April 17, 2014
Alexia Isaak
Are you crazy busy? Is every moment of your day filled to the max? Do you have any margin of spare time? Do you spend time with yourself, reading, journaling, exercising, or meditating, or is your day completely filled with friends, work, hobbies, and entertainment? Making yourself a priority is something we all know we should do, but rarely make a reality.
It is so easy to to get caught up with work and kids and distract ourselves from our inner voices so that we learn to suppress it and shut it out completely. It's that voice of intuition, the gut feeling, the voice of love, that is our best guide, and we make decisions to quiet it.
There's always a party, a project, an organization to help, a friend to see, etc. There's always something, but you must be sure to take care of self as well.
One day, the part of the Bible in the Book of Matthew that talks about the greatest commandments of God really struck me in a new way. I'd heard them countless times, but for some reason, this day I heard something new. The greatest commandment is to love the Lord your God with all your soul and all your mind. And the second is to love your neighbor as yourself.
I always took number two to mean that you always put your neighbor before you because we are inherently selfish. Then, I listened again. It says to love your neighbor as yourself, which assumes that you love yourself first and then your neighbor. It says to take care of yourself and then take care of others.
Give that 5% of time to care for yourself, and the rest of your time can be dedicated to friends, family, work, and other activities. Spending that time with yourself will help you increase your sensitivity to your inner voice and intuition until you hear it loud and clear. There are so many ways to care for yourself. Make the commitment because you can!