Please refrain from imagining rose petals, lavender candles, and yoga tracks for a few minutes.
For the next few, I need you to imagine a battle royale.
Besides yourself, you see many other barbarians mentally preparing for what’s to come next.
The energy that evaporates from the others smells like death and all of a sudden, you wonder if you even belong.
But that is trivial. You must run laps around your thoughts and examine your fears.
If you don’t, you just might be the first one to go.
Instead, you take a deep breath and draft any of the remaining courage. You breathe and plant your intention to come out a victor and not a victim. You fetch your flag and insist to see it planted.
A toast to a tomorrow that you have yet to see.
&
The bell rings and you are summoned to the coliseum, prepared or not, to face death.
Unlike the others, you hold steady to the breath and maintain your cool. To your surprise, the others are already fatigued due to the mental battle. And you think to yourself:
this coliseum is the least of my worries
&
You figured that you would come out the victor as soon as the first inhalation. Little did they know how much a difference your little bit of trickery could make. Some even scuffed the effort. Others mocked and decided to play unfair.
And yet, you remained.
&
In addition to your victory, you unfastened a superpower that would forever guide your journey.
Now you have the ability to fend off negative thoughts. You can brush off unnecessary baggage. Better yet, you have the audacity to sit at the bar with your back to the entrance.
You made it clear. You won.
It was evident the moment you embraced and accepted the responsibility to defend once again.
This is a story of self-care.
It is the infamous story most people leave on “read”. It is the truth that people run away from like hot coals. It is the necessary bit of experience that gets left out from most influencers’ social feed.
Unfortunately, it is my opinion that, the existing formula is broken and leads to hundreds of false expectations.
Most of these self-care routines never involve a battle and I fail to see how they can help you grow.
I fail to see how a lack of challenge can produce new insights.
I believe each self-care routine is an opportunity to defend and protect.
To protect what?
To protect what you believe is yours while you discard the rest.
Till next time,
Be mary and take a deep breath
