It’s Ok to Take Care of Yourself
Today’s post is another transparent and vulnerable one for me. As my husband continues to deal with a great deal of pain after we were rear-ended last month, I have been busy driving him to a wide variety of appointments and taking care of him. And being a care giver definitely isn’t an easy task. The number of times I have found myself in tears or feeling overwhelmed during the past few weeks has been quite a large number.
This week I was planning to go to one of my regular networking groups for a holiday luncheon but when yesterday rolled around, I decided not to go. The reason was quite simple… I have been in a very emotional and overwhelmed space of late and as an introvert, it is even harder for me to go out in a group of people who are happily celebrating the holidays and pretend that I am cheerful.
So I gave myself permission to stay home and do what felt more nurturing for me. If I went, I would have felt like I had to put a smile on my face and pretend that all was ok with me when in reality, right now is a very difficult time for my husband and I. I really dislike how pretending to be happy and ok feels because it is NOT real and I feel like a fraud.
I’m sharing this in my post because I know the holidays can bring up a wide range of emotions for many of us. We have expectations from family and friends about how we are “supposed to” show up to gatherings and events and be filled with holiday cheer. But the reality is sometimes we are going through a hard time and we don’t want to go be around a bunch of cheerful, happy people and put a fake smile on our faces.
I support you in making the right choice for yourself. Whether that is choosing to not go to a gathering or activity you don’t feel up for or going and being honest and transparent that everything is not perfectly cheerful and great in our world, do what feels right to YOU. Don’t feel pressured by anyone else to meet their expectations or to pretend that just because it is Christmas that you are in a cheery holiday mood.
This, my friends, is my holiday gift to you. Be true to yourself and your needs first and foremost and give yourself permission to feel sad or down if that is how you are feeling this holiday.
Thank you SO much! I really needed to hear that.
Glad it helped you!
Thanks so much for sharing, this is how I often feel around the holidays. For me, being a single woman with no children of my own, my mother passed on and my family never inviting me to travel to their homes makes the holiday season rather depressing for me. Perhaps in the future, when I have a partner, things might change with wanting to celebrate family during the holiday season, but for now it is just another day.
It makes so much sense that we all have different experiences of the holiday and that for some of us, it is not some big happy day but without family it can actually be depressing. I feel like not having an expectation of how a holiday “should” be and allowing whatever feelings are there to come up are both helpful.
As your friend, wanted to remind you that NO, you attracted none of this with the accident. It’s life.