Making Loving Choices For Yourself Can Be The Greatest Healer For Any Kind Of Stress

Help yourself heal from everyday stress by making loving choices for yourself, before the stress leads you into dark places that can make life difficult.

A few days ago I just could not drag myself out of the house to go to work. To make things worse it was a Monday morning. I had been working my head off all Sunday and the result? I was irritable, angry and grumpy.

The sad part is that people expect you to be Miss Perfect 24/7. You are never ever given the luxury of letting off steam. You just cannot be your self. You are supposed to be poised, and unruffled, and walk around like a Zen master. While I agree that all this will come to pass while you move on in your journey and mature, it really does take time to become a Zen Master.

But the world expected me to play all my roles perfectly. I needed to be the perfect wife, daughter, daughter-in law, mother, and of course the perfect teacher. So when I blew my top, many people were taken aback (including me). I felt that I had failed myself and others, and went on a spree of self condemnation.

Till I came across a blog post by a life coach relating a similar experience. He too had been so over worked that he had given vent to his feelings. The difference was that he had accepted it calmly without any self condemnation. What a relief it was to see that people who were supposed to advise others and show the way also sometimes do let off steam like the rest of us!

That got me thinking, and I realized that the past few weeks I had been working too hard and too long. Juggling a hectic work schedule with the usual household chores was enough to build up pressure in any normal system.

So that Monday morning I just took off. It did not matter to me that it was the first day of the week and I ought to have been at work. I knew that if I did not stop just then, I would only add to the energy of stress building up in me.

That morning off proved to be a god send. I did the things I loved like blogging, listening to soothing music, and just going with the flow. It was then that I realized something. Whenever your body sends you a signal to slow down, just listen to it, even if it happens to be the first day of the week. This will not only prevent further explosions of anger and irritation, but will also revamp your energy levels. And secondly even if you do express some intense emotion, there is nothing wrong with you. It’s just a signal that either your body or mind needs some pampering!

Never miss real stories from India's women.

Register Now

Maybe one day we will arrive at a state where nothing ruffles us. Till then let’s just accept where we are in our journey and honor ourselves without any rigid preconceived notions of how we are supposed to behave. Once we accept our shortcomings with equanimity, we move towards healing. Once we are completely healed, our behavior will automatically spring from love and serenity.

Love is the greatest healer and the greatest love is love for our own self. That means accepting yourself as you are while doing your best to make more loving choices. It also means nurturing the self and loving it, and giving it time to just be.

We need to keep gifting ourselves little sabbaticals. And actually taking a day off on a day you feel you just cannot afford to, gives you a great sense of freedom. When you realize that the world will go on and things will get done without you on the scenes that particular day, the heaviness of life falls off. You realize that you are not carrying the burden of life on your shoulders.

Holding things lightly helps you enjoy and love what you do and again loving yourself and loving what you do is all that is needed to bounce back to your chirpy self the next day!

And the best thing about Life is that  there is perfection in imperfection!

Image source: unsplash

Comments