As we enter the last month of the first quarter of 2024 and winter season is ending, it’s a good time to do a self-care check-in. The holidays and Chinese New Year is behind us, and now the question is, “How are you going to choose to spend the next 10 months regarding your health and well-being?”
Are some of your new year’s resolutions to get back in shape, to eat better, or focus on creating more abundance or happiness in your life? Only you can determine what you truly want. You have the power of freedom of choice. How you choose to spend your time, resources, and what you focus on is entirely up to you.
I have observed through the years, that how each person takes care of themselves has many facets, primarily because of our own unique set of values. Your values dictate the decisions you make – if you value making money over having vibrant health, you will choose to work and find money-making opportunities over spending time and money on supplements or any health-enhancing services that would help you to stay healthy and well.
When a symptom persists, that disturbs your ability to function or enjoy your life, it prompts you to take action and find a way to resolve it. Sometimes the frustrating part of getting better and healing is that we want something or someone to just “fix it,” and we expect it to be resolved NOW. This is in large part, due to our societal conditioning of having things happen in a snap or at a push of a button.
The tricky part about healing is that it is not linear but actually, chaotic in nature. Awareness is the first essential component towards healing, because until you become aware of what is at the root of your symptom, true healing will be elusive. If you have pain, you might take a pain killer, which may work initially and then fail over time. Until you change or shift your behavior you will keep re-exacerbating the symptom. You can go to an acupuncturist, massage therapist, chiropractor, or healer and may initially find relief, but until you take ownership for the cause of the symptom, it will just be a matter of time before the symptom returns.
Therefore, I come back to the concept of self-care. By taking care of your “self” and becoming clear about what works for you and what doesn’t, will help you navigate through any symptoms that arise. The tricky part about symptoms is that sometimes making positive changes in your life can cause a decrease or an increase in the symptom’s intensity.
You might be thinking, “Huh? That doesn’t make sense. Wouldn’t making positive changes improve the symptom instead of make it worse?” The explanation is that the element of change is the X-factor. Whenever you embark on something new and foreign, it amplifies your stress because you don’t know whether you will benefit or suffer from this change in behavior or experience. So, it is the change to a new state of awareness that may cause you to have either an adverse reaction, or a positive reaction.
The one thing that you can never go wrong with is to choose your “self” and listen to your intuition. Your intuition is that little voice inside that gently guides you. Choosing to listen instead of overriding it, can make all the difference.
How many times have you overrode that little voice and then regretted it later? My recommendation is to take some time to quiet your mind every now and again. Pause before deciding, in order to check in to see what feels right and what doesn’t. In doing so, you will begin to train yourself to start tuning in to what feels right, and you’ll start doing things that are for your highest good versus letting your mind “should” you into making decisions.
Finally, take the time to determine what your highest values are. If you do this one action, you will self-sabotage and judge yourself way less because you know that what you are doing or not doing is because you are aligned with your highest values.