Self-Care Week 4

Self-care strategy #4: Community - Seek Support

How many times have you found yourself 'needing a hand' but not asking for help.  Me, almost daily. 

Many of us have a self-critic who has us convinced we have to do it all, on our own.  This is quite simply impossible. 

There is no weakness in asking for help.  Oh how much easier life (or just that one task) could be, if we would just seek support! Drop the ego, smack the self-critic and care for ourselves, by asking for a hand. 
And sometimes the help we need isn't a 'hand', its actually a hug. 

A shoulder to lean on. 

Someone by our side. 

A cheerleader.

A recent study showed that loneliness and social isolation increased risk of cardiovascular disease by 29%. And if you aren't aware, cardiovascular disease is the leading cause of death and more deadly than all cancers combined. Yikes.

So basically, to survive, we need people. 

So go seek and find. 

And stop isolating yourself because its killing you. 

Having community, a tribe, a posse, family, friends or whatever you want to call 'your people' is essential to our health. We are, after all, social beings. This is why this week's self-care strategy is community - seeking (and finding) the support you need.

And I don't mean on facebook.

Get off that device, get face to face, and get people in your life that help fill you up. Push you forward. Make you smile.
 

And don't get sucked into the idea that you can satisfy your innate need for people with texts or digital tools. The superficiality of this type of communication completely misses the mark, void of the emotional context and depth we need to feel supported.

I'm lucky enough to have family (and friends) that support me in an unconditional manner, but it took a long time for me to reach out to these supportive individuals when I needed them most.  I didn't want to be seen as incapable of 'takin care of business' on my own.

What I realized (with time and maturity), is you can share in your accomplishments with others when you allow them to support you and you get there faster when you ask for the help you need. 

This side of self-care is allowing yourself to be vulnerable and nurturing that vulnerability with people who care. 

And if you don't share genetics with your tribe, that's perfectly fine. Fantastic actually.

In adulthood, setting boundaries with family and finding that sense of support outside of your original family unit can be a crucial component of self-care.

Find individuals that bring you joy and would never tear you down.

Self-care is making sure your seek out a posse that brings you positivity.

Throughout these seven weeks of self-care I want to encourage you to take care of you, and this week focus on connectedness because "people who need people are the luckiest people in the world".