find some classes on-line or go to school, learn a new language, play musical instrument. There are so many options. Unfortunately instead of learning we prefer to do something that requires no efforts and brings short-term pleasure, and this is normal, this is how our body works, it likes to avoid difficultities and save energy. Our brain and body work this way because we have been created thousands of years ago when survival was our priority. But nowadays these easy actions are not too useful and will not improve your life in a long run. On other hand, if you constantly challenge your brain, if you are giving it new tasks again and again, if you are getting new information every day, you prolong your life. Our cells are copied while we live. And if you do the same things over and over again, have the same thoughts, you copy the same information. So you create a copy, of a copy, of a copy, of a copy... And aging goes faster. If you learn something new all the time you create new connections between your neurons, turning your genes on and off, and making the copies of different genes. And you age slower. Please remember about the importance of learning!
Let's imagine for a second, what would happen if everyone decides to take care of himself? Imagine that everyone takes responsibility for his health, thoughts, decisions, values. Everyone wants to learn as much as he can, wants to use his potential in order to help others. How amazing it would be! Don't you want to be an inspiration for others; to be a great example of how someone can make his life better and at the same time bring positive effect to the life of those around him? It all starts with you! You can be the person who changes the world for the best just by taking care of yourself and taking responsibility for your own happiness!
I believe that we can do it!
Be Strong And Love Yourself!