Self-Care

Happy Sunday!

Last week, my first week home on vacation and I struggled to simply relax.  It is funny and strange how I have been yearning, dreaming of this vacation break and then I had to give myself permission to just do nothing. By the middle of the week, I started to relax and into sleeping in, having breakfast for lunch, reading most of the afternoon, then cooking something simple and tasty for dinner. Despite this time away from work, other seemingly important commitments kept creeping up on me, demanding my attention. And I was surprised, well shocked, that I was reluctant to say no, stop, go away to anyone that interrupted my doing nothing.

I am also a freelance writer, and while I am still very new to offering my research, writing and editing services for a fee,  it is something I am keen on doing. But yesterday, I did something that is counter intuitive to developing my freelancing service. I stopped a project. The thing is, I do not want to work  for the remainder of my vacation. For these few weeks, I do not want deadlines, writing assignments or emails, I want to just be.

Last Tuesday, while I was still struggling to decide if I should take a vacation from all work projects, I noticed a quote from Brazilian writer Paulo Coehlo. I have seen this quote dozens of times,  it is everywhere,  Pinterest, Facebook, Intagram and it has been tweeted to death but this week it gave me some comfort:

“When you say ‘yes’ to others, make sure you are not saying ‘no’ to yourself.” 

I am saying yes to me. Yes I will be relaxing for the next couple of weeks, I deserve this. Yes I will continue do to my own writing, blogging, reading and reviewing books,  these my personal passion projects.

It is vital that we all seek to establish what we know is best for ourselves. This is an important part of self-care and that is not selfish. It is part of loving ourselves. Wherever we may find ourselves hurting, stressing or overextending, it is necessary to stop, let go or adjust and re-balance our lives.

Now feel so energized that its likely that tomorrow, being Labour Day and a public holiday, I will be fully engrossed in physical work— cleaning, scrubbing and washing. Then I will go back to doing nothing.