Well then… I am obviously bad about remembering to keep up on this since I am not on a deadline to make sure that it is done. I am one week away from my six week follow-up appointment with my doctor and a lot has happened. It is difficult to write about topics that mentally and physically drain you while you are mentally and physically going through the motions. This is kind of the topic that I want to work through today. How can we be there to help others if we are not helping our “Self?” 

Oh No! It is the scare quotes! I purposely draw your attention to that word because it is the beginning of the work week for most and this is always the day that sets the tone for the rest of the week. This is undoubtably the hardest day to maintain some self care. Everyone comes at you asking “How was your weekend” or “Did you do anything fun?” It may seem daunting to answer those questions when you are feeling low after checking and seeing that you have several hundred emails to read through from the weekend. 

Co-workers and colleagues do not ask this (some could) to simply annoy you. They are asking because we spend so much time with them that we become a family of sorts to each other. Even though Janice (no relation to a real person – just a metaphor) is a bitch.  So back to the original question, how can we take care of our “Self?” This question is incredibly tough for me as I am constantly moving and doing many different things through out the week but I wanted to ask a couple other questions leading us to the first. 

• Are we drained because we did too much over the weekend and did not properly rest? 
• Are we exhausted because something is bothering us? 
• Are we tired because we forgot to eat a meal and then partner asks why did you do that?

Whatever the reason may be for being tired, exhausted, drained, or what ever qualifier you may find, there are things we can do to help bring us out of the funk. I find that a lot of my exhaustion results from dealing with a high stress work environment. This also leads me to be constantly hungry because my body does not leave this stressed feeling often which then leads me to overeating and that brings about negative thoughts – so you see the spiral of thoughts and how these emotions can become overwhelming quickly. 

Take some time today and think about what is bothering you. Follow that train of thought to the end of the line to the root cause of the stress. It is usually something very simple. Now that you have that root stressor in your hands, let out all of the breathe in your body. As you breathe back in, make that inhale last 8 seconds and take that emotion and ball it up. Hold that breathe for 8 seconds and sit with the stress balled up. Finally, let the breathe go for 8 seconds and as you let the air out – push that ball of stress outside of the body into the ground and let the earth take it. Repeat as needed.