Creative Zen Transitions

In your creative garden, water corresponds to self-care, while fertilizer corresponds to what we call "needs."

Self-care includes all the physical things necessary to survival, such as oxygen, food, water, sleep, and shelter. It also includes things like exercise, caring for medical conditions, and meeting your needs.

Good self-care is the foundation that provides energy for your creative projects. It is difficult to create when you are not providing your body with good care, and the things it needs. In fact, self-care improves the quality of your life overall.

There is not a lot of support for self-care in our society. Self-care is sometimes considered to be "selfish", and is sometimes found masquerading as destructive habits or expensive indulgences that have more to do with business profits than your well-being.

Self-care is not selfishness; it is caring for yourself on a routine basis, and meeting your own needs first, before you try to meet the needs of others. That doesn't mean that if someone has an emergency, you don't set aside your own needs to help them. It means that you don't make putting your own needs last a way of life.

Self-care is not just the minimum standards needed to maintain life, it also includes things necessary for long-term benefits, and an attitude of kindness toward yourself.

Proper self-care is really a quality of life issue. As a society, we are currently asking "How poor a quality of life am I willing to endure?" What we should be asking ourselves is "How well am I willing to treat myself?"

While scarfing down fast-food while driving your kids to their sports practice may technically qualify as self-care, I really have in mind a higher standard. I would like you to consider that self-care includes eating healthy food, in a relaxed environment. This is where many people fall short of true self-care. While you may have nourished your body with fast food, depending on what you ate and your definition of nourishment, you probably don't feel especially "cared" for, and your kids are learning a terrible lesson from you: that there's not enough time in life for them to tend to the basic task of nourishing themselves.

The same is true for sleep. Do you pay attention to how much rest your body tells you it needs, or do you sleep your 6 or 7 hours and drag yourself out of bed, buying into society's message that sleep deprivation is a virtue? True self-care includes giving your body the gift of rest. You may short it here or there, but overall, you listen and respond to what it needs.

Exercise is a big self-care issue, because so many people dislike it. The truth is that more scientific research is showing that daily exercise is an important component of health. If you are committed to your long-term self-care, you have to get into the exercise habit.

If you are looking to begin an exercise program, try out something off the beaten path that sounds like fun: dancing, cycling, or hiking. Incorporating a larger purpose into your exercise helps motivate you, such as daily walking with the goal of going on a backpacking trip in six months.

If you can't find a way to make it fun, try reframing it. I have a friend who took up jogging with the mantra of "56 more years!" At the beginning, she didn't "enjoy" jogging, but her motivation to be healthy for an additional half-century has kept her going, and it's even grown on her!

Exercise may be a huge component of caring for medical conditions, but routine checkups and procedures fall under this heading as well. Taking time to maintain your body is a big step in assuming responsibility for your self-care!

Needs are another part of self-care. They are those things, unique to each of us, that are necessary in order for us to thrive. They are the fertilizer in the garden. Everyone has needs, and being aware of what your needs are, and keeping them satisfied, helps you have more energy to devote to creating. We'll discuss them next week!