Self - Snog, Marry, Avoid

It's tricky the modern concept of self care. It can slip into all sorts unhealthy obsessions. "If you haven't got your health, youve got nothing." Where does that leave the chronically ill? Is this ablist?

On the other hand, self soothing is very dangerous and turns to addiction all too quickly - i know this very well via food and sex and other things. The thing doesnt matter as much as the addictive need to soothe oneself in times of stress, and of course if our mindset is corrupted, as mine was by my own thinking, amngst other things - we are always in a state of stress, so always need the dopamine hit to soothe us.

Do we snog (self soothe), marry (become self obsessed) or avoid (look at what Trump is doing now). Each of these examples I give are, of course, extreme exaggerations, but all to easy to slide towards.

I have always been an advocate of Balance. Two of the greatest people in my life Philip and Merle Newell, taught me how to be appropriate - ie the concept of behaving according to the context. Some see this as fake, or weak, and certainly if overdone (again guilty as charged) it can be that. However, if we truly look to have fun when we can, focus when we need to on the right things for work, or friending, or husbanding etc, we can make Balance a keeyword and a structure for this crazy world.

Focus is not 100%, i believe. This is a simplification of the process known as "the flow" or "the zone" used most often at the moment in sports psychology. It is NOT demanding our behaviour and conscious attention and all our muscles and spirit be focussed on one thing, or one aspect of a task. If we continued to do this with our activities, we would never gain mastery. It is important when we first walk, of course, to concentrate on arms out and balance. If however we wiated for that to be perfect, we would never move on and accomodate that skill into the overall action of walking. We dont focus on every muscle movement to get the fork to our mouths, forever - we trust we have mastered this enough and our brain to remember the process and move forward.

Our self care must be similar. Obsession with always going to the gym, never eating fat, never resting for too long feeds our brains need for patterns and predicatability - it is comforting to do these over and over. Before long we forget to focus on why. Why do we go to gym, run, etc. The answer is to always have the core value of a healthy body to meet out full potential as human beings. Not just to do, but to be.

I forgot this for30 years, and at 57 am paying the price for that - it is incredibly difficult to be fit after such a long time. I am doing it step by step, trusting my brain will remember how I was when i was thin and sporty, not for the skinniness itself but because then I can get more power in my golf shot, for example. Balance, self review and getting out and doing it. These are my focii for now.