Stress busting tip number 10 - be selfish!!!

Hi there, it's Caroline Cavanagh, anxiety specialist. I'm here today to share tip number 10 of my Advent stress-busting tips with you, and a bit of a health warning: this is one of the tips that when I start to talk to people about doing it, they go, oh, I couldn't possibly do that! Yeah, you can, because it's about being selfish. I I want you to be selfish, but let me explain why. This is not about the selfish as the word has come to be understood, that you do something for yourself to the detriment of someone else. So if I buy 4 doughnuts and eat 3 of them, it means that my husband and kids can't have the other one. Yeah, that's selfish. But if I do things to make myself the best that I can possibly be, that means that my husband gets the best wife, the kids get the best mum, my clients get the best therapist. So let's have a rethink of this word selfish in what I believe was the original connotation of that word: to be the best version of you that we can be. Now I'm sure you're familiar with that expression of glass half empty, glass half full. In fact, it's a bit of a mug, but it serves its purpose. So if you imagine rather than water being in your glass mug, Whatever. Don't think of it as water, think of it as energy. So if you keep your energy completely topped up, not only you are full of energy, which means you're more resourceful, it also means that people can take some, some of your energy too without you getting depleted. So I can give of my energy to my kids, to my husband, to my clients without starting to run my resources down. However, if I constantly give of my energy to others without restoring it, you become depleted to the point that you can't function anymore. And it's a true story. I have allowed myself to do that twice. Twice I've ended up in hospital because I allowed my resources, my energy, to become so low because I was constantly giving to others, doing things for other people, to To my detriment, that I ended up becoming chronically ill. And the thing that really annoys me is I didn't even learn after the first time, it took the second time, in which case I had 2 children under the age of 3. I was living in Germany with no support network around and suddenly landed my husband with 2 kids. He was working incredibly hard. And I was in hospital incapable of doing anything for about 10 days. That is selfish, because by not looking after myself, I had a major impact on all of those that I loved the most. So this concept of being selfish is all about you doing things that allow you to feel good, to put energy back in the tank. Now, we all have different things. For some people, that may be lying in a beautiful, smelly, hot bath. For, you know, an hour every day. Brilliant if that works for you. For me, I tend to get my energy from exercise, so it doesn't have to be passive. I spend about an hour every day stomping across the fields and woodlands around here with my dog. Even if it's pouring with rain like it was this morning, I come back feeling better. I also exercise every day because I know throwing kettlebells around or doing some yoga, I feel better. It tops my energy up. And the more energy I have, the better I can be in terms of serving those that I love and want to help during the day. But in terms of stress, it also means that energy makes you resourceful. So when that kind of, you know, left ball comes flying in, you can deal with it. Whereas if your energy is depleted— have you ever heard that saying, uh, the straw that broke the camel's back? That really epitomises the end of this. If your resources are so low, it can take one little thing, one little drop of water, and you go, pfffft, can't deal with it anymore. So be selfish. Be selfish by looking after you. It's not about to the detriment of others. Actually, when done appropriately, it's to the benefit of of others, you are then less stressed, less snappy, more resourceful, and generally everybody wins. So I hope that makes sense. Um, if you don't agree with this, I'd love for you to argue with me. Put some comments in the comment field. Let me know about what you think about being selfish. Do you now have a slightly different connotation on that word and what it actually means to you? So make a list of all of the things because we can't always do the same thing every day. So as I said, for me it's exercise, but I also love reading, I love self-development, so I make sure I've got a number of things. So if I've only got half an hour in a day, I can do that and it will top my battery up. I also make sure that I have longer periods of time, so once every 2 weeks I book a day out in my diary when I don't see clients, and I use that on doing things that are a bit calmer, take less of my energy, and I can do things to actually invest in myself that will keep me going for another 2 weeks. So everyone is different, and the more things that you know top your battery up so you're as resourceful as you can all of the time, the less stressed you're going to be. If you like this tip, please, please do share it with other people. It's my aim of sharing this advent calendar with, um, with my audience that you share it. So the more people that have more tools to deal with stress, the less stressed the world is going to be. So for anyone that's prepared to share this, I will put your name in a hat, and I'm going to draw a number of names out of that hat after Christmas to work with me with my compliments one-to-one, if you wish to. Similarly, if you haven't, if you'd like to like my page, that helps spread these messages too, as Facebook in its glory tends to then show these videos to more people. So please help me to help others, and I would love to help you very much in return. So that's tip number 10: be selfish. Please comment if you're, um, if you'd like to. I love reading comments from people and engaging. And otherwise, have a wonderful evening, and I will be back tomorrow with tip number 11. Bye-bye for now.