HEALTH

Are You a Good Friend? And Are You a Good Friend to Yourself?

Thoughtful reflection on our history is easier when you identify progressive timeframes.

The last two years (and counting) have made this a particularly serious and important question. While it’s always relevant to explore our self care – the ways we do and do not attend to all our personal needs in a thoughtful and caring manner – the pandemic has delivered the most intense test of our ability to focus and take genuinely good care of ourselves. And I’ve found as I explore this issue with friends, family, colleagues, and clients, some have passed the test of self care with flying colors, while some have failed – and some have failed miserably.

If you’re open to an inventory, grab pen and paper and reflect on these bottom-line questions about self care. While it’s sometimes easier to reflect on your favorite device, the pen and paper approach truly accesses more of your thoughts, feelings, and recollections.

• If and when I’m taking genuinely good care of myself, what are the specific things I know I need to do? • Has my self care been daily? Or just once in a while? • Have I failed in any particular way? In any specific important self care, like regular doctor visits? • Have I been sick or sad – depressed or anxious – and responded with necessary self care steps? • Have I been able to ask for help – for attention, a good conversation, a needed appointment with a professional? • Are there things I know I needed to do/ask for but delayed or neglected? And perhaps simply felt stuck in neutral? • Did I do things for others that I neglected to do for myself? • Did I find it hard to ask for help or attention or time I genuinely needed? • Is it still hard to identify what I need and to then to find a way to ask for what I need? • Do I offer things to others that I know I also need?

These are intended as starter questions, and if they are hard, it’s good to see what gets in the way of identifying needs, finding resources, reaching out, and being assured that “I am being a good friend to myself.” Many of us simply, basically, were never taught or learned how to put ourselves first, when necessary.

The key to good self care/being a friend to ourselves – or not – has a root system in the way we grow up. Reflecting on our history means thinking back on what was modeled in your household. Was it easy to ask for what you needed? Did adults regularly check on how you felt,

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Imagine time away where reflection is the primary objective – with a journal and pen close by for recording thoughts and feelings. Writing with pen on paper creates a valuable connection to the brain. However, if you feel better with a laptop, go for it.

For a simple start, a first step if you’ve never tried meditation, is simple breathing exercises. The most simple, and you might try it now, just as an experiment, is the following exercise: Breathe in to the count of four, hold your breath to the count of seven and release very slowly to the count of eight … release through pursed lips, like preparing to whistle. Repeat this four times. Then do it again. And take a minute to pay attention to how you feel.

Meditation techniques range from simple breathing exercises like this to silent repetition of a mantra (a word or phrase) to listening to guided instructions for deep relaxation and resting the mind.

To what end? When the mind is allowed to truly quiet down … especially when applied after long term, persistent stress … feelings and thoughts emerge that are truly helpful to each of us as we contemplate where we’ve been, where we are now, and where we want to venture forward today and in the future.

You may confirm doing exactly what you are doing is great; and you may reflect on new things, options for going forward, or something right in between. It’s simply finding your own renewed sense of direction. And if you discover all you need is to what you needed? Did you see adults take good care of them- stare at the water, mountains, or woods and rest somewhere selves and of one another? Do you believe you learned healthy other than the comfort of your home, own it. Meditation can self care? simply affirm we are on the right path. Or, it can open hearts,

Thoughtful reflection on our history is easier when you identify minds, eyes, to something new, slightly new, or dramatically progressive timeframes. Reflecting on the age range of 1 to 5 different. Meditation, retreating, allows whatever to surface. can sometimes trigger simple visual recall, a basic flash of imag- Meditation also helps with healing. Far too many have exes. Age ranges from 10 to 15 and 15 to 20 are timeframes often perienced tragic loss during this difficult time and both emofar easier to access and those where formed basic beliefs and tional and physical healing is needed. Understanding what attitudes stay with us into adulthood, unless we specifically focus you think, feel, want, and need is important to determine what on changes we might want to make. changes are both desirable and possible. The more you reflect,

The goal is to identify and correct old messages that negate meditate, and write about what you think and feel, the more self care or reinforce the truly good, healthy things you learned clarity you’ll achieve. The challenge is to make these two diffito do. cult years have a positive outcome when and where possible.

You can expand on this reflection, if it feels productive, by My personal easy getaway is Timber Creek, a quite elegant reflecting on each timeframe in more detail and answering retreat center an hour drive from Kansas City. The website, a few more questions: 1) What was the best part of 1 to 5 years timbercreekretreat.org, has information for options across the old, of 10 to 15, of 15 to 20? 2) What was the hardest part? 3) country. My wish is for you to take good care of yourself, recogWhat would I change if I could? 4) What do I cherish and keep? nizing the past two years have been a challenge that we are

If you already do good things for yourself, affirm your ability to still trying to accurately evaluate. do so – to have learned good self care practices. And if you see examples of being hard on yourself, give yourself permission to begin to self correct. In times of pressure, intense demands, the external crisis of what we’ve been through, old behavior surfaces. In psychology terms, it’s sometimes referred to as “regression.” We can, under stress, feel like we are 5 or 10 or 15 years old, making adult behavior hard to access and then practice. Historical reflections are sometimes, hopefully, the best way to understand our behavior and our decisions when we’ve been through a specifically challenging, and often in a prolonged and depressing time. And if you or family members and friends and colleagues have faced illness , loss, and the accompanying struggles, it can be fatiguing and debilitating to the point of making good decisions difficult. The bottom line is self care … always my recommendation, even if the message feels challenging, and perhaps repetitive. We can, as individuals and as a community, be thoughtful and helpful to all those around us as we emerge from the challenges of the last two-plus years. Reach out to one another as we work hard to be back on track … healthy in body, mind, and spirit.

We can, as individuals and as a community, be thoughtful and helpful to all those around us as we emerge from the challenges of the last twoplus years.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Dr. Linda Moore has been in practice in the Kansas City area for over 25 years Dr. Linda Moore has been in practice in the Kansas City area for over 25 years and is a published author on personal and family issues.

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