Tell a busy mother with three young kids, a full-time job, and friends and family who demand her time that she needs to add more self-care to her life.
She might throw something at you.
Or the busy executive who is putting in 70-hour work weeks, trying to get ahead, get that promotion or land the next big deal – tell him to slow down and take a moment to see how he is doing inside.
That will get a laugh for sure.
As the pace of the world continues to quicken, the last thing we have time for is ourselves. Until something goes wrong.
The body has subtle ways of getting our attention, like little aches and pains that don’t go away, digestive upsets, an immune system that doesn’t fight off any cold that anyone within 50 feet of you has, and other nagging annoyances.
Instead of trying to figure out what is wrong, we reach for painkillers, antacids, NyQuil and any other pill we can take to make the symptoms go away so we can continue being busy.
Then one day the body has had enough. The symptoms that you have been masking suddenly turn into full-fledged issues.
You can no longer ignore what is going on.
But it doesn’t have to come to this. By spending as little as 10 minutes a day with yourself, whether meditating or just watching the clouds roll by, you can begin to hear what the body is trying to whisper to you long before it has to start yelling.
Make this the first step towards a new self-care routine. Commit 10 minutes every day to be alone, somewhere quiet, and don’t use this time to think of all that you have to do when the minutes are up.
And if you don’t have time to take 10 minutes for yourself, then make it 20. You really need to check in before something forces you to stop.