Take Care of Yourself
Above is a picture of a card I received in December 2019. It is from a woman who a few years earlier took on the Herculean task of creating a resumé for me. I keep it on my night stand for two reasons. The first is I like to look at it. The other is it is a reminder to take care of myself, because we never know what the future holds. That reminder comes in the short phrase, “Hope 2020 is a great year for you!”.
The pandemic, with its devastation, destruction, uncertainty, and very real and constant threat of something dangerous lurking among us, turned up the volume on my anxiety, fear and just about every other negative emotion I had. I didn’t want to live in a constant state of fear and anxiety and I had time on my hands, so I started to figure out what I could do to make myself feel better.
It turned out to be what was most easily available to me. Daily meditation, long walks with Brandy (our dog), prayer, reading for enjoyment and time with the people I love most. In addition, I found decluttering and cleaning felt good on some days, but not every day. The same was true for cooking and baking. It’s not that I didn’t do these things before the pandemic, I just didn’t take the time to notice how doing them made me feel.
My thinking about what it meant to take care of myself and its importance started to shift. It amazed me that simple things like prayer, going for a walk, meditation, finding time to read for fun and connecting with the people I love didn’t take much effort or time but gave me so much calm, clarity and energy. It also made gratitude, kindness, humility and forgiveness come much more easily and doing and getting through hard things a little less difficult.
Being diagnosed with breast cancer was my wake up call about just how important taking care of myself is. It was my body’s way of telling me it had had enough of all of the stress and anxiety it had carried around for far too long. I could no longer think of taking care of myself as something to do if I had the time. I had to make time for it every day and accept full responsibility for it.
A friend of mine recently asked how to be hopeful with all of the awfulness going on in the world right now. My response was, “Take care of yourself.” She has a lot going on including an intense job and being the primary caregiver for a family member.
I suggested some things she could try to start feeling better - get more rest, consume less news, get back to activities she enjoys like needlepoint and listening to live music. As I was clicking off different things she could do to feel better and be more hopeful, I could tell she was getting angry. I knew for sure she was angry when she said, “This isn’t helpful. I don’t have time for any of those things!” I responded by quoting Marge Gunderson from the movie Fargo, “Sir, you have no call to get snippy with me. I’m just doing my job here.” We both laughed, which made us feel a lot better. Before we hung up, she said she would try one or two of the things I suggested.
Things are really hard right now but life is both beautiful and hard. We don’t know which it will be tomorrow. My wish for anyone reading this is that you are doing what you can to take care of yourself, so you can enjoy life’s goodness and get through it difficulties.
