Take care of yourself!

It's been a while that I'm thinking about caring. I don’t refer to taking care of others, such as a spouse or relatives but taking care of yourself.

We can say that is normal to have some time for yourself, going to the beauty salon, doing nails or hair, buying news clothes... just to feel a little prettier and generally better in some bad days. But is that enough? Does taking care of appearance really make we feel better about ourselves?

Let’s be honest and admit that this help a lot. But certainly it is not enough. We also need to take care of our internal questions (yes, today is also about psychotherapy). People think it is weird when you tell them you will stay at home to rest, watch a movie or just be with yourself. But why? Why does it look weird and selfish? Why do we need to please and take care of others when we don’t please nor take care of ourselves?

During a class in college a teacher told the class: “You (psychologist) are the tools of your work”. I didn’t understand it at first, but months later that phrase made so much sense that I never forgot it.

In fact, we psychologist, are the tools of our work as we need to be well adjusted in order to help others and don’t get wrongly involved in issues that do not concern us. We need to go to therapy at least once in our life to deal with our family history and individual issues so we can be able to help others.

I believe that the teacher's speech can be extended to others jobs (or professions) and for people in general as well. We need to take care of ourselves to take care of others. We need to look inside us, to look to others.

Listen to yourself it’s a gift, but it's not everyone who can. Rubens Alves in In your chronicle Escutatória:

 [...]Listening is complicated and subtle. Alberto Caeiro says that "it is not enough not to be blind to see the trees and the flowers. One must also have no philosophy at all." Philosophy is a lot of ideas, inside the head, about how things are. Then people who are not blind open their eyes. Before us, outside the head, in the fields and woods, are the trees and the flowers. To see is to put inside what is outside. The blind man does not see why his windows are closed. What is outside can not enter. We are not blind. Trees and flowers come in. But - their poor little ones - they enter and fall into a sea of ideas. They are mingled in the words of philosophy that dwell in us. They lose their simplicity of being. There are other things. So what we see are not the trees and the flowers. To see it, the head must be empty.Pg 130

See you next time, 

Laura