Twas the day before Christmas and all through the house…
I would love to come up with a clever Christmas Eve rhyme, but that would require too much thought and quite frankly I’m in a chill frame of mind. Instead I am going to revel in the fact that I can spend the rest of this day doing absolutely NOTHING!
My house is clean. I cleaned it from top to bottom this morning. I got my activity points in for the day by completing my house work. My presents are wrapped. My cards are signed. I don’t have any errands to run except for this evening when I have to pick up my sister and her husband from the train station.
This feels great and I’m glad I decided to start working on one of my New Years goals right now. This one particular goal I am referring to is extreme self-care.
A few weeks ago I started thinking about my goals for 2016 and determined that I wanted less stress and less overwhelm in my life. I need to get control over both because they significantly impact my weight loss efforts and not in a positive way.
So what does extreme self-care mean? For me it means:
- Not working myself into a hole
- Going to bed early
- Saying “no” more often and without apology
- Taking mental days off (from work, from family, from life)
- Exercising daily – to feel better and get stronger
- Dressing in a way that makes me feel confident and makes me look and feel great
- Seeing my doctor sooner than later when something is not right with my body
- Learning how to de-stress in ways other than eating
- Learning how to just sit still with no distractions (TV, music, iPad, Phone, etc.) Turn it all off!
The list could go on. The point is that I know I have to do more to take care of myself so that I am around longer and have more energy to take care of those around me. I cannot do that from an empty cup. After running, running, running every day since Friday, I knew it was time to take a chill pill. And so today, I am fortunate enough to be able to spend some quiet and relaxing time alone. I could fill this day up with all kinds of stuff to do, but instead I’m using wisdom by saying no to busyness and YES to chillaxing.
Your Turn To Share
Do you need some more “me time” in your life? What is your plan for making it happen?