“Every day, the world grabs your hand and yells, ‘This is important! This is important! This is important! You need to worry about this! And this! And this! Every day, you need to pull your hand back and take it to heart. , and then said, “No. ” That’s what’s important.
As someone who believes in the healing power of self-care, I absolutely love this quote. But I don’t always believe this is true. And it doesn’t feel good to do it.
My heart is too tender to be touched for long. For many years it seemed empty. I didn’t feel happy. I felt no enthusiasm. I felt no love, hope, or joy. I was just numb from years of suppressing my emotions. My feelings and needs didn’t matter to me because I didn’t believe I mattered.
I suspect many people are living some variation of this story, even if they don’t realize it. Because none of us get through childhood unscathed. Many of us enter adulthood with a wealth of unresolved trauma, a resulting low sense of self-worth, and a narcotic array of coping mechanisms to manage the pain.
We don’t prioritize the things we need to thrive because we’re too busy surviving.
It’s easy to blame the world for holding our hand and dragging us along, because it does—oh, how it does. There are bills to pay, demands to be respected, and countless little things that we feel need to be done and addressed before we can finally take a break and breathe.
But we also drag ourselves around trying to do it all and be everything to everyone because it’s easier than facing ourselves. It’s easier than facing our deepest pain.
It’s easier than admitting the truth — and we would be free if we could only admit and address this problem: that we simply don’t value ourselves enough to prioritize ourselves.
Maybe it’s because we blame ourselves for past pain. Or because we don’t think we’ve accomplished enough to deserve kindness and care. Or maybe it’s because we know good people put everyone else first, and we desperately want to be good—Lovely people. Everything feels real to me.
But I think that’s the point of the quote. Our most important job is to heal the wounds that cause us to put ourselves down so that we can prioritize ourselves and figure out what we need to do to feel and be our best.
For years I tried to change my life for the better, starting with making myself better, but nothing changed until I believed I deserved better.
When you believe you deserve better, you commit to creating it and keep going when times get tough because you know you deserve it. Oh, how wonderful life becomes when you do that.
When you start to value and prioritize yourself…
1. You will begin to feel calmer, more energetic, and more content because more of your needs will be met.
The hardest thing about being the kind of person who puts everyone else first is that even when you give everything you have, you never feel like you’re doing enough. So not only do you try to do everything for everyone else, but you also try to make them all feel comfortable and happy – which is impossible, so you usually feel neither.
When you put yourself first, you will understand what you You need to feel comfortable and happy first. You’ll allow yourself to do these things without taking on the burden of other people’s feelings and problems, as if it’s your responsibility to resolve them.
Then, instead of trying to fill your tank with fast-burning approval fuel, you fill it with things that truly nourish you, and for me, that includes movement, creativity, and time in nature.
2. When you invest in yourself and your potential, you experience the joy of growing and exploring new possibilities, rather than spending your money on distractions that leave you feeling empty.
When you decide that your priority is taking care of yourself and your needs, you’ll feel more confident investing in yourself—whether that means getting training for a more rewarding career or going to therapy to start healing your trauma.
Instead of spending money on a Band-Aid that does little to compensate for your pain and overall life dissatisfaction, you’ll invest your time, energy, and resources into solving those problems so that you no longer feel the need to numb yourself.
3. You will prioritize healing and feel more at peace with yourself, your past, and others as a result.
As you work to heal past pain, you’ll find it easier to forgive those who hurt you. Because you value and want to respect yourself, you’ll realize that this doesn’t necessarily mean letting them back into your life. It might just mean releasing your anger and resentment towards them – which is easier to do when they can no longer continue to hurt you.
Therapy can also allow you to see your past through a completely different lens, gain a deeper understanding of who and what shaped you, and develop a stronger appreciation for that smaller version of you who always tried your best and was always worthy of love and respect. Much empathy.
4. You will be proud of yourself rather than ashamed because through therapy you will be able to forgive yourself for the things you could have done better and focus on doing better now.
When you develop empathy for your younger self, you will also develop empathy for your current self, and your relationship with yourself will change. You’ll start focusing more on what you’re doing right rather than what you think you’re doing wrong, which gives you more and more reasons to feel good about yourself.
At the same time, you’ll find that it’s easier to forgive yourself when you get stuck, and you’ll start to see your missteps as learning opportunities instead of blaming yourself and languishing in regret. This means you’ll bounce back faster and feel confident about what you can do in the future, which will make it easier for you to actually make those changes.
5. When you make time and space to listen to your intuition, you will feel more connected to yourself and start to trust yourself more.
When you start giving yourself time and releasing the pressure of constantly doing things and achieving things, you’ll find it easier to hear your intuitive voice. This means you’ll have a clearer idea of what might be good for you in every area of your life.
When you act on this insight and see (at least some) positive results, you’ll develop a deeper sense of trust in yourself. Trust enables you to make important decisions that you might otherwise avoid for fear of making the “wrong” choice.
You’ll also spend less time worrying about what other people think, because those thoughts will seem irrelevant when you’re guided by what you know.
6. Your relationships will become a source of joy, not pain, because you will set boundaries with people who hurt you and let them go if they refuse to stop.
When you make your peace, happiness, and happiness a priority, you’ll begin to set clearer boundaries for what’s acceptable in your relationships.
You’ll also have the courage to speak up when someone crosses your boundaries, because you’ll know that protecting your heart and energy is worth the discomfort of confrontation.
That’s not to say your relationships will always be easy and fun. People can still cause you stress and disappointment, just as you can cause stress and disappointment to them at times, because we are all human.
But you don’t say “don’t worry” when someone’s behavior fills you with fear, or “it’s okay” when you know in your heart that’s not the case. When someone disrespects or mistreats you countless times, you’ll find the strength to say “no more” – which means you’ll spend less time justifying and recovering from their behavior and more time enjoying those treatments Your people are outstanding.
7. Your days will become more enjoyable and exciting because you will spend more time on the things that matter to you.
The more time and space you allocate for yourself, the more energy you can devote to the things that matter to you. Things that make you excited to be alive. Your passions, interests, and new possibilities—or, if you don’t know what will bring you joy, pursue discovering what it might be.
Because other people are important to you too, you’ll still invest time and energy in them, but you’ll know that it’s okay if they aren’tonly About them. You can suggest things to do or places to go, or sometimes ask for their support.
It’s not just about filling time you didn’t have before.it’s also about enjoy Take more time because you won’t feel guilty anymore for doing less for others, or at least you’ll feel less anxious because you’ll know you’re honoring one of your top priorities – yourself.
8. You’ll feel stronger physically, mentally clearer, and emotionally balanced.
When you address your needs, invest in your well-being and recovery, and make choices that respect and support you, you’ll notice improvements in all aspects of your health—physical, mental, and emotional.
Because when you deal with the consequences of neglecting and devaluing yourself, you don’t just survive, you thrive through the process of taking care of yourself.
This becomes a self-perpetuating cycle – because you feel better, you keep doing better and then feeling better. Unlike the perhaps more familiar reverse cycle, when you feel bad, you continually do things that make you feel bad, and then feel even worse as a result.
This doesn’t mean you’ll always feel good and never get into trouble again. You are still human after all. But you will feel more confident in your ability to get through difficult times and make the most of every difficulty you face, because your actions will be based on a stable inner strength developed through self-support and care.
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Maybe you’ve experienced some of these things. Perhaps, like me, you feel that the path to prioritizing yourself is often a journey of two steps forward and one step back, or one step forward and two steps back.
Healing is not a linear process. We grow, we fall, we let ourselves down and then hopefully forgive ourselves so we can get back up and try again, one step at a time.
It is important that we continue to take these steps, even if we are knocked down for a while.
We need to face pain, not numb it. Honor our needs instead of ignoring them. Acknowledge the things that aren’t working instead of fixing them. Most importantly, keep challenging that inner voice that tells us we need to do more or be more to be worthy of being loved and cared for.
There was a time when I thought my heart was numb from everything that was happening to me. Then I realized that was in the past and I was the one numbing the present by treating myself worse than anyone else.
It was only when I stopped telling myself that I didn’t matter and started working on believing that I did – that it started by treating myself the same way I did before. One loving act of self-care at a time.
About Lori Deschen
Lori Deschene is the founder of Little Buddha. After battling depression, bulimia, PTSD, and toxic shame, she started the website so she could channel her previous pain into something useful and inspire others to do the same. She recently created the Breaking the Self-Care Barriers e-course to help people overcome internal barriers to meeting their needs so they can feel their best, do their best, and live their best life. If you’re ready to start thriving rather than just surviving, you can learn more here and get access now.
