Скачать или смотреть My Self Care Journal so far,

Self Care is important. It can be as simple as taking the time out to take a walk in the park, a nice hot shower, reading a book, paying your bills, eating healthier, cleaning a small part of your room or home or getting rid of toxic friends and relationships. Taking time out to care for yourself is something a lot of us ignore because we treat ourselves as less than. But we are not less than, we are important, our life matters and most of us could treat ourselves more gently than we do.

As humans we get ill, we have disappointments and grief and some of us have limitations that we were either born with or got because of our life journey. Learning to care for ourselves through all our life journey, for me, means finding meaning in life despite these limitations, pains, emotional upheavels. It means learning to find alternatives if our bodies are not able to do what they once were, getting up when our world feels like it is falling apart and doing even the simplest thing like cleaning our teeth or brushing our hair even if it is the only thing we can manage that day.

During my time as a counsellor I would get some clients to make what we called "happy boxes" and in these I would get them to place things that made them happy be it cards from friends and family, pictures of happy times, coffe and tea bags, a piece of nice chocholate etc etc. I also asked thm to place notes in there of things they could do to make themselves feel better, things they use to find joy in that they could find joy in again. And when they were going through hard times they would find a quiet place and go through their box to remind them that life is not always dark and that this too would pass.

Creating this journal for me is a similar method, it is a way to start looking at my life and journey differently . My chronic illness limits what I can do now and how I do things and go through my day. Illness can make my days look dark and sometimes I only have the energy to get up and feed my pets but I am learning guilt does not not make me feel better and I want this journal to be my reminder of what my life still is and the things I can still do despite my illness.

I hope this may inspire some of you to start a "happy box" or a "happy journal" to remind you that life can be wonderful no matter where you are on your life journey, we just have to start looking at it differently.

Blessed Be
Skye