Vision board in progress...
Recently, I had a couple of friends over for Girl Time. They were invited to wear pajamas, bring creative projects or not, explore creative projects or nap or pet my dog, and eat nourishing foods or not. See the "or not" part? That's the important part. My whole aim was to give myself and my friends permission to do or to be exactly what they needed in the moment. Some of us did vision boards, like mine above. Others colored or brought personal projects to engage their creativity. And when they left or after they got home, I got text messages that included, "I didn't realize how much I needed that."
What I see in myself, my friends, and my clients is a lot of saying yes to other people which leads us to saying no to ourselves. The "That" my friend was referring to in her text message is a permission slip. While we were probably seasoned about asking for one from our parents when we were kids, we now don't know who to ask to give us the permission slip to take care of ourselves.
The whole reason I have a job is because we are not taking care of ourselves. Our culture has a large story around it's selfish, or there's not enough time. And therein lies the issue. To be our most productive, contributing members of society whether that's as a mom or dad or professional or both or sometimes all three as a single parent, we need to have charged batteries. If you are never writing yourself a permission slip to do the things which help you charge your batteries, eventually you become depleted, your immune system starts to struggle (quietly at first before developing into a full-on roar), and things begin to fall apart around you.
No one benefits when you are depleted, when your batteries are dead.
Writing yourself a permission slip is a key to staying healthy. When you think about what would help you charge your batteries, restore and recover, what does that look like? What activities help you calm your nervous system? If you were to write yourself a permission slip right now, what would it say? Some days mine would say, "Please excuse Molly from vacuuming, she needs a warm bath with epsom salt and lavender oil." My invitation to you is pull out a piece of paper and for the next few minutes, write yourself a permission slip. And then, those activities or lack of activities on that piece of paper, respect yourself so much that you actually follow-through with your permission slip sometime in the next week. You are worth it. The world is a better place when we each take great care of ourselves.
What I see in myself, my friends, and my clients is a lot of saying yes to other people which leads us to saying no to ourselves. The "That" my friend was referring to in her text message is a permission slip. While we were probably seasoned about asking for one from our parents when we were kids, we now don't know who to ask to give us the permission slip to take care of ourselves.
The whole reason I have a job is because we are not taking care of ourselves. Our culture has a large story around it's selfish, or there's not enough time. And therein lies the issue. To be our most productive, contributing members of society whether that's as a mom or dad or professional or both or sometimes all three as a single parent, we need to have charged batteries. If you are never writing yourself a permission slip to do the things which help you charge your batteries, eventually you become depleted, your immune system starts to struggle (quietly at first before developing into a full-on roar), and things begin to fall apart around you.
No one benefits when you are depleted, when your batteries are dead.
Writing yourself a permission slip is a key to staying healthy. When you think about what would help you charge your batteries, restore and recover, what does that look like? What activities help you calm your nervous system? If you were to write yourself a permission slip right now, what would it say? Some days mine would say, "Please excuse Molly from vacuuming, she needs a warm bath with epsom salt and lavender oil." My invitation to you is pull out a piece of paper and for the next few minutes, write yourself a permission slip. And then, those activities or lack of activities on that piece of paper, respect yourself so much that you actually follow-through with your permission slip sometime in the next week. You are worth it. The world is a better place when we each take great care of ourselves.
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