Radvent 12/4 - Caring

Caring for yourself takes practice.

Amen to that!  Like so many other women, I love to care for other people but taking care of myself doesn't come quite as naturally.  It doesn't give me the instantaneous jolt of "way to go me!" feeling that reaching out to someone else does.  Tending to myself has always been something that I do more from the head (I know that I'm valuable and worthy of attention) than from my heart (but when it comes right down to a choice between them (family, friend, student) or me, I'm usually going to pick them).  I've been working on this since my mid-20's and I'm pretty sure I'm getting somewhere, but it takes practice.  Yes it does. 

These days, I care for myself by:

•  Moving every single day.  Some days it's a quick 20 minutes on the treadmill, some days it's a jog on the green way and some days I'm doing good to take the dog for a walk, but I do it.  It can be a real struggle to force myself into running shoes, but I'm always glad I did.  
• Eating with integrity.  I know it's not for everyone, but cutting meat (I do still eat fish) from my diet is one of the best decisions I've ever made.  Since I first gave any real thought to where my food came from as a teenager, I knew I didn't feel good about eating animals.  At that time I knew nothing about any of the compelling arguments for a plant-based diet, I just knew that it didn't feel right to me.  However, I figured that honoring this feeling was selfish and high-maintenance and so I went with the flow and carried on like everyone else.  Why rock the boat, right?  Around the time that Yogi was born I realized that I was eating for other people.  Sounds dramatic, doesn't it?  Well, it was.  When it finally hit me that I was making (rather fundamental) choices for myself in an effort to make things easier for others (who wants to be the difficult vegetarian at the dinner party?), I knew it was time to make a change.  After all, I'm somebody's Mama now and I have to be able to explain this stuff to my kid.  There is a lot of peace in having an answer that I can feel good  about.
• Making time for my writer self.  She's been in there since I was a kid, but I've never really taken her seriously.  There have been a few moments when I let her out for brief intervals, but most of my life I've told myself that writing was something other people do.  Talented people, creative people, people with trust funds, anybody but me.  I am happy to say that I'm telling myself something different these days.  Slowly I'm changing things and sometimes it feels like I'm actually getting somewhere.