In the last few days of 2022, leading up to 2023, I saw a few of my friends post a photo meme of a man on a phone talking to God and saying, “Dear God, I hope I’m not on your strongest soldiers list for 2023”. I smiled, but the idea was clear. We are quite familiar with the statement that the hardest battles are given to the strongest soldiers and many of us had some really hard battles in 2022. We don’t want the same kind of year again.
We had to be strong and resilient and super capable and multi-functional and we are just plain tired.
Yes, we are geared up for 2023 and we do want to be happy, to be prosperous, to lose weight, to write books, to build homes, to create new products, to get married and all the wonderful things.
With everything we have in mind for our top 10 list of to-dos, self-care cannot be number eight, nine or 10. In fact, let’s not even make self-care number two or three. Let’s be radical and try something new.
Let’s make this self-care thing a part of each and every one of the other goals.
Let’s look at the stark reality of life: We focus a lot on goals that other people can see; we think we have to lift twice our weight in burdens to prove we are strong; we glorify the struggle because we get to boast about how rough life is.
Can we change this? Can we reconstruct the whole picture and try something new?
If you want to lose weight, rest, sleep and stress-management is essential.
If you plan to make money and build a business, self-care helps you with clarity and focus.
If your objective is to do well at work, then work-life balance must become the norm.
Hoping to enhance your relationship? Then self-care helps you to be calmer, more centered and easier to be around.
Self-care can be attached to each and every goal and objective that you have in 2023.
Individually and collectively many of us have been tired, stressed, carrying a lot of grief and trauma and just generally overwhelmed. Let’s change the narrative and make our new normal a situation where we seek to thrive, pause often, inject more rest and laughter into our lives, spend time in nature and find joy in sometimes doing nothing.
Let’s get together to draw and paint. Let’s swap pity parties for gratitude parties. Let’s restore what was depleted and inject a thread of loving compassion for self into all we do so that the fabric of our lives will be richer and more balanced.
Send your questions and comments to [email protected]. Your emails are confidential. Let’s do 2023 together, supporting each other and learning from each other.
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