We begin the year 2023. It is a beginning, although for many of us that feeling is stronger in September.
At every beginning we have the opportunity to learn to take care of ourselves better than we have been able to do until then Knowing how we stand in different aspects can serve as a basis from which to explore options that best fit our current life situation.
Areas in which to promote self-care from the month of January
Here I propose five areas around which to reflect on how we take care of ourselves:
1. The basics: food and rest
Is it easy for you to follow eating and rest guidelines that feel good to you? If not, what is the reason?
Sometimes it seems like it’s as simple as deciding to eat better or rest more. However, reality is usually somewhat more complex For example, sometimes you don’t rest, because your worries don’t allow it. These concerns usually have to do with people you love or situations that are of great vital importance.
Another example may be when we do not eat as we would like. It is taken for granted that we will know how to buy and cook, that we will have the time and skills to do so, as well as the necessary conditions to enjoy food with the peace of mind that we would like. In contemporary life, these are all assumptions that do not usually correspond to reality. However, We tend to feel guilty for not eating as we think we should
2. Personal relationships
In reality, just as important as food and rest.
How do the people with whom we share life make us feel? Give us some time to explore how we meet those around us It can give us many clues about what is working well in our lives and what we maintain even though it does us harm.
Those relationships that we maintain have meaning for us and understand the depth of what unites us It is essential to decide the relationships we maintain and those we end.
3. Physical environments
In what places do you spend your life? How do you feel in them? What do you need the physical environments in which you spend most of your time to be?
There are people who find calm surrounded by people and with many sounds in the environment, whose restlessness is triggered in places with few people and sounds. At the other extreme there are people who only feel comfortable being alone and in silence.
There are other dimensions to wonder about how we feel in different environments Some examples are: natural or urban spaces, degree of order and cleanliness that I need or the impact of aspects such as the level of luminosity and temperature.
At the beginning of the year: do you go to environments where you feel comfortable?
4. The new and interesting
Do you allow yourself to live new experiences? What impact do they have on you? Is there a longing to dare to experience something? What would help you do it?
The feeling of vitality is linked to the new and interesting being present in our lives And this is different for each person. There are people who need the new constantly, without reaching a greater level of depth.
For other people, the new thing that attracts them has infinite nuances, so there is a feeling of vitality as you delve deeper into what you are getting to know. Likewise, for other people, anxiety in the face of the unknown is unsustainable and stability and predictability take on great importance, sacrificing the feeling of vitality.
Do you identify with any of the above options? How do you take care of your way of relating to the new and unexpected, whatever that way may be?
5. Medium and long term
The life we ​​live happens in the present moment although, in some way, we are chasing a place (a way of being in life) that is in the future
For some people, that future is clearly defined and any modification – inevitable in the course of life – makes them sink, because they feel that they have lost the map.
On the other hand, for other people the future is something completely indefinite, although their way of being in the world still has a certain direction anyway, that is, staying as one is is a direction in itself.
Other people have a desired and relatively explicit future and, at the same time, there are a clarity in which that future will be modified every moment
What is it like for you? Which of the options presented regarding how you live your future do you feel most identified with?
Conclusion
These are five areas through which we can better understand how we are at this moment in our lives and, where appropriate, implement what is necessary to expand our ways of being in the world and feel more satisfied in this year than starts.