Self-Care is one of the most important things a
person can do for themselves. It is
difficult to pour from an empty cup.
While one may appear to have it all together and on point with their day
to day existence, lack of self- care will expose your truth eventually. While self-care consists of small gestures to
care for oneself, these gestures are very important. Lack of self-care can chip away at the
authentic person you are or the masked person you pretend to be. However, I must flip the coin because if you
don’t possess self-care then you do not know how to care for yourself. When you don’t have self-love you allow
people, including you, to misuse you and/or abuse you. You become a doormat, a revolving door for
others, and/or will lash out at the wrong people.
As I began to write this and put it into words, I
reflected on many individuals whom I meet that do not have self-love. How do you teach someone to develop
self-love? How do you teach someone
self-worth? How did they come to not
know how valuable their own happiness and existence is? There are so many “How’s” to question. While venting to my own therapist, I was
reminded that all our “roots” stem from childhood. That which we experience in childhood good
and bad will guide us into our adulthood.
Childhood experiences can and most often will determine our present and
future.
While some of us may have experienced questionable
childhoods, it is still up to us to design “our” blueprint for our lives. I have always had self-love even when I
weighed less than 110 pounds as an adult for numerous years. I always knew that I was beautiful, no one
had to tell me this. Maybe a little thin
but I was beautiful; my response would always be when you become fat with age,
I will become fine. When people told me
that I was unable to achieve because of, I achieved it despite what I was
told. I also had to realize that
everyone was not built like me, everyone was not resilient like me, everyone
wasn’t determined like me, and some settled for whatever unlike me. I must remember that most people will not do a
self-evaluation, and do not know how to do a self-evaluation because of the
façade they have displaced for so long.
Self-evaluation requires you to peel back the
layers of hurt, pain, disappointments, victories, near victories, and the hits
and misses. Self-evaluation requires you
to accept responsibility for yourself.
Self-evaluation required you to examine your love for yourself. It requires you to see what’s missing and why
you allow yourself to be treated a certain way.
Everything we do begins with self.
While we can examine others and their faults and flaws, it ultimately
comes back to examining self, especially if you’re in a relationship with
someone who treats you less than.
Knowing your worth is important; knowing yourself is important. While I love my parents, spouse, children,
and friends, I love myself more. I love
myself enough to know I must effectively take care of me in order to take care
of them. Do a self-examination to see the
quality of your self-care and self-love.
#DocDee
