Maximize Your Self-Care ROI
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Self-care, or taking care of our well-being, is much more than recreation and pampering. It’s about building up and nurturing our life force in all three of our Centers of Intelligence (Body Center, Heart Center, Head Center). It takes time and effort to engage in practices that build reserves of energy, and it’s an investment - we have to put in the work regularly so that we can reap its benefits when we need them the most. Basically, it’s not fun, at least not all the time - think about going to bed early to have a good night’s sleep for the benefit of the next day rather than watching a couple more TV shows because we really want to know what will happen next in the story. A couple more episodes are actually more fun than sleeping two extra hours, but it’s the extra sleep that will pay off the next day and beyond.
It is very tempting to believe that we can always “add one more thing” in our schedule, or hold the unconscious belief that there is not enough time for well-being and self-care. Yet, nurturing our life force is the foundation of everything we do, and although some people have more energy than others, no one has unlimited reserves of energy. Symptoms show up to alert us that we’re drained in one or more Center and that we need to rest and replenish our energy.
Paradoxically, the more we do, the more space and time we will also need to allocate for building our reserves back up. Therefore there is a limit to what can be added in the schedule, and there is an equilibrium to find between our regular commitments and the replenishment of our reserves in all three Centers.
When we do not have much time for self-care practices, how can we get the best return on the time and effort that we invest in our well-being?
Each one of us tends to:
Favor one center and overly relies on it,
Have a relatively balanced center that is stable and pretty healthy,
Neglect/ignore the third center.
Interestingly, symptoms tend to show up in the centers that we overuse and ignore, because there is not enough energy flowing in these centers. For example: over-thinking or confusion/numbness in the Head Center, intense emotions or avoidance of feeling in the Heart Center, “over-doing” or physical tension/pain in the Body Center, etc.
To maximize our Self-Care ROI, I find it most effective to focus on our weakest center of intelligence. The bad news is that it does not come intuitively and is likely to trigger some resistance; the good news is that such focus can lead to good results relatively quickly, thanks to the rebalancing effect that strengthening our weakest center will have. When we inject energy in the neglected center, we naturally soothe the overused one, and allow it to come back to balance.
Examples:
For someone overly relying on their emotional center and neglecting their physical center, exercizing vigorously could be very effective to process feelings somatically. Such practice would result in releasing the energy of old emotions effectively and therefore centering more quickly.
For someone overly relying on their physical center and neglecting their mental center, committing to a journaling practice could be a very beneficial activity to encourage reflection and contemplation. This would result in more clarity, less confusion, and more comfortable and effective decision-making.
For someone overly relying on their mental center and neglecting their emotional center, engaging in an art practice based on what they feel in the moment would be a creative way to balance their three centers. Such practice would result in greater self-compassion and have a positive effect in relationships with others.
We tend to do more of what we already do too much, which can actually be draining instead of replenishing. How about challenging this impulse so that we can boost the effectiveness of our self-care regimen, and rebalance Mind, Heart, and Body at the same time?
Journaling Questions:
What center of intelligence do I tend to overly rely on?
How do I know? What examples come to mind?
What center of intelligence do I tend to neglect/ignore?
How do I know? What do I consistently avoid?
What activities do I engage into a lot that tend to reinforce this imbalance?
What new activity could I implement to strengthen my weakest center of intelligence?
