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Living Life Fully
By: Debra Bruce, MS, LPC, LMFT
Taking care of ourselves emotionally can be a daunting task, especially with the fast paced society we live in and all the demands that are placed on our time. We can often be left feeling spread too thin, overwhelmed, and fatigued. However, there are things we can do to take better care of ourselves and to avoid wearing ourselves out both physically and emotionally.
It’s very important to live a balanced life, balance between work and play, balance between time for ourselves and time for others. The best way to ensure that we live a balanced life is to first sit down and figure out what our top priorities are. Do this by taking a sheet of paper and numbering your priorities from one on as you develop your list.
We each have to be at the top of our list, which is hard for a lot of us to hear because we think in the back of our minds that it is selfish, or we’ve been told that it is selfish, to place our needs first. We cannot be present emotionally for others if we don’t also give to ourselves. One cannot run on empty. We need to make ourselves a priority by doing things that nurture our soul, that tap into our creativity, that get us to a place inside of peace and calm.
Make sure while you’re establishing your top priorities to give yourself time to really explore what is truly important to you. Also, look at the list you are developing and make sure it seems balanced in terms of work and play, time for yourself and others.
A word of caution: often people feel they already don’t have enough time to get things they have to do done, so how are they ever going to add things they want to do to their list?! You can do it, should do it, and will do it if you work hard enough in establishing your priorities. To accomplish this might easily mean that you will have to lower your self-expectations a bit, for example how often you vacuum the carpet or sweep the sidewalk. Establishing your priorities to lead a balanced life will necessarily make you have to challenge the ways in which you routinely do things and how you currently spend your time. If you are able to do this, the rewards will be great because you will be living life more fully.
Once you’ve established your top priorities, the next important step is to allocate your time based on these priorities. You will allocate the most time to your top priorities and work down from there. For example, if cleaning the house or washing your car is number six on the list, you would not allocate time to do this until you have spent time doing your first five priorities.
It’s a good idea every week, say on Sunday before the week starts, to review how the past week went. Did you stick to your priorities and spend time on them? How balanced did your life feel over the past week? What modifications in your plan do you want to make for the coming week? Continue to revise and improve your plan as you go along so it truly works for you.
Living life based on your personal priorities can be truly liberating because you will be doing more of what you want and need to do. You will have a lot more control over your life, and feel refreshed rather than fatigued. Life is meant to be lived fully and we can do that if we live by our priorities and make conscious decisions about how we spend our time.
About Debra Bruce...
Debra Bruce, MS, LPC, LMFT is a therapist based in Houston, Texas, specializing in marriage/couples issues, childhood sexual abuse (victims), posttraumatic stress disorder, depression, anxiety disorders and more.
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