With spring on the horizon, I ask you to pause and reflect on this question: What’s one meaningful change would you like to experience this season?
Everyday, it’s easy to get caught up in the distractions and mindless energy consuming actions. With our well-being an afterthought. This seems to be a shared tendency among women identifying as a ‘selfless giver’. A selfless giver has her eyes set on meeting the needs of others first before her own. It’s a humble act of service. An admirable trait positively impacting the lives of others.
While the continual giving of self provides meaning, purpose, and satisfaction, it can also be draining to the mind, body, and spirit. Therefore, it needs to be replenished. A call to nurture your well-being.
Initially, this need for self-care is not as apparent. But eventually it grows into something you can no longer ignore when your well-being starts to suffer. Your passion for serving others has to be placed on hold as you acknowledge the need to focus the spotlight on you.
To continue to do what you love, you owe it to yourself to nurture your mind, body, and spirit.
Now the question is – “Would you wait until your well-being immensely suffers before considering a change?” or “Would you start making the changes today in alignment with who you are?”
What might help to reset the focus on yourself is to evoke meaning behind the change by imagining yourself in these two scenarios:
Scenario 1 – You continue day-in and day-out serving others without time for self-care
Scenario 2 – You’ve implemented a routine where both self-care and selfless-giving coexist.
When you place yourself in these two scenarios, you’ll notice that each will present a set of circumstances that you may find unpleasurable. Perhaps discomfort? Or maybe even pain?
In my morning daily devotionals, I listened to a woman share a story about pain to further explain a particular verse. It was about two contrasting paths where in both there will be a level of pain you’d experience. However, one path’s outcome is much greater and more rewarding than the other.
It’s the “Pain of Staying the Same” and the “Pain of Making a Change”.
Think about what it means for you to stay the same. How about with making a change? You may be familiar with the saying, growth happens outside of your comfort zone.
In relation to self-care, the outcome of change is where the blessing resides. The blessing of a resilient and thriving well-being.
Of course, the choice is up to you. Which path would you choose – stay the same or make a lifestyle change?
