Find Your Way, Part 18… Caring for You

What is self care?

Self care is choosing to give attention and effort towards the unique needs of your HMBS at the various stages of your life, so that you have the potential to bring all of yourself for a fulfilling life.   

It is working with yourself, and taking responsibility for what you can, given the circumstances you are facing.

However, for as long as you are acting on auto pilot due to the web of beliefs and assumptions instilled from your conditioning and the normalisations, your current patterns and way of life will continue. You may have moments and glimpse the reason to care for you, however the ego mind finds its way to stop your progress and return to what you know. 

You may not see the reason or benefits for investing in you, and instead see yourself as the ‘problem’ which in time leads you to need some form of intervention (medical or other) to ‘fix’.

With resources, accessibility and affordability of these interventions being out of reach for many people, it is fast becoming an unsustainable option. 

The ‘prevention’ and ’care’ approach not only lessens the need for interventions, it also improves the legacy of our human evolution. 

So how do we break the cycle of what we have been living by all our lives? 

As we better connect with the ‘divine consciousness’ that is available to all of us, it is possible (according to science and many people who have taken this path) to feel a deeper sense of our value, our capacity, and why our time on the planet is important. 

Imagine how things would be different, if we were told and learnt about the value of our uniqueness and gifts from the beginning of our lives, rather than told of our flaws or problems? 

What do you feel would be different? 
 
In the meantime, through your heart space, it is possible to arrive at the you that has a clearer view and ability to create steps that improve your self care. 

Facing the pain  

These steps become possible when we no longer avoid or mask the pain, and instead we develop a new relationship with it, knowing that pain is inevitable in the balance of life. 

No matter the circumstances or situation you are facing, there is always the potential to feel some type of pain (physical, mental, emotional, spiritual) around the corner. It may be felt from the direct experience or from witnessing what is happening around you. 

This pain however is not personal. You are not alone. 

It is part of the human condition. 

Because just as there is pain, there is also joy from special and loving moments.                                      

There is creation, there is destruction. 

There is light, there is also darkness. 

Life is an array of many types of events; some of which feel uplifting and others not. 

With acceptance of this reality, a better relationship with pain can be formed.  

Rather than giving your time and energy to finding the easy, avoiding, blaming or giving excuses, you will be living more in real time, responding and creating based on love and alignment with the universe, so that despite the pain, you are free from the fear and suffering.

You will no longer be experiencing the pain twice. 

It will stop you from making deals with yourself to justify your actions and uphold the facade which will intensify the HMBS pain over time.  

Deals that may sound like ‘I’ll have the drink because it will relax me’, or ‘take the pills so I can sleep better’, or ‘take the injection so I can lose weight quickly’, or ‘spend my money so that I feel better’, or ‘take from others, because I don’t think they need it’. 

When mind based ego leads the way without your heart at the forefront, you may notice how convincing the self talk language can be.  

What lifestyle patterns have you engaged to lessen the pain of facing a challenge? What deals do you notice yourself making? 

And when you are unable to foresee the consequences of your actions and responses, the saying ‘feather, brick, Mack truck’ may be relevant. This saying suggests that often the subtle signals from the feather or the more direct impact of the brick, may not ‘hit home’. And often it is only when you get hit by the Mack truck that you feel it! Unfortunately the impact of those consequences may be very serious, or irreversible. 

This pattern of not reading the signals, has existed for many generations. Many people are yet to put into place the prevention approach, waiting instead for the pain or larger problems to emerge.  

The ‘use it or lose it’ saying, reminds us of the importance of using the parts of our HMBS before we lose our capacity. If we wait until the problem arrives, we often lack the skills, ability and will to draw upon what we need to recover to heal and improve.

And now as the pain and problems are becoming more public in our society, we are beginning to see for our own eyes how societal normalisations have led us astray.  We can see and feel in ourselves and others, what is missing and where that is leading.   

How do you see about where we are headed?

Hence as we discover the way to rewrite the patterns and narratives and move from ‘I don’t care’ to ‘I do care’, and from ‘life feels meaningless’ to ‘life feels meaningful’, ‘I can’t do anything’ to ‘I can do something’.  

Bringing care to your HMBS 

The important thing to recognise is that an action of care to one part of your HMBS, ripples to other parts because of the interconnected nature of your whole self. If you have previously been told of the many things you ‘should’ do, this is an important thing to remember. 

An example is when you begin to walk outdoors, it leads you to get more sun which provides you with more Vitamin D, and breathe in more fresh air, and hear more natural sounds, that leads to making better use of your oxygen and having more clarity and positive emotions.  

It shows how the byproduct (the ripple effect) of working on your body with a walk, also improves other aspects related to your HMBS. In many ways the walk is the ‘keystone’ action that impacted so much more, so worth creating a routine around.  

Have you felt a time when your whole self became involved in this way? 
 
The heart wants to care for you and knows what can lead you there.

Under your heart’s guidance, it becomes possible for your mind to use all of its capabilities to assist (such as ask a relevant question and discern the research), and for your body to release the energy needed to keep things moving, and for your spirit to bring lightness to your mood to fully engage the experience. 

From the heart, all parts of your HMBS can bring what they are designed to do (your mind to think, your body to move, your spirit to inspire).

It may not be a perfect path… it never is… however it is the start of a more conscious approach that is more balanced. This is how improvement happens. 

What have you explored in the past caring for you, in this way? 

There are no definite rules or fixed approaches with what is best for your HMBS. When you go back to the hierarchy of needs of humans, taking care may revolve around any of your basic fundamental or higher needs; physical, social, emotional, psychological, spiritual. 

So what journeys have you been on? No matter what you have experienced, reflect on what you learnt, what you discovered and how you felt… 
 
It may be around diet; what have you experienced? 
Perhaps Ayurveda, fasting, blood group types, food groups? 

It may be around exercise; what have you experienced? 
Yoga, gym work, tai chi, dancing?

It may be around creativity; what have you experienced? 
Painting, writing, drawing, music?

It may be around personal safety; what have you experienced? 
Housing, financing, saving, earning?

It may be around health; what have you experienced? 
Conditions, illnesses, nutrition, healing, medicines, therapies?

It may be around lifestyle; what have you experienced? 
Around sleep, addictions, patterns? 

It may be around purpose; what have you experienced? 
Career, passions, hobbies
 
It may be around information; what have you discovered? 
About health, economics, leadership, business, governments, technology, climate and environment.  

What have you learnt about what is good for self care in general? 

What things do you already have in place? What helps you continue with those practices? 

As you draw out this information, say it out loud to yourself, so that you hear it as part of becoming more conscious of what choices are helping to enhance your clarity, energy, and deep happiness.   

Becoming actively involved

All of your choices are personal to you. We each will gravitate to different things, because we each have unique wants, likes and interests, as we live our individual lives.   

These unique findings are not locked in however, because we are evolving beings. Hence each day that you learn something more, allow your evolved version of you be brought to the next day, week, month, year. 

We regularly move through different stages and situations, all of which will require something different. Hence as things change, your needs and wants change too. 

After a lung cancer diagnosis, my father chose to have a lobectomy rather than chemotherapy. While the surgery went well, his recovery did not. While in intensive care, every morning, together with the doctors, we would discuss his progress, and arrive at a course of action for that day. It required decisions in real time. We couldn’t hold them off until later. We knew that moments mattered at this critical time. 
And while in the end, his body failed to respond to the pressure that was placed on it, we learnt many importance things about the importance of taking action in real time. 

This fluid, sensory and active approach of responding to your needs in real time, is important at any stage of life. 

Like the time when I was feeling pain in my foot, thinking it was a bunion, but deciding to act on it anyway (my real time approach of doing what I can when I can). 
The X-ray led me to discover it was not a bunion, rather an arthritic condition known as ‘haluxus rigidus’. Because of the clarity, calm, energy to take action, I was able to learn how to minimise the rate of its decline; I now have orthotics, specific exercises that include moving the joint to its greatest range, doing PNF strength exercises.
You see one of my life wants are to keep traveling and walking til I die, so when I read up about this issue, I knew this condition could worsen and my vision for life, could be threatened. Swift action in real time has helped me minimise this risk. 

Starting points

So where do you start? 

In an area you wish to improve (it may be from any HMBS pain you may be experiencing) use what you have already discovered with other reliable information (researched). 

However whatever choice you arrive at, it is only a starting point. It can never be the whole picture (because of your unique self and changing situation). 

So as you begin the process, notice what happens there after.        

I can remember a time when Nigel had a nagging knee injury that continued for about 3 months. He was told by an expert, what exercises he should do to recover (strengthen glutes, stretch and release tight quads)). When he did one of the exercises (wall squats) it seemed to harm him further. He realised the combination of exercises given, weren’t all suitable for him with his level of injury. He chose to stop that exercise and made another modification by shifting the rolling of his quadriceps from a lying position to a sitting position. He then chose to continue with acupuncture, and within a week he could feel the progress. It was what he needed to break the cycle and move him towards recovering.  

In this way, his time, energy and focus was on starting the exercises, and then noticing the impact. This is contrast to mindlessly doing as you have been told, or doing what others say because you feel they know better than you.  

It is up to you to ask the questions to better see and sense what is happening; Does it align or not? Feel good or not? Does it help my function or not? Have things improved or not? Does it bring positive health results or not? Bring clarity or not? Does it bring more pain or less? Affect your mood or not? Bring energy or not? Is it naturally derived or is it artificially derived? Do I continue or not? 

Sometimes it may take some time to notice, because improvement may masquerade as discomfort.What feels uncomfortable doesn’t always mean something is wrong. 

For example if you haven’t exercised for a long time, when you get back to moving your body (which is what our bodies are designed to do), you may feel pain in the form of tightness or soreness because you may have lost strength, fitness, flexibility. 

Similarly if you haven’t put your needs first for a long time, when you do take care of you, you may feel uncomfortable due to your inner voice telling you it’s being ‘selfish’. 

In such moments, tune in with all your senses and be guided by all of your HMBS resources to arrive at a synthesised heart answer and response. 

This is your practice.   

Testing for benefit  

As we are inundated with many topics and information that are all vying for our attention, now more than ever is the time to listen deeply and bring discernment. 

Without it, you may feel overwhelmed and confused, and may succumb to doing what you ‘think’ is the way, or ‘following’ what is popular, even when deep down it does not feel good or you sense harm. 

What types of things do you gravitate towards, even when you know it is harming you? 

The heart space can help lessen this contradiction and lead you to a simple next step. Take on things that you feel are relevant and are possible to engage.    

It may be as simple as transitioning slowly from lying overnight to standing, to awaken to your day gently. In our life today, how often do we jump out of bed, to get things done before we rush off for our day? 

Or engaging in things you love such as, singing, humming, moving, playing instruments which are linked to improvement in the vagus nerve, which supports the gut mind communication. It’s like our ancient ancestors knew something intrinsically about how to keep well. 

Like the Japanese (Okinawa culture) teaching of ‘hara hachi bu’, which translates to eating until you are 80% full (giving your body the 20 minute time delay to register it has had enough). 

As you test the impact of any of these simple practices, you may choose to continue them if they bring positive feelings or improvement to your quality of life.  

The more normalised these behaviours become over time, the less likely that any of your ‘red’ behaviours and language, could otherwise ‘trick’ you.  

For example have you heard people saying they are going to ‘treat’ themselves with things such as alcohol or fast food, or other things such as sugar, cake etc. 
I can remember myself saying it! 
I would convince myself it was OK to do. I could find the reasons and justifications, even though my logical mind knew I would find it difficult to stop and kick start a habit. This in itself had become an addictive response pattern.  

Or when you hear people say how addictive habits such as a computer game, cigarette, vape or drugs, are good for them because it ‘helps them to feel better’ (which it may in the short term because of the addiction) 

What tricks have you seen to sway decisions? 

We are now learning how products that were once promoted as healthy, actually have ‘hidden’ ingredients, toxins, chemicals and preservatives that are linked to many illness, conditions and diseases. It is clear that the whole picture or information was not shared and some products that once claimed to be ‘food’, are now being relabelled as ‘non food’. 

What tricks have you seen companies use to sway your choices? 

Noticing these things, may ignite your motivation to research deeper, or seek out those who are prepared to bring less biased information to the forefront. 

Are you able to detect the information that is being left out by ‘experts’  or those selling their ‘wares’? 

So when companies are doing harm ‘to you’ rather than caring ‘for you’, it may prompt you to change what you purchase and who you purchase from.  

This is something you can do that will lessen the demand for harmful products and practices. This is where you do have power.