Don’t forget yourself…

Here’s a hard question for you:  “Do you put yourself first?” 

I’m willing to bet most of us make time for everyone else, but sorta leave ourselves toward the bottom of that particular To Do List.  Until my health scare last year, I can honestly say that I had always put taking care of myself very last on my own list.  While it’s great to care for others, if we don’t make our own health and well-being a priority, soon we will have absolutely nothing left to give to anyone else.

Loving ourselves means constantly checking in with ourselves.  When I slow down enough to ask: “How am I feeling?” “What do I need right now? or “What do I want?” I am actually loving myself.  I am the only person who will ever be there for myself throughout my entire life. I am also the only person who will ever be able to find or know what it is I truly want or need.

Life will ask a lot of all of us.  We will hurt like crazy, we will lose things and people we love, we will make mistakes.  We will also find love, and we will laugh and we will hopefully find joy so immense that it can be hard to put into words.  What I really hope for all of us is that we will find love inside ourselves for ourselves … that we will appreciate all that we are, and that when we “try to remember all of things [we] loved most in the world” we will write our own names at the very top of that list.