True self care

# Chapter 101

Brianna Wiest put it brilliantly when she wrote, “True self-care is not salt baths and chocolate cake, it is making the choice to build a life you don’t need to regularly escape from.”

I have so been there, in a life that I desperately needed to escape from regularly, or the consequences would have been so dire! Escape and planning for escape was the only thing that kept me going. All of this means that I should have left much sooner than I eventually did, because no one should have to live a life from which they need constant escapage. But as I sit here and think about it, that is where many (most?) people are in their lives. That is why 50% of us are looking for a new job. That is why we have to decompress each day to gingerly get off that tightrope we have been walking all day and has us so keyed up that we can’t relax or sleep.

Thankfully I am no where near that place anymore in my life. I don’t NEED to go fishing or NEED to ride my motorcycle to escape. I still enjoy those things, but I don’t need to escape from my regular life anymore. Of course I take breaks and sometimes vacations, but those can be about someone else’s needs now, rather than my own. For instance when in the Grand Caymans I went on an extended visit to the botanical gardens, which my wife wanted, rather than the scuba diving group off the north shore, which would have been my need in years past.

Self care is choosing to build the life that you don’t need to escape from.