Reverb12 Day Nine: Taking Care of Yourself

tyunglebower ♦ December 9, 2012 ♦ Leave a comment

It has been said that you must learn to take care of yourself before you can be effective at taking care of others.  How did you take care of yourself in 2012?  How will you take care of yourself in 2013?

So many actions and thoughts go into taking care of oneself. With few exceptions, I find that the first step is to be authentic to who one is. Honoring our strengths, accepting our weaknesses and embracing the totality of who we are as being worthy of life and love.

Not much else matters in the end if we find ourselves to be unacceptable.

I’m aware of that finest of lines between accepting our weaknesses and ignoring those aspects of ourselves that require improvement. I have no prescription for the perfect approach to the balance. I can only say that it is a balance towards which we must always aspire. For we can neither ignore those parts of us that are less developed, nor can we berate ourselves each day for our shortcomings.

That, in essence, is how I have tried to take care of myself in 2012. I’ve made a conscious effort to strike that healthy median. Through reflection and meditation, trial and error, consideration and doing as much with my life as I can on any given day, I seek to find that golden ratio wherein my endeavors at self correction lead to a better me without impeding the ability to accept myself as I am.

2013 will continue on this course, i think, as I seek now to not merely balance discipline with acceptance, but also to discern between traits and tendencies that are negatives, and those that simply are. Those traits which on the surface may seem like flaws, but do not in fact require either an apology nor acceptance. Rather personality traits about myself that far from being detrimental to my progress as a human may in fact,m if I learn to accept them, enhance that journey. Act as guides or catalysts for a change in myself and/or my situation which will give rise to the better me.

Yes. I think I’ll see more of me as characteristic, and less of me as problematic. That’s one way I’ll try to take care of myself in 2013.