30th
August 2018
Take
time to make your soul happy
What
a difference a day makes, 24 little hours.
I feel 100% better than I did when I woke up on Tuesday morning and lots
of things contributed to that, friends, family, my WW members and Weight
Watchers as an employer. See they care
about our wellbeing too, to the point where they’ve actually introduced an annual Wellbeing Scheme for coaches as well as a Friends and Family programme. Just knowing they care about my wellbeing
makes me care about it even more.
If
you were given an envelope with a sum of money to spend on your wellbeing, say £75 what would you
spend it on? What does wellbeing
include, what does it mean? You could
spend it on your physical, financial and emotional wellbeing? What would be your first thought and would
that be the one that really needs it most.
The first thing I did was went to look up what ‘wellbeing’ actually
meant, I do like a definition, so according to the very excellent website www.mind.org.uk wellbeing describes your mental state - how you
are feeling and how well you can cope with day-to-day life. Our mental wellbeing is dynamic. It can change
from moment to moment, day to day, month to month or year to year.
If
you have good mental wellbeing you are able to:
- feel relatively confident in yourself and have positive self-esteem
- feel and express a range of emotions
- build and maintain good relationships with others
- feel engaged with the world around you
- live and work productively
- cope with the stresses of daily life
- adapt and manage in times of change and uncertainty
If
you want to read more and I suggest you do, go to their website https://www.mind.org.uk/information-support/tips-for-everyday-living/wellbeing/#.W4ZUJ7gnaUk
Anyway
if you read yesterday’s blog you know I’d felt overwhelmed Tuesday morning but
after doing what I said I was going to do I felt 100% better by 9am yesterday,
I’d emptied all my drawer in my bedroom out and worked my way through them,
filling a couple of bin bags, then I cooked myself the most delicious
breakfast.
Seriously it was that good,
having a new non-stick frying pan has changed my life – no I’m not being
dramatic, it makes that much difference and if it only stays that way for a few
months, I’ll buy another one! Never will
I live with a crappy frying pan ever again.
Back
to what would you spend £75 on if someone gave it to you to spend on your
wellbeing? I put some thought into this
and I have to say just thinking about it did my mental health and wellbeing the
world of good because it made me think about me and what I need for a change.
Okay
what did I come up with, physical for me would be a super indulgent massage and
facial session. Emotionally well
thankfully I have great friends that listen, so I asked myself what do I enjoy
doing that would recharge my emotional bank, because let’s be honest everything
is easier to handle when you’ve had a good time or done something you enjoy. I came to the conclusion, I haven’t got the
inclination to cook from scratch too much at the moment, plus I’ve been doing
online shopping for a good while now and one of the things I really enjoy doing
is food shopping in Waitrose – posh food for the kid who’s family was skint
always does it for me. So a couple of
hours out, browsing round Waitrose, spending money, buying some delicious ready
meals and saving with a coupon they’ve sent me is one of my indulgent
pleasures.
What
it also made me realise is financially I’m not in a bad place, I could afford
to do both of those things anyway and I’m going to with my own money, I have a
good job, my house is paid for thankfully, I’m very, very lucky, yes I'm a full
time carer for my mom who has Alzheimers and Vascular Dementia but wow it could
be a great deal more difficult!. So what I plan to do with my £75
is put it in an envelope and I’m going to use it to help someone else’s
wellbeing, to give them something to look forward to or to help them with a
debt they can’t afford. That helps them
and makes me feel good for doing a good dead.
We all need to take care of each other because we never know when our
good fortune will change.
Improving
our wellbeing doesn’t always have to involve money, cleaning my closets out
yesterday really helped me, cooking a delicious breakfast reminded me I can do
that and it’s not that difficult either.
Writing it out helps me daily, some days I have nothing to say, others I
don’t know when to shut up. Catching up
with my bestie and having a giggle is the best medicine in the world. Getting closer to my sister is helping my
wellbeing, we’ve never been the kind of family that live in each others pockets
so this is new to us both, we’re new partners in crime. I need to get my crochet back out, I’ve
avoiding the last few squares because they’re the difficult ones then I’ve got
to sew it up but the sense of achievement when it’s finished will be worth it.
Yeah
being kind to myself, accepting it’s okay not to be okay, appreciating that my
life has its difficulties, noticing the smile moments, these things all help me
have good mental wellbeing.
Here’s
to having a very great day, looking for the smile moments and focussing on
creating those healthy habits for life.
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