Putting on the Oxygen Mask

In the twelve step meetings I go to, we talk a lot about self-care.  There’s a reading in one of our daily meditation books about how in an airplane emergency you’re supposed to put your own oxygen mask on before you put one on your child or on someone else who can’t do it for themselves, because if you pass out you won’t be able to help someone else with their oxygen mask.  The reading goes on to talk about how that can be seen as a metaphor for what we should do in our lives.  Often the impulse is to put our own needs aside when someone else needs help, but we should make our own needs a priority, not only for our own sakes – because after all we count, we’re people too – but also because if we’re not taking care of ourselves we won’t be able to be any good for anyone else.

            All of that my friends and I are totally clear about, although we can’t always put it into action in our lives.  The thing we’re not always so clear about it is how to put into action in our lives.  How do we take care of ourselves?  Do we luxuriate in bubble baths (for some reason there are many references to bubble baths in the twelve-step literature that talks about self-care), eat well, exercise, go to the doctor and dentist when we need to?  Yes, all of that.  And self-care has a lot to do with how we use our time, with whether we take time to rest and have fun or make ourselves work all the time without ever taking breaks, with whether we take time to nurture ourselves or just do things for other people all day long, joylessly, relentlessly, sometimes resentfully.

            I’ve been using my own harnessing time tools consistently for several years now, and lately I’ve been noticing that I seem to have taken self-care to a new level, noticing that I have many opportunities for self-care that I never thought of before I started working on harnessing my time. What I’ve noticed, specifically, is that I don’t make myself do things any more that don’t feel right in the moment.  Of course, I have obligations like everyone else and I honor those obligations; I don’t skip out on work, whether it’s coaching dates with clients or something else, and I don’t skip out on writing either.  Unless there’s an emergency or some other really compelling reason, I write and do whatever timely thing I need to do for my work life whether I feel like it or not.  (Otherwise I might never write or work at all, because I often don’t feel like getting to work at the outset, then I start enjoying the work once I’ve gotten involved.)  But there are many things I can choose to do or not do that don’t fall into those categories, and those things, it turns out, are more negotiable than I used to believe. 

Almost anything that’s not nailed down -- because of some previous arrangement with myself or someone else -- can be postponed.  And because I’m planning my days in a certain way, I know that there’s no chance that “postponing” equals not doing at all.  I have confidence these days that I will do what I need to do and do it in a timely way, but that time just isn’t now.

              For example, a couple of days ago I had it on my plan that from five to six o’clock I was going to prepare a presentation.  The preparation had to be done by a certain date and my days had been very full and I was a little nervous about getting the preparation done on time, so I was pleased to have found a spot in my day when I could do it.  But when the time came, there was a part of me that really, really didn’t want to do that work then.  In the old days I might have forced myself to do it anyway, or at the very least I would have felt bad – felt like I was bad – for not doing it.  But now I simply noticed the feeling – oh, I don’t want to do that right now – acknowledged it, paid attention to it, and acted on it.  I looked at my calendar and identified a couple of other time slots in the next few days when I could do the preparing.    And then I promptly lay down on the daybed in my study and took a nap. 

I felt great:  I was resting when I needed to rest.  And I wasn’t forcing myself to override the inner voice that told me (in the form of a deep felt sense that I didn’t want to work right then) that what I really needed to do in that moment was rest. I wasn’t feeling guilty and therefore ruining my rest; I wasn’t telling myself any negative messages about myself at all.  Instead I was showing myself that I cared about what I wanted. I was showing myself that I -- like a good, loving, attentive parent -- can, do, and will notice what I need and take care of myself.  And I was proving to myself that later, having put on my own oxygen mask and worn it for a while, I’ll feel renewed, restored, and able to go out into the world and do what I need to do.