Permission to pause
Hello ladies!
It’s been a HOT second since I posted but it has been a very busy fall so far and it’s about to get even crazier! That fact actually helps me segway into my point tonight: self-care. There are literally hundreds of articles, videos, and blogs about taking care of yourself and why it’s essential. I have to say I agree with that. Often times, it is very easy to feel like taking time for yourself is selfish. However, you can easily burn out if you don’t (which I know firsthand). For the last couple of days, I’ve been trying to take a few minutes every day to take a mental breath.
I got a couple different apps to try out to help me in my self-care quest. The first one is called Simple Habit. It has an option for a paid membership but currently I’m using the basic option. Basically, the app is five minutes a day of meditation that focuses on different things (i.e. body awareness, breathing control, etc.) The second app i’ve been using is called Slumber which is supposed to promote better sleep and help with anxiety as well as a few other categories. This app includes sleep stories, meditations, nature sounds, and a whole bunch of other goodies. There is also a paid option for this app but right now i’m using two of the free stories/nature sounds. Both of these have been helping me become more aware of taking care of my mental health as well. It is super important to get good sleep and enough sleep, which, admittedly, i’m AWFUL at. I spend too much time on my phone and sleep in waaayyy too late on the weekends/days off. This means that I don’t have a set sleep schedule which is actually really bad for your health. It makes everything more difficult including weight loss which i’m also struggling through (I may or may not have had McDonald’s today but tomorrow is a new day). Other things you can do for self-care like exercise, eating healthy, having “spa” days, mani/pedis, girl’s weekends, movie nights...the possibilities are endless. However, the MOST important thing about taking care of yourself is that you can best serve the Lord and others when you’re taking care of your mental and physical health. That’s not to say there won’t be days where you’re just not feeling great or it’s just a frustrating day, but I believe that God wants us to care for ourselves because He made us and when we take care we’re glorifying His creation. And that’s definitely NOT selfish.
I hope this helps you. I hope you have a great rest of your week and i’ll talk to ya’ll next time
Love and blessings,
Mariah xo