What are you doing to look after yourself now?

What are you doing to look after yourself now?

We all need to take stock from time to time. It’s easy to get lost on the journey and sometimes we don’t even know that we may be lost. Like any process or procedure, it makes sense to rest, look backwards
and see where we have been. Analyse what worked and what didn’t work, look for weaknesses and explore options for the future. There isn’t a right or wrong way to heal, so it makes complete sense to continually check in on yourself and see how the original plan is going. Are things still working? Are you stuck? Is something missing? Have you stopped doing the things that worked?

I was inspired to write this article after a member on our forums posted a message about her own personal stocktake.

Quote from Tracey;

Last week I hosted a brilliant guy for a training session delivered for 60 people at work. I’ve always been a huge fan of things that ca help maintain mental health, but it’s not always received well from a corporate perspective, but the folks loved it, and I’m glad they did.

I briefed him before we started and he picked up I wasn’t good, I didn’t lie, I told him I wasn’t and then he asked me…what are you doing to look after yourself now? It really made me think. Sadly none.

A few years ago I really focused on this stuff, I read a lot of books, I embraced me more, I sought out like minded people, I accepted that I have had a shit life but I had an opportunity now and I could be ok with good days and bad days. Fast forward a few years to today and I felt sick. I had therapy, I sought help, I rested when I needed to and I pushed myself other days when I could. I paid all my debt off, I raised my daughter, I worked hard, I did what I needed to do and I kept doing it.

Today, I hide. I hide myself away from the world when I’m not at work, I don’t look after myself either physical or emotionally, I’ve sunk to a place I have never been before. It’s more visible now to others than it’s ever been on how low I am, and I hate that. I’ve seriously dropped the ball. More than that, I hate the way I’m impacting others around me, these people are on my side, I’ve pushed them away and I’m not trusting them, this is not me.

What you think you get. I’ve forgotten my strengths and what ‘good’ looks like for me, my environment isn’t feeding me well.

I’ve lost sight of what’s possible and instead I have just closed myself in to (and I hate this word) wallow in shit I’m creating myself. When I say myself, I mean my mind.

Now I can see where this has come from, it’s a weakness issue. I made myself stronger some years ago when I feel it was taken away. Both my mental and physical health deteriorated and not all is my fault, but it’s where it began. My physical issues have kept pushing me down below the line with some sense of injustice and unfairness. But it is part of life and I need to deal with it, create a new normal, and this isn’t where I’ve really struggled. When I even think about what I can do it rips fear into me.

So, sounds odd but I need to stop feeling again, for a while at least. I do need to ‘snap myself out of it’.

I need to take action. I need to fight.

I love the question that started this thought process off;  “what are you doing to look after yourself now?”. 

It is a simple question but it doesn’t necessarily have a simple answer. I can almost guarantee that if you asked one hundred survivors, at first, they would answer that they were doing fine. After a few minutes, as the realisation sunk in, I would wager a large proportion would need to reconsider their answer. That’s because it is easy to fall into the trap of thinking things are going well. The journey is bloody tough so it stands to reason that it is really difficult to see when things are going badly.

So, what are you doing to look after yourself now?