Self Care is Allowing Yourself to be Loved
Posted on:
September 20, 2017 | Doula Self Care
Being a trainer of doulas is not just about making great doulas. It is also about making people who fully understand self-care.
Self-care is a critical piece of the birth worker puzzle, as I’m sure you can imagine. The amount of giving that is required of us, is tremendous.
Now, you should know by now that you don’t have to soak your feet in hot water while someone else washes them, massages them, wraps rolled up paper towels between your toes and then paints your nails, in order to be participating in some type of “self-care.”
It can be as simple as allowing yourself to be loved.
Right now you’re probably thinking, self-care… “I’m loved. My partner loves me and I allow them to…”
But… How deeply?
When you dive into the pool of love with your partner, do you do it with your whole self or do you keep one hand tightly clung to the edge of love’s pool so that you don’t drown in it?
I held on.
For a long time, I held on, tightly.
I don’t know why, but I’m sure it had something to do with some kind of abandonment issue from the past…
And then one day, for the sake of self-care and relationship preservation, I let go. I took a deep breath, I held it and I allowed myself to sink under love’s deep waters.
And do you know what happened?
I was safe.
Under love’s water, I can breathe.
I can fill my lungs and slowly release what fills them.
I can clear my mind and release my tension.
I can float and I can swim and I can be free.
Under love’s water, I sing. Loudly and without apology. I give of myself entirely and I accept the love my partner offers me like the gift that it is intended to be.
It is in loves deepest waters where I heal. Where I replenish. And where I blossom. That is self-care.
My partner deserves all of me.
He deserves to hold this woman who can release the business of the day, the commitment of being a doula, and the nurturing ways of motherhood and I deserve to accept his love for me.
Choosing to accept his love in its entirety IS part of my self-care. And it is far longer lasting than any pedicure I’ve ever received.
Authored by: The Rock n’ Roll Doula
