You deserve better.
Last week I shared about the second pillar of the 3 pillars of transformative self-care – how we speak about and to ourselves. Let’s talk about the third pillar today: how we treat ourselves.
We might think we treat ourselves pretty well. We practice good dental hygiene, we get a massage every once in a while, we take vitamins, we sleep for several hours most nights, we put food into our bodies regularly, we use the stairs sometimes or park farther away from our destination to get in some extra steps.
These are all beneficial things to do for ourselves. And what else can we do for ourselves to show that we care?
One of the strongest ways we can show ourselves that we care is by doing what we say we’ll do – when it comes to ourselves.
How would we feel about a friend or someone close to us who tells us they’re going to do this or that with us or for us, and then when the day comes to do it, they either call/text to say they can’t make it, or they don’t show up at all?
- – After the first time, we’ll likely give them some grace but feel disappointed by the outcome.
- – The second time they do it, we might start to question the validity of their words.
- – If they do it a third time, we’ll see a definite pattern here and probably feel frustrated and give up on believing them. We might even start to think that they don’t really care about or respect us.
This would be a normal reaction to someone who seems to be unable to follow through on what they say to us – someone who flakes on us.
And yet, how often have we flaked on ourselves? Flaking on ourselves means saying we’ll do something for ourselves, but at the last minute, we change our mind and don’t show up for what we said we’d do.
When we do this, we show ourselves that we don’t take our goals and desires seriously. We’re not caring for ourselves, and sometimes, we’re not respecting ourselves. Is that how we want to treat ourselves?
If we want to start treating ourselves better by keeping our promises and commitments to ourselves, we can start to build trust with ourselves by taking small actions. “Today I’m going to walk around the block at 3pm.”
And then at 3pm, we do what we say. We get up and walk around the block.
When we do this, there’s a sense of empowerment, a feeling of accomplishing something and fulfilling a promise to ourselves – no matter how small. “It feels good to do what I said I would!” Celebrate that and remember the feeling. It will help reinforce following through with future plans.
This is how we start to strengthen the muscle of trusting ourselves more, knowing that we can have our own back. We can continue to make another small commitment to keep each day – it could be the same one! – until it’s just automatic for us to keep our word to ourselves. Until it feels uncomfortable when we don’t keep our word to ourselves.
It might not happen overnight, but it’s worth it to keep practicing. WE are worth it. If we haven’t been in the practice of keeping our commitments to ourselves, it can take time to build that up. Take that time.
When we get even better at keeping commitments to ourselves, we learn to treat ourselves better in multiple aspects of our lives. We start to know what it truly feels like to take care of ourselves and treat ourselves in the way we want and deserve to be treated. We learn how to have our own back, no matter what.
Your turn: In what ways do you want to treat yourself better? What commitments do you want to keep with yourself? What is one small commitment you want to make to yourself today that you’ll do tomorrow? When tomorrow comes, are you willing to build trust with yourself and do the thing?
Dive Deeper: If you still find yourself not doing the thing, are you open to asking yourself if this is something you truly want to do for yourself or is something/someone else telling you “you should” do it?
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What’s on your mind? It can be powerful to learn from each other and our common struggles when it comes to our practice of self-care–or just being a human being. If you have something you’re struggling with and would like some perspective, share it here. Your issue may be chosen and addressed in the next post–it’ll be totally anonymous.
The Healing Modalities 