TAKING CARE OF YOURSELF. THE PERSPECTIVE ON THE PHYSICAL AND SPIRITUAL ASPECTS OR NOT JUST SPA OR PROCEDURES WITH CANDLES

Starting from the 20th century, the notion of "taking care of oneself" has reached the democratic level and has become applicable and common in all the social layers. The phrase got into the trend. In the terrain of modern marketing, it means that they started to get the phrase veiled and wrapped up in different packages to offer it to the consumer society in the format that makes consumption process the most effective. The phrase "take care of yourself" has migrated to the densely material level of our perception.

"Take care of yourself!" as a recommendation from glossy page creates in my brain such images as massage, cosmetics, sauna, gym, healthy food, relaxation. 90% of the options offered by the brain apply to the body and only 10% of them - relay to the spirit.

Is this right? Yes and no at the same time. It is true that the brain perceives taking care of oneself polarly: both as physical and spiritual action at the same time. But the wheel should be round to roll! And the proportion of 90/10 does not imply roundness. We need a balance. We need 50/50.

How would the notion of "taking care of oneself" look in terms of the spiritual aspect of its perception? Is this just a punctual relaxation? I do not think so.

For the body our efforts towards "taking care of ourselves" combine both short- and long-term actions. Spa treatment with candles will help punctually, but systematic training and healthy eating will not give an immediate effect. They are forward-looking. They guarantee us a confidence in the tomorrow of our body.

So what is going on with "taking care of oneself" in the spiritual part of our life? Punctual relaxation with the help of sound (mantra or any other harmonious music) and visual images (contemplation of nature, art) impact our spirit as the SPA does with the body.

Meditation, depending upon regularity and systematicity, gives an effect that lasts longer and works for the future.

Is it all on the spiritual side? It is a way far from it!

Taking care of yourself means looking at your life honestly. It means to be sincere about life´s failures and disappointments and being able to decide how to deal with them. It also means to accept that some of my desires will not be satisfied and to let them go. It means choosing new ones, taking some time to do so. Some people from my environment might get upset about it, but for some of them, this choice will become a sacrifice.

Taking care of yourself means to find your own life, without constant copying of other people. It means rediscovering of such a life, that probably does not suit others, but that suits you.

Taking care of yourself means giving yourself an opportunity to be normal. It also means to take easy the fact that matching matrix templates is not the most important life goal.

To take care of yourself means to understand the sources of your anxiety. To what extent are they the result of the fact that you do not realize your hidden potential. And to what degree are they provoked by the response template, feverish planning of your actions, even before it becomes clear what is going on at all?

Taking care of yourself means being the queen of your life, rather than its court lady. It means changing your everyday life in such a way that you do not need to escape from it somewhere to take a breath. It means to cease giving a priority to a life that looks good, over the life that feels good.

For me taking care of myself means being honest, even if not everyone in the world will love me after that. It means to finally face my own desires and needs and stop to depend on others, caring for their opinions and judgments. It also means becoming a person that I would like to become, like someone who knows that SPA treatment with candlelight is a way of enjoying life, rather than running away from it.

The world where self-care has become a consumer trend is sick. If you feel that you systematically take consumer care of yourself, it means that you are actually far from real caring for yourself. The actual care for yourself does not have much to do with "indulging yourself". It rather has lots of things in common with being an adequate parent for yourself and making choices in favor of your well-being in the long run.

Loaded to the limit, the hectic life that follows common patterns, where there are addictions and procrastination, has nothing to do with taking care of yourself. The real care for yourself is when you stop trying to "fix yourself" and start taking care of yourself.

True spiritual concern for oneself begins with the awakening of consciousness. It is inherent to the path of inner transformation. At this level, taking care of yourself becomes an inseparable part of your life as a human being, like the air we breathe, like the water we drink. Having realized what "taking care of yourself" in both aspects of its meaning stands for, it is not so difficult anymore to invent your own wheel of balanced care and then there will be no need to perform Sisyphus labor and to push the stone uphill. On a balanced wheel, life rolls smoothly.