I went to get my teeth cleaned yesterday. The dentist office isn’t my favorite place to visit yet I love the way it feels to have my teeth cleaned and polished up. Self-care is not only important it’s an integral part of practicing self-love. While talking with my hygienist she said she wants to exercise, to walk, BUT HER PLATE IS TOO FULL. I’ve been there. Believing my job is to care for everyone else and put myself last. Many of us have. My question now is, who is taking care of you?

Just who is filling your plate?

When I sit down to Thanksgiving dinner tomorrow there will be a plate in front of me. I’m grateful for this and all the delicious food that I’ll be sharing with my family. Yet, the plate is mine. It is for me to decide how much I put on it, how much I eat, and when I am full I can choose to remove anything I no longer desire. This is true for the plate of life. My plate is mine. You plate is yours. Each of us gets to decide what we fill it with or not. What we choose to add or subtract from the plate is entirely up to us. We are fully responsible for our own self-care, for what goes on our plate. Who and what is filling your plate? Who is caring for you?

I didn’t always think this way, until I realized that I am solely responsible for my own self-care. Sounds selfish, I know. It simply means I don’t rely on anyone but me for my own happiness and joy. Many of us, especially women, have been conditioned to believe that being ‘good’ means giving our time and energy to others. It becomes very easy to play the victim, blaming everyone and everything in life for taking up our time and energy. When, in truth, we are giving our energy away without ever filling ourselves up again. Who is taking care of you?

How you love yourself is how you teach others to love you ~Rupi Kaur

The disease to please isn’t only in women of my generation…the 50+ group. I see it in younger women all the time. Women who have given up on the gifts they bring to this world because someone said this is how life should be. We don’t have to buy into this any longer. We have the power to choose what is on our plate, and to choose those things that light us up…this is where our true gifts are. In the things that bring us joy.

For many years I believed that following my heart would mean abandoning my family. Quite the opposite is true. By not following my dreams I abandoned myself. In a way, this was abandoning my family. I believed loving myself and following my dreams was wrong and didn’t have the courage to follow my heart and demonstrate the power of self-love for my children. I never allowed them to consider who is taking care of you Mom?

Talk to yourself like someone you love ~Brene Brown

I’m on a mission to change lives. To serve women who been caring for everyone but themselves. To lead a self-love revolution so that we are all co-creating with life in a way that serves to bring more joy into our lives and into the world around us. I invite you into this beautiful loving practice, one small step at a time.

Who is taking are of you?

You are darling. The question is, how? Are you paying attention to you, making time for the things you love? To love yourself? Or are you filling your plate with responsibilities for others at the expense of your wellbeing? Are your nurturing the dreams of others and letting yours sit until someday? You do realize, all we have is now. Right?

In invite you into this vision of a world of love, and the practice of self-love. It takes courage dear heart. You’ll need to be willing to step outside of the belief systems that have dictated your life up until now. Self-love asks you to ignore the ‘voices of reason’ all around you, be still and listen to the whisper from within – the calling of your soul. It takes readiness to commit to yourself. Once I committed to me, I opened my life to more love than I ever imagined. Want to know the best part? All of this love is already here, within me and you, available in every moment. It simply takes the courage to choose you and the faith to know that loving yourself doesn’t take anything from anyone else rather it adds to the love vibration all around you. A ripple I know I am happy to put out into the world.

Are you taking care of you? I invite you in…into a conversation with me about you, self-love and living into the fullness of who you came here to be.

From my heart to yours,

Photo by Matthew T Rader on Unsplash