"Self-Care: The Struggle is Real"

"There are days I drop words of comfort on myself like falling leaves and remember that it is enough to be taken care of by myself."
Brian Andreas

What I have noticed over the years is that people have a hard time with the whole purpose of self-care and why it's important. They will argue with you as to why(and there are a lot of why's!)they don't have time for such "frivolous" things like pedicures and bubble baths or just sitting quietly. They will give you a laundry list of all the errands they must run, kids they have to haul here and there, work, work, and more work, not enough money or time! I usually stop this rant by asking one question "Did you speak kindly to yourself today?" Oh! The looks I get when I ask that! Self-care doesn't mean that you have to go somewhere and spend money. It doesn't just mean bubble baths with candles or exercise(but I will take both of those, thank you!) Self-care is being kind to yourself on every level. To speak kind words to yourself is the ultimate form of self-care. 

"Love yourself first, and everything else falls in line. You really have to love yourself in order to get anything done in this world."
Lucille Ball

My Mama used to say "If you don't love yourself, how can you truly say you love others." I thought she didn't know what she was talking about. Like all children, I thought I knew better. How horribly wrong I was. I thought that if you loved yourself first, it made you a narcissist. The examples I saw of people who "loved" themselves were not the best examples folks. They actually WERE narcissists! So I decided to be the polar opposite: The Selfless Giver, another extreme. The selfless giver gives all and keeps nothing for Self, enter Stage Right, martyrdom and supreme unhappiness. Why is the selfless giver unhappy? Because they have this unrealistic expectation that if they give and give, people will treat them the way they have decided to treat others. They also have a skewed definition of self-care and self-love. Once the selfless giver adjusts their thinking and finally gets the correct definition of self-care which is self-love, there is a balance. 

"The only person that can pull me down is myself, and I'm not going to let myself pull me down anymore."
C. Joybell C.

I love this quote. It is saying, simply, that it's in your power to be happy or sad, lift yourself up or drown. it's all you. People like to say the world owes you nothing and they are right. But you owe yourself a lot! Let me tell you something when I started practicing self-care, all of a sudden people started calling me conceited! HA! Why? Because every so often, when I would pass something that reflected my image back to me, I would smile at myself. This had nothing to do with how I looked, but how I felt. I held myself differently. I walked like I knew who I was and knew where I was going. I practiced self-care and how amazing, because when I did, along came happiness. I took control...of me. So when I say self-care must come from a place of self-love, now you get it. It is feeling worthy and being accountable to yourself for yourself. 
Wishing you peace & love, but mostly Peace.