Last time we talked about how our physical health (i.e. exercise and food intake) was very important to our wellbeing, which in turn, affects how we are in our marriage. The homework I gave was to find time to sit down with yourself and be honest. Are you where you should be? If not, find just 1 or maybe 2 small things you can tweak. I didn’t ask you to make a huge overhaul of yourself. That almost never works, and almost always sends you the opposite direction, worse than you were to begin with. If you are happy where you are right now and do not want to change anything, that is wonderful. Wherever you are, I wanted you to put thought into what you do and what you eat and ask G-d to help make what you are doing good for you.
While I was preparing for this episode, I looked at the last homework and realized I need to work on it! I usually do a mix of things each week as I work on my marriage, anywhere from writing little thank you or appreciation notes to my husband to working on giving him my full attention and not interrupting him. However, I noticed that I have been a little lax myself lately when it comes to asking G-d to help make what I do good for me! And that is okay. The last little while has been difficult. It is very easy to get upset with ourselves when we see that we are not doing what we should be doing (or think we should be doing,) but the truth is, we need to remember that we are human. And being human means our life has its ups and downs, it ebbs and flows, and we should give ourselves leeway and be kind even when we fall off the bike. When you are down, pick yourself up, give yourself a huge hug and then you will be able to get back on the bike.
We are going to continue with what we talked about last time and focus on us again. And yes, I know that we talked about self-care before, but it is so important for our own sanity, not just for our own happiness. It should be obvious that if I am not at my best, there is no way I can be my best in my marriage, but I know that as women, this is not always obvious, and it is something that we need to be explicitly told to do on a regular basis!
We are nurturers. You can say it is in our DNA, for it is how we were created. Everyone gives, but women were created with an extra dose of giving. We give to our husband, we give to our children, to our friends and community, and we give of ourselves at work. However, there is one person that usually gets left behind. Do you know who that is? We usually forget about ourselves. Probably forget is not the correct word, but more like we put ourselves on the back burner and are left for last. “If there is enough time, I will do something for myself.” With that way of thinking, there is never any time! Between work, children, our husband, the shopping, cooking, cleaning, all our time is taken up! Everyone and everything is important. Except for us. And as we know, when we leave things on the back burner and forget about them…. they burn.
The thing is, we really want to help. We like to help. The important thing we have to remember is the following: For me to be the most helpful, I have to be at my best. If I am not, then I cannot help to my full capacity. Read that sentence again, slowly: For me to be the most helpful, I have to be at my best. If I am not, then I cannot help to my full capacity. Let’s turn that around and think of it in another way – I really like it when the other person can reap the most benefit from what I have to give. Do you hear that? I like it when the other person is able to get the maximum benefit out of what I can offer them. How do I accomplish this? By taking care of myself. When I look after myself and become the best me, that is when I can give my best and the other person will be able to receive the most from me. In other words, when I am feeling my best, that is when I can have the most impact on others.
But we are told that it’s SELFISH to think about me! That’s what we are told! I can’t focus on myself, I need to focus on others! To always focus on yourself is not good, that is correct, but that is not what we are talking about. Okay, well, how about this?
You want to give and be helpful to the next person. Guess what? YOU are a person! That means that when you give to _______ (fill in the blank with your name,) you are giving to a person. When you give to another person, remember that one of the people you need to give to is yourself. Is this making sense?
To sum it up, I recently heard a beautiful quote. I do not remember where the speaker said it was from. “You need to take care of yourself so you can give people the best of you, not what is left of you.”
Self-care is the time we use to recharge. Think of your phone. You use your phone all day and if you don’t plug it in at the end of the day, guess what? It won’t last very long the next day. Why? As you use your phone, you use the energy in your battery and when it is all used up, if you don’t plug it in, the phone won’t work. The same for us. We work hard, between everything we need to do and the people that need us, at the end of the day our batteries are drained. We have to plug in to recharge. What charger we use depends on what we personally need. Some people need to hide away and read a book or maybe to lay in a dark room. Others crawl into a bubble bath. Some need to go out with their friends once a week and others reset by exercising.
We need to realize that self-care is an indispensable part our optimal health. It should NEVER be treated as a luxury or “something-I-will-get-to-if-there-is-time” type of thing. We, as women in particular, need to learn to prioritize our self-care and wellness. If you don’t care for yourself, eventually something will give, it has to give. It is like the saying, “You can’t burn the candle at both ends.” Either you or the ones you love will suffer. (Or most likely both.)
So, the question is not should you pamper yourself, because you should. But the question is, what do you do to pamper yourself? Do you intentionally plug yourself in to recharge, or do you try to squeeze it in here and there, if you can, because you think that everyone else’s needs should get dealt with first?
You are important. The flight attendants tell you that if there is a change in the oxygen pressure, the oxygen masks will come down and to put your own mask on first before helping others.
This week choose one thing that recharges you and prioritize it. Write it down, talk to your husband and get him on board. Tell him you want to be the best wife, best mother to his children, etc. and you need to recharge so you can be that amazing wife to him and amazing mother to his children.
How much time do you take for yourself? That I cannot tell you for everyone is different. A good gauge is when you are finished and get ready to face the world again, do you feel refreshed? Do you feel recharged? What if there is no time to fully recharge? Take what you can. A partial charge does help a little bit. Several years ago my husband went back and got his MBA (while working full time!) One quarter was really tough and we only had one car. This particular quarter, he told me he needed to take the car for he would go from home to work and basically directly to school and then back home really late to get a few hours of sleep before starting work again. During this time, I would be home with our 4 boys and the only mode of transportation we had were our feet. I gave him a grocery list every day and at lunch he would walk next door and pick up the food and store it in the fridge at work. He would then come home after work – and stayed in the car while I came to fetched the food and give him his lunch. He promised me that when that quarter was done, I would get time out of the house by myself. He was true to his work, but unfortunately, I only had 2 hours! No, it was not enough to recharge from being cooped up (so to speak) with 4 boys for 12 weeks, but yes, it was enough to keep me going a little bit.
💖Rivkah