I guess as an artist and mom and partner and cat mom and outside foster cat mom and home owner and adjunct faculty member it can be tricky to find time to take care of oneself... I was thinking about this tonight because I’ve never been great at it. Any time there is something I love that makes me feel great, like stretching, workouts, yoga, martial arts, acupuncture, etc, it’s the first thing on the chopping block when I get busy again. My preference is to take care of others. But tonight I tried to focus on the small things I’m doing to take care of myself and realized while they each aren’t much, they all add up to something. Some of them are:
Stretching before I even get out of bed so my body doesn’t feel like an old broken chair when I stand up
Making myself a fancy coffee in the morning
Doing Duolingo every day (Italian!) to keep my brain in shape
Using Sunscreen so I don’t get skin cancer (again!)
Stretching out my hands and knees periodically to prevent stiffness
CBD oil for stress
Writing things in my calendar to stay organized
Taking baths to relax my brain and my knees
Skincare at night
Flossing (my teeth, not the dance…Olivia says the dance is over.)
Reading before bed.
I hope to add back in acupuncture, working out and some sort of meditation, even though I’m terrible at it. And doing martial arts again one day would be amazing. We’ll see…