To Care For Ourselves

Why is it hardest to care for one's self? It comes from the old patterns of survival; we are an interdependent species, and it behooves us to get along, so that the strength of the tribe carries us onward. In today's world, we want to pelase, we want to be liked, we want to be loved, and since these things represent survival to us, they take precedence over other, quite necessary things, like...caring for one's self.

But survival is a fear-based, human animal instinct behavior and modern day life calls us to be oriented toward human spirit - connection, harmony, peacefulness, spirituality, and so much more. The one doesn't work for the other - if we are entirely engrossed in survival tactics like pleasing everyone else, doing everything for them so we can survive, then we have nothing left for the human spirit we so yearn for.

It's important to care for ourselves - vitally important. In today's world survival is not so much of body, but of spirit. Without the attention to our own human spirit needs, we suffer unhappiness, depression, sadness, anger, fear, resentment, blame, resistance, etc.

Yes, today it is important to care for ourselves, to take time to breathe, to honor silence, to still the mind, stretch the body, to move in the syncopated rhythm of love for all through love for ourselves. Why be unhappy?

Blessings.
- Darshan

© 2009 Darshan F Jessop