Time to enjoy life

The sun is shining through the curtains. It's early morning, and I wake up with just a light headache.
In about two hours I have an appointment with my chiropractor, so I boost myself with a good amount of coffee. I'm always a bit scared when I go to him. Not scared of him, but for the pain he causes me while I lay there getting my neck and back cracked.

Today he was pretty kind on me. Sure, he gave me a good dose of pain, but in a good way. Everytime I leave there, I'm so grateful to be able to take deep breaths again, and move my neck (and head!) Earlier, I haven't been so good at looking after myself, but I'm getting better and better at it.

When You are taught to always care about others in the first place, it'll probably take some serious efforts to balance everything right. Caring about yourself doesn't feel kind, maybe it also feels very, very awkward. Maybe you've been called egoistic, naive or stupid the times you've tried earlier in your life. So, selflove isn't natural to you. But it can be!
I've worked so hard on this for several years now, and it finally starts to give results. It's a balancing act all the way - how much should you care about yourself? How often is it ok to actually say no? How do you avoid being too absorbed in your own? How do you care enough about others?

Everyone has their own limits, and should get to know them in every way they can. What is right for me might not be ok or even possible for you. Here's examples of how I did it (and still am...):


-Right now I'm thural about taking time to myself. For me, as a mother of four and a husband on the autistic spectra, it is absoultely a question about survival (mental survival most of all). It can be as simple as getting a box of sushi and going out in a park to enjoy it in silence, it can be a coffe from McDonalds' in the car at the trainstations parkinglot, it can be just sitting at the library with my nose in some magazines. The important thing here is that I am all by myself. No friends, no pets, nobody but just me. In silence. And this - no cellphone!
-Before my husband came into my life, I used to take long walks in the Woods. Often with a small lunch in the backpacker, and maybe a book. My oldest sons don't have a father (he isn't dead, he's just moved to another country and never were heard from again, but that's yet another story), so they're always at home with me. Here I can tell you that it was, in the beginning, extremely hard for me to just "be egoistic" and (for example) not buy anything for them when I bought some treats for just me, or make up for the two hours I left the house... Guilty consious de lux, yepp.
-I don't usually buy so much stuff at all, if I really don't need it. But every now and then, I buy a book or some pencils that I really want (even though I have a good amount of pencils already), or I buy a new piece of clothing (outlet often), and I try not to buy anything for anybody else in our family.
No, my kids do not run around naked or in rags. But I give them an amount every other month to buy clothes, shoes or what they need, so they are good there. I'm just trying to teach myself that I am worthy of a little selflove and being spoiled too from time to time.

Those of you who have kids know very well what I'm aiming at, right? To take time to myself has become necessary to be able to stand up for a whole week. The time I give to myself is giving me so much more energy to be a better mom, wife and friend. If everything at home is taken care of in the best of ways, I really think I deserve an hour at least just sipping tea or coffee, reading my book.
Because, frankly, the dishes will wait for me (if my loved isn't doing them), and there will always be clothes left to wash. So, time alone is time well invested in the long run.

This hasn't been easy at all. In the beginning, all I heard in my head (altohough I just grabbed a coffe to go on my way to kindergarden) was how lousy I were to spoil my self with just that coffee. Why should I? But the result was that I really couldn't enjoy my coffee at all, and that was a waste if any. Buy coffee just to throw it away out of guilt.... Go me....
By now I always repeat in my head, as a kind of mantra "It's my right to enjoy this coffee, it's my right to take deep breaths, it's my right to...." You get it?
So. Go out there and demand at least one hour (two if possible, that's how long it takes for your body to calm down) maybe two times a week. Everybody will benefit from it in the long run! <3