free tools for selfcare - Angelica Alen

There is so much talk about chronic stress…

How we get ourselves into feeling the consequences of chronic stress…

The definition of chronic stress says that it is the response to emotional pressure suffered for a prolonged period of time in which individual perceives they have little or no control.

We get up each morning and there is already a mountain of work waiting for us, weighing on our shoulders…an endless to do list…

at home…at work and even in our free time…

But we see it as something we have to do…we have to keep going….

I remember thinking to myself…how could I have gone to the doctor to say I was exhausted all the time before cancer?

I was a mum, a working mum and my kids were still 6 and 4 so really…I hadn’t taken any time off from sleepless night….I was on a constant threadmill to make sure everyone had what they needed for the last 6 years….

I thought it was normal to be exhausted…

Besides I would be too proud to do that….I couldn’t…I didn’t know how to…

I was too stress at work too, not because work was putting stress on me but because I wanted to perform at the highest level I could…

Again I wouldn’t have said I can’t do this anymore… I had set my mind to accomplish certain things at work and that was my focus…

I also was carrying so much emotional baggage that it wouldn’t be easy to write on one post…

When I look back, I felt under pressure in all areas of my life…the biggest pressure came from inside me by the way…

But I never allowed myself to take time out….

To doing something just for me….

To replenish myself, my body and my soul…

I thought I needed to keep going…

I think this is when many of us need to stop and recognize that stress is and will always be part of our lives.

But what we do to replenish ourselves is important to help us to deal with it, to manage it in a much better way…

It doesn’t have to cost mountains of money, it doesn’t have to take all the time in the world…

What it is important is to allow ourselves to take time out to ourselves…to acknowledge where we are at when we are dealing with everyday stress in our lives…

You are not going to be deemed weak or less than by doing that…you will be deemed to being strong by being true to yourself.

Most of us will say that we can’t change a particular area in our lives because we lack motivation…

I would argue with that…

I believe all of us have one area or more in our lives that we do well, we feel successful at it and regardless of what happens around us we keep that area going, moving up, towards achieving our goals around it.

But there are other areas in our lives that we struggle with…we tell ourselves that we can’t change them because of time, money, knowledge…we even blame other people…

What we try to avoid is to get to the truth behind our behaviour…

We don’t want to say out loud that work gets the best out of us…what would people think of you right? Especially when you are a parent right?

We don’t want to say our health is not a priority because who knows? You might get a curse from the skies and get sick…after all we all have been raised to say “Our health is the most important thing we have”. But do we live it?

We don’t want to say out loud: my relationship is not a priority for me because really who has got time to be intimate when we are so busy keeping the world going?

We don’t want to say out loud: I don’t feel connected to my children because I spend all my time correcting them, getting them to do their chores, disciplining them as otherwise they won’t be successful when they grow up right! It does take a lot of courage to say that too.

We also don’t want to say out loud that work is not a priority as we would worry about what our peers would think of us, how can we do well at work if we say what we really think about our jobs?

So we keep telling ourselves the same stories, doing the same things and getting the same results…after all we haven’t got time, money, the motivation or the discipline.

So I argue with that because I believe when you are willing to tell yourself the truth, you are willing to change whatever it needs to be changed in your life because you will find the motivation, the discipline, the how to do it. Remember there is one part of your life that you are already doing great and the only reason why you are doing great at it is because you invest time, money, effort and everything else you have got at it. You were not born knowing how to operate that part of life, you work at it, you change things around, you improved it, you gave and give your best at it every single day.

Now if you are honest to yourself: what is the area of your life that you know you need to change, you need to invest on, you need to look after?

Tag: free tools for selfcare

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