It's Not Selfish, It's Self-Love.

These past few days have been a struggle. Whether it’s the lingering winter in Canada or just that time in my life. I needed to step back a bit. After a conversation with my inspiration and friend Mieka, her words struck that place inside me that needed to hear them “step back and give yourself the room to land in your space again.” 

It made perfect sense. Between releasing a book, and my full time job, I had been on the road for more than 3 weeks back to back, and working long days and weeks for the past 4 months. My entire life has been one constant progression of change. Now and again, it’s ok to step back and readjust, rebalance, settle in.

With change comes the many ripples that reflect out into all the different areas of your life. Whether it’s a shift in expectations, needs, demands, and even relationships. As we continue to transform our lives from one day to the next, we have to be able to embrace the waves that will reach out and touch the other corners of our lives. The change isn’t always the hard part, it’s the effects we don’t anticipate it has on everything else in our lives.

Most importantly, in order to find the space I needed to “land back in my space,” was the permission I needed to give myself to sit back and not make that happen. Life is demanding enough, we do not need to add to our own stress by pushing ourselves to be all things to everyone at all times. The reality is our lives cannot progress without us. Therefore, at what point do we allow ourselves permission to adjust to a more manageable pace?

I spoke to a friend today, he was frustrated, annoyed with life this very moment. Overwhelmed by the demands on him to the point he hasn’t even stopped to eat lunch in weeks. I couldn’t help but sit on the other end of that phone call knowing I’d had the same conversation just a few days ago with Mieka. Now I understood it even more clearly. We both had to give ourselves permission to let go of the unexpressed demands we felt upon ourselves. To step back and take care of the things that we needed to feel whole and complete. Our lives literally CANNOT go on without us. So why do we find it so difficult sometimes to put our own basic needs first?

We hear it all the time, let’s try it. Stop whatever you are doing…what does your body, heart or mind need right now? Sleep? Food? A talk with a friend? Quiet?

In life and in love, we cannot take care of anything or anyone until we have taken care of ourselves first. It’s not selfish, it’s self-love. Try it! The demands we think the world has of us are all in our head. Unless you have some proof that I don’t have that they exist as you believe they do?