I am a very busy person. I am also a highly organised person, so normally I am quite capable of juggling all my different responsibilities. But recently we have found out that we have to move house, so this has given me another ball to juggle. I find it becoming harder to keep all balls in the air.
So naturally when things become chaotic in my life, I go in survival mode. I focus on what is important immediately and neglect the rest. Which is what I have been doing the last few weeks. The stupid thing is, the things that matter to me most on a personal level are the things that suffer first. I still have to go to work, so I cannot ignore my job. We had to find a place to live and lots of paperwork to fill out, so that could not be neglected. The kids still had to be fed and clothed and they had to their homework and go to school, so can’t ignore them either. So in the end, my “spare” time which normally goes towards writing, went towards all those other things.
The result: I lost my libido, so no daily orgasms, which meant I felt even more drained and uninspired than usual. In the middle of last week it hit me: I need to stand up for myself and make writing one of my priorities. I am happiest while I write and when I am happy I am more productive and more fun to be around. So I focused on the house stuff during my lunch hour and wrote in the morning before the kids woke up.
You hear a lot about self care these days. Self care is important. It doesn’t matter what form that takes, whether it is finding some quiet time to read a book, having a nice soak in the bath or curling up with a glass of wine and a movie. My form of self care is writing, so I am now making sure that I take some time each day to write. Doesn’t have to be long, and what I write doesn’t have to be perfect, but I need to take time to do it to keep my sanity and to keep my stress levels down.
How do you practice self care?