Take care of yourself.

As the saying goes, “You cannot give what you do not have”, if you don’t take care of yourself, you ultimately cannot take care of anyone else. When you fly on an airplane, the flight attendant instructs the passengers to “Put on your oxygen mask before trying to help others,” even your child. The instruction is a great analogy for life and a strategy for navigating relationships with family and friends. Some of us are pathologically altruistic, dealing with a messiah complex, empathetic to a fault, and always giving to others without considering ourselves. This issue can be caused as a result of many reasons, such as family upbrings, societal and religious indoctrination, and birth order, among others.

Taking care of yourself and putting yourself first can somewhat be viewed as selfish but if you empty your tank by caretaking everyone else and not caring for yourself, it usually does not end well. You need to, at some point set healthy boundaries for yourself and others, be self-compassionate and kind in the process. Here are some strategies for caring for yourself.

Most of us stay in toxic families and dysfunctional relationships because that is what we have always known (familiar), we become co-dependent empaths and perpetuate the drama triangle and toxicity.

Pathological Altruism

Pathological altruism might be thought of as any behavior or personal tendency in which either the stated aim or the implied motivation is to promote the welfare of another. But, instead of overall beneficial outcomes, the “altruism’ instead has irrational (from the point of view of an outside observer) and substantial negative consequences to the other or even to the self.

Altruism in which attempts to promote the welfare of others instead result in unanticipated harm.

Be Self-Compassionate

“Self-compassion is a way of emotionally recharging our batteries. Rather than becoming drained by helping others, self-compassion allows us to fill up our internal reserves, so that we have more to give to those who need us.”

Self-compassion involves acting the same way towards yourself when you are having a difficult time, fail, or notice something you don’t like about yourself. Instead of just ignoring your pain with a “stiff upper lip” mentality, you stop to tell yourself “this is really difficult right now,” how can I comfort and care for myself in this moment?

Rather than condemning yourself for your mistakes and failures, therefore, you can use the experience of suffering to soften your heart. You can let go of those unrealistic expectations of perfection that make you so dissatisfied, and open the door to real and lasting satisfaction.

“It’s like those little videos they always show on planes before takeoff, which tell adults to put on their own oxygen mask before helping children to put on theirs. We need to have a steady supply of compassion available to ourselves in order to have adequate resources to share with others. If we’re knocked flat on our backs because our own resources are depleted, what use are we to those who rely on us? In many ways, then, self-compassion is an altruistic act, because it puts us into the optimal mental and emotional mind-set to help others in a sustainable, long-lasting way.” ¹

“Self-Compassion doesn’t mean that I think my problems are more important than yours, it just means I think that my problems are also important and worthy of being attended to.”

Stop being the Rescuer

As Highly Sensitive Personalities (HSPs), we often take responsibility for the emotions and issues of others. While this high level of empathy and compulsion to “rescue” can be advantageous when we are called to engage in activism and help populations in need, it actually makes us even more vulnerable to toxic people who seek our sympathy in order to continue their destructive behavior. When we are always swayed by another person’s pain, we fail to take into account how they are treating us. Instead, we reconcile with them quickly, rationalizing their unacceptable behavior. Manipulative people depend on this trait to exploit us. ²

“The heightened empathy of HSPs ultimately places us at risk when we encounter toxic individuals. It causes us to view them from our own moral perspective, seeing them in an overly sympathetic light and dismissing, rationalizing, or minimizing red flags. This is both erroneous and self-destructive.”

The root of self-care is setting boundaries.

Saying no to helping is an act of self-care. Paying attention to your needs is self-care. And, like putting on the oxygen mask, you’ll have more energy for others if you apply it to yourself first. If you think about it, the root of self-care is setting boundaries: it’s saying no to something in order to say yes to your own emotional, physical, and mental well-being.

Develop a self-care routine.

Have a self-care routine that allows you to train your body, mind and soul. Here is my self-care routine in a typical day:

Sleep early (9/10 max. 10:30 PM).
Wakeup early (4 AM rise time)
Study time – Book reading, prepare for a certification exam, french podcast listening (4-7)
Exercise-Gym Time (7-10): Basketball shooting while listening to an audiobook, Swimming while listening to French, weight lifting while listening to an audiobook, running (audiobook/podcast)
10 – 11 AM : Meditation Session plus Youtube motivational videos
11 – 5 PM: Work time plus podcast – audiobook.
Buffer time: Read on Kindle, listen to audiobooks, think, and nap.

Your self-care routine would be different from mine, make sure to develop a routine and stay consistent with it. As the saying goes: “You don’t have to be great to start but, you have to start to be great”. Take care of yourself daily through regular sleep, nap, exercise, good nutrition, reading and socializing.

Podcast

Bert Kreischer on Selling Out Stadiums, Following Your Dreams & Perfecting Your Craft EP 1453 | The School of Greatness

Meditation

Daily Calm with Tamara Levitt – A Grateful Life

“Its not happy people who are grateful. It’s grateful people who are happy.”

Gratitude does not just happen, it is a practice, and it asks that we make a conscious choice to focus not on what we lack but on what we have, not on what’s wrong but on what’s right. The more we express gratitude, the more we notice other things to be grateful for. First, it is a few things; soon, it is a thousand.

The more you praise and celebrate your life, the more there is in life to celebrate. – Oprah Winfrey

Daily Jay with Jay Shetty – Agency

Responsibility (Agency) – Instead of being a bystander, take an active role in your life. You can’t always control the hand we are dealt in life, but we can control how we respond.