Have you ever had one of those days–or several days–when you feel so busy and stressed that you don’t think you can take a moment to breathe? And the more stressed you get, the worse your day gets? As your stress level goes up, your success rate plummets. Everything just seems to go wrong. Well, I’ve had two of those.
Then I remembered what someone told me recently. They said, “When your day is going badly, take a bath with salt and lavender in the water. Your whole day will change.”
So, guess what? Despite the fact that I still had a ton of work, and I’ve been up until all hours for several nights in a row and I haven’t had a day offย in ages, I took her advice. Even better, first I put on my sneakers and I went for a walk. Then I came home, ran a hot bath (with some salt and lavender oil in the water) and climbed on in! I soaked and meditated for about 10 minutes.
When I got out, I did feel a lot better. If nothing else, I felt that I had cared for myself–and that I had found to do so. I also felt more relaxed and centered. This made more more able to face the tasks I still needed to handle.
Recently I’ve read in several books and magazines on different topics how we must practice radical self care. I definitely don’t do this. And when we get in a cycle of working too much, getting too stressed, and feeling as if there just aren’t enough hours in the day (let alone minutes), the best thing we can do is remind ourselves that we can, indeed, find time for ourselves.
The more harried and stressed we become, the more it feels like we don’t have a minute to spare, the more we need to take a few minutes for ourselves. Remember that. I will, too.
Just
