1
My hip hurts.
Why do I write this blog? Or my e-zine? Who really cares?
And that digital thing I’m creating, who will read it? The world doesn’t need more information.
Why do I live where I do? I want to move. Someplace bustling and exciting. Someplace different.
I want… I want…. argh!!!
2
I didn’t do yoga this morning because my yoga mat is in the washer because the dogs got it muddy.
I’m itchy and stuffy, a sure sign I have either eaten the dreaded gluten, too much sugar, too much dairy, eggs or all of the above.
Come to think of it, I did not do my yoga practice the last three mornings.
I spent yesterday driving three and half hours each way to take my daughter to a soccer game.
1+2 = light bulb!
I”m feeling all knotty and dissatisfied and snarky with my life because I’ve been neglecting my minimum requirements for self-care.
And just what are minimum requirements for self-care?
They are the rather ridiculously long name I gave to a very important concept in The Life Organizer. MRSC’s are the basic things you need to stay in touch with yourself, to have a strong foundation to meet the rather constant challenges of life, and to ease the noise in your head.
Things like loving yourself with yoga, getting enough sleep, being outdoors in the teasing spring wind, saying no to a great invite cause you need time to putter alone. They aren’t sexy, they aren’t earth shattering, but without them, you tend to get all blurry and knotty and resentful.
You’re probably nodding your head as in “I know this.”
But do you know (you really want to think about this): When you neglect your minimums, not only do you get all pissy and resentful, you start thinking something out there has to change.
Or, even more tragic, that something in you is broken or bad and irredeemable.
When, really, so much of the time, it’s the simple lack of what you need to feel like you, to be resilient and resourceful and human, that is causing your suffering.
Did you know getting enough sleep will make you happier than making more money?
So how are your minimums today? (You can learn more from this free audio – part of the Find the Good Booster Pack – sign up for it at the top of the right hand column – just scroll up – and come to Ohio and we’ll explore this with the help of our community during the retreat.)
Stay tuned for what to do when you don’t feel like giving yourself your minimums and what to do when you find you can no longer go very long without your minimums. In other words, I feel a blog series coming on.
This week, I’m going to be paying a whole lot of curious attention to my minimums.
How do they can help me choose my life? How do they help me find the good, in myself and others? Have they changed — perhaps I think I know what they are but it’s time for a bit of fresh exploration?
What about you? Have you been taking care of your minimums lately?
If not, could you be buying your story that you are a permanent subscriber to KFUCKED, a station with a very strong signal, when in fact, you might just need some time by the sea?
Related posts:
19 responses so far ↓
1 Cairene Apr 12, 2010
Wow, do I know the feeling of “I need to do everything differently.” Which sometimes I respond to by trying to invent the new – although that rarely works. I’ve learned it’s better to just do what I’m already doing, only better. But I don’t think it has yet occurred to me to drill all the way down to my MRSC’s – and just do those. Not do them better – just do them – in response to that feeling. Thanks Jen.
2 Giulietta Nardone Apr 12, 2010
Hi Jen,
Great article for folks. I see this all the time. People drowning in shoulds and musts instead of being lifted up by activities that make their hearts sing.
I take excellent self-care of myself. My days consists of creative pursuits, exercise, conversation with friends, learning, work and of course my specialty: rebelling!
Thanks …
Giulietta, Inspirational Rebel
3 Hiro Boga Apr 12, 2010
Jen, I love this post! Your MRSC are what I call a lap–a place that’s always there for me when I choose to visit.
A place I can sit in for a while to restore my sense of being at home in a friendly, loving, welcoming world.
Your blog is a lap for me, some days. A most welcome refuge “to meet the rather constant challenges of life…”
4 Tweets that mention Choose Your Life Mondays – the It Isn’t A Big Ding Dang Do Edition | Comfort Queen -- Topsy.com Apr 12, 2010
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by MichaelBungayStanier, Jennifer Louden, Jennifer Louden, Cairene MacDonald, Carol Willis and others. Carol Willis said: RT @jenlouden: What if there isn't anything the matter that a walk by the sea or a nap couldn't cure? http://bit.ly/bKphcF [...]
5 Julie Stuart Apr 12, 2010
Yes, it’s that very short list of things I need to do that help my run better. Here are a few that work for me:
rest
even a little bit of yoga in the morning
sunshine
looking at something beautiful
healthy food with lots of color
being in water
in the winter–oil, oil, oil
6 Mona Apr 12, 2010
Yesterday I botched on my MSCRs…
I started wanting more friends. To go out and do something. To move. To have a different business.
All I really needed?
Some quiet time with myself. To breathe.
I had been listening to a lot of music, multi-tasking as I worked, chatting with friends online…feeling excited and talking on the phone.
I was stirred up and wanted to change “out there” and all I really required was about 5 min. of being very very still. Quietly. Breathing.
7 Jennifer Apr 12, 2010
How lucky am I to know women like you who can talk about this stuff and share your examples and fill my heart with such love? Here’s to the sister hood of traveling support of breathing and oil and just do it and rebelling and wow!!!
Julie, what kind of oil?
8 leah Apr 12, 2010
wow, what an interesting thought, that the feeling of wannnnnting something or feeling broken could be related to slacking on the self-care! i’m going to be paying more attention to that!
i’ve been noticing that my minimum involves some kind of movement, getting outside if possible, a good night’s sleep, some kind of self-expression (art, writing, doodling), and laughter. it’s the simple stuff! i like this idea of the mrsc for reminding me to keep those things going.
9 Amba Greene Apr 12, 2010
Hi Jen,
Glad to make your acquaintance through Julie S.
Love this post.
Similar to “we are what we eat”…..its the little things that we do day in and day out that become who we are….”we are what we do”….
And please try the ancient art of daily oil massage. Did you know the sanskrit word “sneha” means oil ….and also love?
Anointing yourself with Love-very powerful!!!
10 living savvy Apr 12, 2010
When I begin to feel the wobbles in life I check in with my committment to the ordinary things that I do in life that deliver extraordinary results (you call them MRSC’s).
Like exercising outside, lots of vegetables with my meals, facial every 6 – 8 weeks, 5- 6 hours of uninterrupted sleep, my evening cup of tea made for me (not by me), yoga once a week, a weekend nap
11 crescent Apr 13, 2010
Right on, sister. Exactly so.
What I don’t get is why I have to learn this one over and over – it never sticks.
But maybe that’s part of the whole thing.
The woman I do Pilates/ PT / balance training with once a week was just talking about this — how hard it was even for HER, who counsels patients all week to find time to do a little each day — to, well, find time!
It’s like: at a certain point we all KNOW what works. It;s just acting on that knowledge, and resisting the recurrent amnesia. As a quote I RT’d yesterday has it, “The distance between who I am and who I want to be is separated by my actions.” Brian Solis (@briansolis)
It’s all about those tiny decisions. Not going online efore b’fast and a walk (or whatever.) Every little cvhoice accumulates, adding to or subtracting from life and well-being and rising to the better part of oneself. Or not.
Right on, sister.
xxxoo
cd
12 Ironica Apr 13, 2010
This reminds me of one of the two take-home concepts I got out of the two-day “First Things First” Franklin-Covey time management class.
The instructor drew a coordinate plane on the board. The X axis was “Urgent.” The Y axis was “Important.” Values went from positive to negative along each axis, as you’d expect. Then the instructor labeled the quadrants from the upper right counter-clockwise, as I, II, III, and IV.
Quadrant I, things which are both Urgent and Important, is where most of us spend most of our time. This has to get done, and NOW.
I’ll skip Quadrant II for now.
Quadrant III items aren’t urgent or important. They’re “wasting time.” But some of them are recreational activities that have a valuable place; we do need to “re-create” ourselves from time to time.
Quadrant IV items are usually someone else’s priorities. As far as we are concerned, they are not “important,” but we know they’d better get done because they’re URGENT.
Quadrant II is items that are important, but not “urgent.” This is where we *should* be spending more time. Quadrant II items that sit long enough will likely move to Quadrant I, or will cause other items to crop up in Quadrant I. Maybe taking your car in for routine maintenance is Quadrant II, but when you haven’t gotten the maintenance and now your car stalls out, it’s suddenly a Quadrant I activity.
A lot of the MRSC items you mention are things we’d normally put in Quadrant III. What you’re saying here is that they really belong in Quadrant II, insofar as they are part of that minimum requirement (maybe two yoga classes a week are in QII, but there’s another one or two in QIII if you have time).
And if we don’t take care of them, whatever quadrant they’re in, they will cause QI issues to arise… things we need to fix RIGHT NOW. Things that weren’t broken until we let those other items go unattended.
So, I understand this fairly well. I do not, however, *practice* it particularly well! I haven’t been to yoga since January. I can feel it, too. (And I had some soy on Saturday, which my knee is still complaining about.)
13 Julia Apr 13, 2010
Would you believe I only tweeted the amazing positive effects of my last massage & that I had left it far too long inbetween…care of the caregiver! Love the above post &!totally agree
14 Jennifer Apr 13, 2010
As always, such brilliance, thank you for the learning!
“Not do them better – just do them – in response to that feeling.” YES!
And of course, if we don’t attend to these basics, we do fall into emergencies.. good reminder there.
Thank you!
15 Jackie Griswold Apr 15, 2010
Minimum daily requirements – great concept. I’ve never thought in those terms, but it’s so true. I need to spend a little time thinking about my minimum daily requirements and make sure I’m getting what I need to be healthy.
Thanks for sharing this post.
16 Amy Apr 18, 2010
Right on, sister. Exactly so.
What I don’t get is why I have to learn this one over and over – it never sticks.
But maybe that’s part of the whole thing.
The woman I do Pilates/ PT / balance training with once a week was just talking about this — how hard it was even for HER, who counsels patients all week to find time to do a little each day — to, well, find time!
It’s like: at a certain point we all KNOW what works. It;s just acting on that knowledge, and resisting the recurrent amnesia. As a quote I RT’d yesterday has it, “The distance between who I am and who I want to be is separated by my actions.” Brian Solis (@briansolis)
It’s all about those tiny decisions. Not going online efore b’fast and a walk (or whatever.) Every little cvhoice accumulates, adding to or subtracting from life and well-being and rising to the better part of oneself. Or not.
Right on, sister.
xxxoo
cd
17 Lisa Sonora Beam Apr 19, 2010
This post just gave me something: that’s so easy to take for granted: oxygen.
A giant breath in and out.
I’m wondering: why is it so easy to forget our daily minimums?
Do I need a tatoo of my list on my wrist or something?
Can’t wait to listen to your Find the Good audio.
And I think regular tuning in to your blog is a good regular requirement.
Thanks, Jen.
Yes. Your work matters. Thank you for putting it all out there. It matters. It makes a difference.
xoxo
18 Rose Apr 24, 2010
Not dis-similar to Lisa’s comment about oxygen, my minimum is a daily deep-breath session. I need to open the window and take a single deep breath. Everything is so much better afterwards. It dissolves 99% of anxiety, even if only for a minute. Sometimes that’s all you need to re-group.
Thanks for this post, it’s great to be reminded.
19 5 Warning Signs You’ve Lost Your Mojo | Comfort Queen May 28, 2010
[...] you’ve just been busy, right? Or it’s the change of season? Too much fun? [Jen's note: neglecting your minimum requirements for self-care?] That’s not [...]