When I am training PADI Rescue Divers, one of the points that I reiterate time and time again is …….
Look after yourself, you are number one.
You cannot assist in a rescue if you end up being one of the ones needing rescue.
I can be such a total hypocrite.
In times of stress, the first thing off my list that gets dumped … is looking after me.
I get busy running around doing extra things.
I keep going until I am tired.
I drink A LOT of coffee.
I go to the dairy and buy Raspberry Licorice twists and aside from that … I forget to eat.
I found a blog a couple of days ago – started by a bunch of women who were all supporting each other and blogging about their efforts to lose weight and get healthy. And the mood and feelings of the posts took a turn in the last week, when they started blogging about how the Feb 2011 Christchurch Earthquake had affected them.
Firstly – check out The Shrinking Violets
We talk about eating our feelings or drinking our feelings; I can relate to both of those.
Personally I tend to bottle my feelings up. I scrunch them so far down that there is space to pour more on top.
I do hide in my work. But I hide in the easy work – the stuff that doesnt require any reflection, any self analysis, any talk of feelings. Helping others but not helping myself.
I seem to have run in to this year in the exact same position that I was at the end of last year – exhausted, no groceries, car needing some oil and some love and washing scattered from one end of the house to the other.
I have joined Weight Watchers and am honestly committed to becoming more healthy.
But project: ME needs to expand its scope a little bit.
I can love my work and I can choose to hide in it in times of crisis but I need to appreciate that I am not going to be any use to anyone else (let alone myself) if I don’t start looking after myself better in the first place.
project: ME kicks in to a programme of work from today.
