We often feel pressure to be of service to others.
Sometimes that works out well.
Other times it wears us down.
If we don’t learn to balance out self-care with service, we can end up with some serious challenges.
It is easy to think of other’s needs and put our own needs to the side.
We feel that if we just show up for others and help them with their challenges we don’t have to worry about ourselves.
Yet that isn’t how things usually work out.
We put ourselves second, or last, and then we have a breakdown while trying to help others.
The breakdown can come in many forms.
It can be physical, it can be emotional, or it can be in our relationships.
What we often don’t understand is that the breakdown occurs exactly because we put our own needs behind that of someone else.
Whether it is a friend, a relative, a partner, or a business, it doesn’t matter.
By not meeting our own needs, by not recognizing that we have to take care of ourselves first, we head down a track that ultimately leads to some kind of breakdown.
The fact that the breakdown occurs is not a bad thing. It is a signal.
It is a signal that we haven’t been operating from a compassionate place and that something needs to change.
Yes, we need to be compassionate to others.
Yet how can we be compassionate to other if we have not yet been compassionate for ourselves?
The breakdown is to show us we need to practice self-care.
Self-care means we have to take care of our own needs in order to have what we need to take care of others.
Practicing self-care is essential for our own well-being as well as the well-being of others.
~ Sam Liebowitz, The Conscious Consultant
