Contributing or Contaminating
An old Cherokee is teaching his
grandson about life. “A fight is going on inside me,” he said to the boy. “It
is a terrible fight and it is between two
wolves. One is evil. He is anger,
envy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment,
inferiority, lies, false pride, superiority, and ego. The other is good. He is joy, peace, love, hope, serenity,
humility, kindness, benevolence, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion and faith. The same fight is going on inside you and inside
every other person too.” The Grandson
then asked his Grandfather, “Which wolf will win?” The old Cherokee Chief
simply replied, “The one you feed.” ~
Author Unknown
Early
in our relationship I had a bad habit of saying everything was “fine” when it
actually wasn’t. Dan called me out on it
once using one of my Dr. Phil quotes against me to get me to share what was
really on my mind. “We either contribute
to or contaminate our relationships.” Dan
pointed out that not sharing what was truly wrong was contaminating our
relationship. We often joke about it now
but this really helped us build a strong communication foundation. I thought about this quote over the past week
and feel the same can be said for everything in life.
The
choices we make in life either contribute or contaminate our goals, hopes and
dreams. It is estimated we have around
60,000 thoughts per day. The mind is a
powerful tool and our thoughts direct our life and our choices. Last week I didn’t lose any weight, nada,
zero, zilch; a big fat goose egg nothing.
It was the first week in 20 weeks that the scale read the same number and,
quite honestly, I was a bit bummed. I
quickly thought that beating myself up over it would only contaminate this
journey and that was not going to happen.
This whole experience made me think about working towards a goal
differently. If you want to be
successful you have to make contributing choices. Every day we either contribute or contaminate
our relationships, our jobs, our quest for goals and our life’s dreams. This
week I sought to answer this question. How
can I contribute more?
Every
day we have the simplest choice.
Contribute or contaminate. Each
morning I acknowledge that it is an opportunity to do one or the other. Every evening I reflect on how I did that
day. Contribute or contaminate may sound
harsh, and possibly a bit dramatic, but that’s how I see it. It’s black and white; no gray area. We are doing one or the other at various
degrees of impact. I made the choice to
go to the gym, to track my calories and to stay on plan, which contributes to
my goal. I also made the choice to
contribute to my journey by practicing self-love. This week I read the book “The Art of Extreme
Self-Care” by Cheryl Richardson. She
says, “To practice extreme self-care, you must learn to love yourself
unconditionally, accept your imperfections, and embrace your vulnerabilities.” It
seemed natural to me that to contribute to my goal, practicing extreme
self-care is the best place to begin.
Extreme Self-Care Summary Guide
Give yourself what you need
– enough rest; good food; peace of mind; stop worrying
Set healthy boundaries –
being okay to say no
Healthy routines – working
out; doing something to relax
Letting go of what doesn’t
really matter
Learning to ask for help; we
don’t have to do it alone
Clearing the clutter of our
homes and minds
Creating a home that rises
up to meet you – fill it with things you love & brings you joy
Eliminate things in your
home that only causes clutter
Turn down the volume; slow
down – turn off technology
This
week I worked to really put this into practice.
I made sure I went to bed on time, even on days off from work. I made a conscious choice to not worry about
things so much. Clearly I kept my
commitments of working out and eating good food but I also did more things to
relax. I had to let go of what doesn’t
really matter which included not caring that the towels in the linen closet
weren’t folded in the perfect tri-fold stacking style that my inner OCD is so
fond of. (It does not matter!) I organized and cleared the clutter in my
closet by getting rid of lots of pants that are now way too large, which was
super fun! I also worked hard to turn
down the volume of the noise of life by not having my cell phone by my side at
all times.
I
was walking Oliver around the lake in our neighborhood. It was a bright warm sunny day and we were
quickly walking on the path. I was
rushing to walk him so I could get him home and get my own workout done in
order to move on to my “to do” list for the day. I realized I had no time constraints and this
mad rush was really a habit. I need to
practice self-care so we just stopped. We
sat on the swing together that hangs under the gazebo by the dock overlooking
the lake. We watched birds fly by and just
sat there doing absolutely nothing for almost an hour and it was good. This week I realized that sometimes self-care
is exercise and eating right. Sometimes
it’s taking a nap with Oliver snuggled up in my arms. And sometimes it’s watching back to back to
back Hallmark Christmas movies in my jammies on a day off. Self-care is what soothes your soul.
You
can’t pour from an empty cup. Take care
of yourself first. It’s why flight attendants
tell us to put our own oxygen mask on first before we help others. Taking good care of me means the people in my
life get the best of me rather what what’s left of me. Practice extreme
self-care. Take care of your mind,
heart, body and spirit. Letitia
Elizabeth said, “I’ve made it a priority to practice self-care so that I never
lose my fight or drive to inspire change for others.” We need to make a promise to ourselves to
hold our own well-being sacred. Audre
Lorde said, “I have come to believe that caring for myself is not
self-indulgent. Caring for myself is an
act of survival.” Define what is
necessary and say no to the rest.
Self-care is not selfish. In
fact, the better you take care of yourself, the more value you are to
others. It’s not selfish to do what is
best for you.
Taking
care of yourself feeds the good wolf; it feeds the joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility, kindness,
benevolence, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion and faith inside of
you. Taking
care of you contributes. It contributes
to everything!
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