What does it mean to show up for yourself exactly and why does it matter?
It means honoring your true self and making decisions that support your physical, mental, spiritual, and emotional wellbeing. It's about discovering who you are, what is important to you, and what you desire. These are big questions to ask yourself, but the first step is caring enough to seek the answers. It's normal to feel overwhelmed if you are unsure, but know that you don't need to have it all figured out right now. Take a deep breath and release the judgement and anxiety about where you should be and just be here in this momen
Whether you have been neglecting yourself or making yourself a priority, there is always more to learn and discover. Showing up for yourself is the key to your health and any healing journey that you might be on.
How do you go about showing up for yourself?
I always start with awareness. We have to have awareness before we can make choices that push us in the right direction. A path to truly showing up for ourselves the way we should can appear like this:
Awareness > Compassion > Plan > Action
Awareness is reading this and thinking about how you treat yourself. It's noticing the voice in your head and the things it says. It's recognizing how you spend your time, what you eat, how you move your body, and how you feel on a daily basis. It's sitting quietly and asking yourself those big questions and letting whatever comes up be free to do so without writing the thoughts off.
Awareness isn't a step that ends. It's an awakening that continues because we are always changing and often self sabotaging. Making ourselves aware of our actions and thoughts is constant evolving process that helps us make decisions that are right for us at different points in our lives.
Compassion. This sentiment seems to be lacking right now but it's not just something we feel for others. We need to have compassion for ourselves as well. We juggle a lot physically and mentally in our modern society and we expect ourselves to never drop a ball. Mistakes happen, we learn from them and we grow. It's easier said of course, but it's true. Beating ourselves up doesn't help.
When times are challenging it's okay to let yourself off the hook and just be kind to yourself, no matter what you've done or not done, said or not said. Show yourself compassion and make a practice of learning to let go of what isn't serving you and focus on what does.
Create a plan to make showing up for yourself a priority. Book time with yourself each day and use this time to do something that helps you connect with yourself and get closer to figuring out who you are and what you want. Journal about what you think you need to do or what you might want to stop doing to feel better. Ask yourself how you can take better care of your mind and your body and write down what comes up.
Just knowing we should do something doesn't mean that we will. Life happens, we get busy, and before we know it we are back to the grind with all awareness lost. Making a plan, writing it down, saying it out loud, helps us stay focused and allows us to actually make positive choices.
The true action is when you make the time and do something for only you or when you stop the negative self talk and say something nice. It's when you sit on a yoga mat and breathe deeply or when you book an hour with yourself and decide to read a book for fun or take a nap. It's parking your car, turning off the radio and being aware of the world around you. It's taking that class you've been eyeing and it's eating more vegetables. It's whatever you decide that you need.
Showing up for yourself is booking time each day just for you, speaking kindly to yourself, and finding compassion for yourself so you can learn to enjoy just being you. You are worthy of being shown up for and your uniqueness matters.