Taking the time for ourselves

Mental health is important. I’ve found over the weeks I’ve worked on this blog a lot of very interesting topics and a lot of techniques that will help if we put in the time and effort it takes to do them. Our brain may come up with excuses; however, for not doing them. Why we don’t take the time… It excels at finding excuses that keep us safe in our rut. Trying new things is scary and seems dangerous to our brain. What if we don’t succeed? What if we try and fail? What if I take this time and do these things and everything just stays the same? I’ve had these thoughts; I share what I read and find in my research every week and I only started actually doing the exercises and following a few of the suggestions at the start of this month. I will go into more depth on this next week when I make my six-month update (already!!).

This week I wanted to look at the excuses we give ourselves not to do something and why it is important to do them anyway. And as I mentioned last week it is possible to have a thought and still act, to have a feeling no matter how uncomfortable it is and still do something. Our brains do not like change, there is safety in familiarity, but our brains have to adapt to an always changing environment and there is a great capacity in us to learn, grow, create and innovate that furthers that change more than we realize.

How do we do it? How do we overcome that part of our brain that wants us to stay in the safe and familiar with the part of our brain that wants the change and the growth? The best advice I found for this that actually works is by focusing on our values. On what is most important to us. If we do that, if we live true to our ideals then we can grow as a person and we can grow as a society as well. I mentioned values before in my first series of articles on success, but I didn’t understand it then. Writing a weekly article, building my understanding piece by piece has given me a clearer feeling of what is important in my life, and I believe it takin the time to reflect on this can help all of us.

So, in order to achieve what we want and learn to manage our “selves” and our emotions better it is important for our overall health to take some time to think about the topics I’ve been covering these last few months and learn these life skills that can help us improve our mental health. And as there is a huge impact of mental health on physical health it is important to also focus on this aspect as well.

I find it very strange that I know what is good for me, but my brain will find excuses not to do it.

“It’s too hard!”

“I won’t be able to find the time…”

” It’s too much work…”

One of the fundamental rights we have is to exist (there are three and I may go into them in a later article, but for now I will focus on this one). We all have this right and taking time for ourselves is important. Just as with everything, a balance needs to be reached. We can be too centered on ourselves and take too much time for ourselves or at the other extreme: not enough and neglect our self and our health because we don’t matter as much as the people in our lives. Ideally, we want to be in the middle of that spectrum.

Some people would argue that you should be completely selfless, and that taking time for yourself is selfish but wouldn’t it be even better if you were healthy emotionally, mentally and physically and be able to bring your best self out to others? That is where self-care comes in. It is a good balance between recognising and responding to your own needs while understanding the impact on others. There are reasons the plane emergency instructions say to put on our mask first before those of others. If you fall unconscious, you may only be able to help one person, if that. If you have your own mask on, you can help a lot more people. The same example applies to firefighters who put on their protective gear and respirators before heading into a fire to help others. Taking care of ourselves may allow us to better care for and understand others.

So, the next time you catch your brain giving yourself excuses not to do an exercise and not to take the time to work on your best self, even if it’s just 15 minutes a day, tell your brain kindly that it is too important not to do it. Do it anyway no matter what your brain says. They’re just the same excuses over and over anyway. If you don’t know where to start, information is always good to have but at some point we have to say we have enough whether that is true or not and just take baby steps to get where we want to go.

What do you do to take time for yourself? What do you think about it?

Thank you for reading!

“Self-care is not self-indulgence, it is self-preservation.”

– Audre Lorde