This photo from the blogger extraordinaire Sally Schneider’s Improvised Life web site sounded like the perfect advice for how to take time out for self care. It’s extremely difficult to come to a full stop in life and make time to take care of ourselves. But sometimes that is just what is needed.
A friend of mine recently made one of those short cryptic statements on Facebook that she hated cleaning up other people’s crap.
I asked, “Then why do it?”
Turns out she was cleaning out her college-aged daughter’s apartment and helping her move. Some may say, of course she would help her daughter with this, right?
I say, “Not if it is something you truly hate to do. Why not get the daughter to recruit her friends to help clean and move? My guess is that if Mom hadn’t been available, the daughter could have found someone to help.”
Maybe we need to stop and ask ourselves how much we do in life just because we always have. I am suggesting that sometimes we need to come to a “full stop” and re-write what’s normal for us.
Let’s make taking care of ourselves normal and start communicating to our loved ones what we want and what we need. Let’s start asking for time for self care.
Years ago when Ms. Schneider and her sister were taking care of their elderly mother — and the many crises that ensued — they somehow hit on a strategy for helping the other take some much-needed time and care. One of them would say “I’m giving you a Certificate”… to take the afternoon/week off…to go out to dinner with a friend…be lazy…do nothing…WHATEVER. And curiously, it worked. It was a coded way of affirming the realities at hand and the need to take care of themselves.
Make a full stop in your life today, this week, or sometime this month and rest.
I’m giving you Sally’s certificate to do just that.
Check out Sally’s site at Improvised Life.
Improvised Life is an ever-expanding gallery of ideas and tools that inspire surprising solutions to everyday challenges, from home design and cooking to productivity and self-expression. It is designed to help you shift your thinking and see the possibilities around you.”
