Identify What It Feels Like To Lose Yourself, To Assure That You Will Not Lose Yourself
Are you, as a person, balanced in your world?
Reading this article, I want you to think about you as a whole person. Not as just a parent, not just as a spouse/partner, not as a professional. Just you.
Teaching my daughter how to use a balance board had me evaluate if I was a balanced and centered person as an individual. Sure, I felt that everything around me in my life was balanced, but, was I? Some days I move to the left, other days I move to the right. But was I taking the time, energy, attention, to just be centered? Was I centered in my world, just as the board is centered (and balanced) on its own with nobody on it?
Physically, I felt great. Emotionally, I was happy. Mentally, my anxieties and fears continue to improve. Sure I am balanced…or was I? Truth be told, becoming a Mom really shook my balanced world, and I was so busy focusing on getting everything around me back in balance (work, marriage, home, etc.) that I actually didn’t know who I was. My ‘me time’ in the morning drinking coffee preparing for workouts became drinking coffee and racking my mind on what goals I needed to do and wanted to do for the day. Come her nap time, I would attempt that afternoon cup of tea, only to become so distracted by what I hadn’t accomplished earlier, that I went right back either to work, the housework, struggle through my workout, etc. Now, I’m even more drained, and she’s waking up. Where had my morning gone? I barely got anything checked off my daily goals. Now it’s mid-afternoon. What about dinner? I just want to sit down for a minute!
I had lost myself. What does it feel like for you to lose yourself?
Put Yourself Back In the Center of Your World to Not Lose Yourself
Life can be a challenge to make sense of at times, especially when deep things happen. In life, it is important to find your center and not lose it. If you’re understanding the wrongs in your head, returning to that center can be quite difficult especially when you are raised with a self-competitive mindset.
This isn’t a selfish thinking. This is a necessity in everyone’s life. It goes back to ‘if you aren’t happy, how can anyone be happy with you?’
I made 2 rules – I will prioritize myself first thing in the morning before anyone wakes up, and the first 10 minutes of my daughter’s nap.
My morning coffee time is just that. Me, cup of coffee, silence, stillness. I quickly learned, the more peaceful mornings I had to start my day, the better I felt during the day regardless of what came my way. Just being still for 30 minutes to gather myself (physically, mentally, spiritually, etc.) allowed me to feel more energized to want to do a workout, it allowed me to organize my thoughts to make my goal lists, it allowed me to breathe and know today will be okay no matter what life has in store.
When my daughter went down for her nap, my top priority again was to just sit down and regather myself. Sometimes it’s with a cup of hot tea, sometimes lunch, sometimes just nothing but the stillness of 10 minutes. This gave me a chance to refocus on my needs and evaluate what I had to give for the rest of the day. It was refreshing, it was rejuvenating. The days I really looked inward for those 10 minutes, the more I felt motivated and energized for the afternoon. I could easily look at my goals list and clearly see what was a priority for the next 2 hours, what I could manage when she woke up, and what just needed to get bumped to tomorrow.
You are the center of your world, and if your center is not balanced, your world will never be balanced. You will continue to lose yourself.
Finding joy in everything you do is difficult. Life becomes all about the negatives, losses, and problems. When you find your center, balance in life begins.
10 Ways to Take 10 Minutes
- Stretch – There are some great short videos online for free.
- Go for a walk – Even if it’s just to the end of your street to start.
- Cup of tea/coffee – Enjoy the stillness of mind, body, and soul.
- Meditate/Pray – This allows you to filter out all the distractions of life for a few minutes.
- Sit outside and get fresh air – What else can I say, fresh air goes a long way!
- Journal – Get your thoughts, worries, out of your head. Turn them into gratitude.
- Coloring Book – This is a great distraction for just a few minutes.
- Listen/Dance to a song – Okay, sure breaking out in dance in the middle of your office isn’t probably the best idea. But take a moment to just be silly. Get your ‘wiggles’ out.
- Read a couple of pages of a book/article on a topic you enjoy – Personally, I use this time to look up recipe blogs to plan for the weekend.
- Go into the restroom and shut the door and take 5 deep breaths. – Sometimes we just need to take a deep breathe. Sometimes we only have time to just take a breath.
Enforce your boundaries to not lose yourself
Set your own boundaries and stick to them. Communicate them. People have a tendency to forget about what they originally wanted to do in life, which leads to them drifting around in the current, taking on what other people want them to do, or becoming simply too busy to think up their own aspirations, which goes down each time. The latter happens at the expense of time for themselves.
We can not be amazing parents, amazing partners, amazing employees, amazing friends, if we are not amazing to ourselves as well. As the saying goes, ‘Treat others how you want to be treated’, We also need to treat ourselves the way we want to be treated. We can not fully rely on somebody else to bring us joy, or comfort us.
We spend so much giving, we need to receive it too. Remember – this is not being selfish, this is SELF-CARE. You’re all around health is mind, body, and soul. Love it. Care for it.
Trust Your Journey
Take time to really get to know yourself. Learn what makes you happy, learn what makes you sad. Fall in love with yourself! I once had somebody ask me, ‘What are your triggers.’ I had no idea. I knew what brought me joy, but I did not know what triggered me negatively. It took a couple of months to really tune into my feelings along my journey of life to learn about me as a person. I also had to learn to ask for help from my spouse when he noticed a shift in my energy/attitude physically, mentally, and spiritually towards things.
We can hope to gain a more harmonious, compassionate and sustainable lifestyle. It is important to know what triggers us, our stressful times of day as well as our calmest time of day. You will know your journey is progressing when you are able to sit in a quiet room, alone, and feel okay. Even if that feeling only lasts for a moment, recognize it, embrace it. Next time, try to feel that peace for a couple of moments.
Once you identify what it feels like to lose yourself, you will quickly recognize how to correct the course and re-establish your balance!
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