This is such a hard topic for me to cover.  As I am sitting in my office, trying to figure out what to write about this popped into my head.  If you are anything like me, (a dedicated housewife that gets joy in taking care of others) it’s hard to put yourself first.  This all started about a year and a half ago. I was struggling with some major issues. Issues that we so overwhelming and painful that I sought out a psychologist to try and move past them. I was stressed out at work, overwhelmed at school and just in general doing way too much without taking ANY time to try and process what my day was like. Let alone any of the other life changing events I had lived through in the past few years. I never dealt with my husband getting cancer and the devastation it caused me not constantly wonder if I was going to become a widow. I never even attempted to release the left over fear that it would comeback once he was cleared and deemed cancer free almost two years ago. I never dealt with the passing of my great god mother after losing her to cancer just when I felt I was building an amazing relationship with her as an adult. I never dealt with a truck load of other issues that kept stacking on my plate. Instead, I would bury myself in school or work. I would not let myself think about anything other than making it through the next day. Sometimes my anxiety would get so bad that I would have to focus on getting through the next hour without snapping or crying at work over something that was completely stupid and pointless like a catty email. The stress just kept mounting, all the while I would have my friends and coworkers constantly tell me that they didn’t know how I did it all. Little did anyone know expect a few people that I wasn’t handling it well. I was cracking; using duct tape and super glue and my cheerleader smile to try and hold myself together and all they had to do was read the signs of my coming demise. I was not the fun, amazingly positive person who could take on the world anymore.  I wasn’t caring and willing to help others. I wasn’t person who always looked at the bright side of everything was a person in pain. I was a person that was dealing with depression and stress in unhealthy ways. I stopped caring about what I ate and my health after being so conscious about being healthy for my future children for years. Instead I would focus on getting joy from my food, such as candy bars and other process snack items. I stopped exercising and spending time outside because that was time that I would normally think and recoup from my day. I basically stopped doing things that made me feel, because feelings were hard and messy to deal with.  It finally got to the point that I felt like I was cracking and needed some outside help.   I went in search of a psychologist that dealt with drug additions. Not because I had any drug or food addictions, but I figured that if they could help someone that has to change their brain chemistry from drugs, then my issues won’t be so bad.

Boy was I in for a tough road. I ended up finding a doctor that was close to home and started working with him to help get me out of the funk I had sunken into.  And mannnnn, was it hard. Sometimes I would leave these sessions so mentally exhausted that I couldn’t go to work right away afterwards. I would have to go and take a break and eat something because I felt exhausted and rung out emotionally and physically, like I had been hit with a mac truck.  It was not easy to face my own demons that I had created in order to avoid my emotions. Fast forward Six months of intense sessions and I finally felt that I had learned a few coping mechanism to move forward on my own.

The main thing that I had learned was that it was way too easy to not take care of myself. It was easier to take care of the pets, Ben or anything under the sun then focus any amount of time on me.  Which brings me to today’s post. Are you taking care of yourself? This is not a surface question asking to see if you have shaved your legs or gotten a pedicure lately? This is a much deeper question about things you value and how you are living your life. Are you doing something that you love? If you are lucky enough to do this for work, then you are ahead of me and most people with jobs they don’t love and I congratulate you.  If not, and you just have a job to pay the bills and put money in your account, then are you engaging in a hobby that you love? Does it help you forget that running list that you have running in the back of your head at all times? Does it help you forget everything that you are responsible for? Does it drop you into another world and forget what time it is until you surface? This is how I feel when I write and work on websites. I love writing. I feel that I can finally get a part of me out of my head and share it with the world. I also swear that I can feel my muse wiggle around with joy. It can be such a reward experience that sometimes it’s hard to believe that I am the one that created the content staring back at me from my computer screen.  It feels like I have been taken over by something and I am just the vessel to have the words come out of my fingertips. This is also how I feel when I work on websites. It’s a way for me to help people express their joy and desire to build a business. It’s also a way that I can give people their own vehicle to express what brings joy to their lives and not  what they have to do to pay the bills.

So how does this help you? Well to be honest this post is about helping me and helping you at the same time.  I was starting to feel those negative thoughts again, but I now have systems in place to correct that action. I sit down and write something that makes my muse very happy. I am working on a book about juggling school and work full time. This is something that I did for a 5 years and was able to exceled at both. It was a passion of mine to share my tips with my friends of how I did it and I want to help more people. I want to write a book that I would have killed to get my hands on when I had started school five years ago. It also is a way for me to cross something off my bucket list, becoming a published author using my talents to help make a bigger impact on the world. I am also working on more blog post and other drafts of books. I’m working on websites for a lot of different businesses, one page at a time.  What I am not doing is running away from feeling. I am making sure that I don’t overload my schedule so that I am constantly going from one task to the next. Getting the high that comes with accomplishing something all the time while people play and letting myself avoiding down time like the plague. I am not running around like a chicken without my head avoiding my emotions anymore and it feels good. I have even gone so far as to incorporate inspiring blog post into my rss reader so that I am slowly surrounding myself with things of beauty, love and inspiration that make me light up inside. Below are a few questions that I feel you should ask yourself to see if you are taking care of yourself as well as you should? I understand the guilt of not being the best person that everyone can rely on. Always working and making things run smooth in the background. But as many people have said before me. If you don’t take care of yourself then you have nothing left to give. If you don’t believe me, read the beginning of the post again, because that is just one of the many results of years of not taking care of yourself. Your family and friends deserve the best version of you. It’s your job to make sure that you build in steps to help you maintain that. If you have any tips on what you do to make sure you are the best version of you please post it in the comments below. I love reading your comments and learning new tips to take better care of myself.

Are you taking Care of yourself check list?