I was sitting in a friend’s office few days ago, and this beautiful, young and vibrant lady walked in with a gloomy face, I guess she is friends with my friend. And she looked at my friend in the face and said; “Am so angry right now, am very angry at someone and I need to call the person to let her know that am angry with her”. I was sitting beside my friend in a brown leather chair, very soft and comfortable. And I didn’t say one word yet, so my friend looked at her and said, I don’t think is a good idea for you to call her right now (talking about the lady that got her angry) and I just nodded my head in agreement, and said slowly; yeah, I don’t think is a good idea too.

She insisted that she wants to call her, I can see she was boiling inside, and wants to drop the bomb, her face was almost red. So my friend applied a little bit pressure with his opinion of how it’s not a good idea especially right now. He went ahead to say, I don’t think you are in the right state of mind for that kind of conversation, you are very angry right now and might not be in control of your emotions and the words that might come out from your mouth. I suggest you give it a little time, so you can regain your calmness. I never wanted to say much, I nodded my head again and said I think he is right. She finally didn’t make the call, but all those moments, all I was thinking about was a conversation that can change and brighten the atmosphere in the room. Aha! HERE IT IS; I lodged in a new conversation about stress management, I was able to get her involved in the conversation, and that’s how she forget about her initial plight, at least for a while.

I will still comeback to this story, I just want to refresh our memories a bit about last week’s blog, we talked about the Spiritual aspect of Holistic self-care (you can visit last week’s blog for better understanding). We also talked about self realization (Awareness and Discovery). Today, we want to discuss the emotional, psychological and social aspect, because all these three are connected together.

Back to the story, it’s surprising most times how we unintentionally sell our emotions to others, how we allow others to be in control of how we feel, thereby affecting how we think. And the tricky thing is; even in those moments, we somehow convince ourselves that we are still in control. But let me ask you this; Is there any human you know that naturally wants to feel bad, angry, anxiety or depressed at any given time? Every human wants to feel good, experience happiness, peace and joy at all times. So when we are feeling bad, deep down it’s not what we truly want, but somehow we try to convince ourselves that it’s normal and we are still in control. Now note this; you can’t really practice Holistic self-care without learning how to be in control of your emotions and thoughts. The young lady at my friend’s office said, she was angry because of someone else’s behavior towards her, this means her feelings at that moment was been controlled by someone else. The person was indirectly in charge of her feelings. Now because of what the other person did, it affected her that she couldn’t separate herself from her emotion, she said; “Am angry” not that “she feels angry“. These are different, “You are angry means you are your emotion (anger), “You feel angry means you have separated yourself from your emotion. You see yourself as a separate entity from your emotion, this is called DETACHMENT. Now, Between you and your emotion is the “feeling”, this means that you feel your emotion, not that you are the emotion. Since it is a feeling, it means you can change it if you can separate yourself from your emotion. When you feel a low energy emotion, you can simply change it, by choosing to feel another type of emotion (high energy emotion) and you can do this by re-channeling and re-focusing your thoughts on something else that can change that feeling. But I must warn you, this is not as easy as it sounds, it requires observation and continuous practice, but it’s achievable.

When you learn this technique, it will be difficult to sell your feelings to someone else. You will be solely responsible for how you feel and your emotions. And when that happens it means; you will learn how not take the stress of work to your home, spouse or kids, you can not take the heart break of a failed relationship into the new one, you can not allow an unpleasant situation that happened in the day to control your evening. You will learn how to take low energy emotions like; blame, guilt, despair, regret, anger, anxiety, hate and so on, and replace it with high energy emotions like; peace, love, empathy, kindness, gratitude, beauty, joy and so on.. This doesn’t mean that you won’t feel low energy emotions sometimes, it means that you can quickly withdraw yourself from it whenever you find yourself there. When you understand that you are solely responsible for how you feel and your emotions, then you will work hard to master it positively. Only Then you can practice self care effectively.

When it comes to the psychological aspect, the best approach is to educate yourself with books and materials on psychology. Becoming intelligent psychologically, helps you develop greater philosophy about life and also gives you global perspective. Psychology is all about studying and understanding your mind and how it functions. Knowing the factors and mental characteristics that govern your behavior as a person. This means you will understand the reasons behind your actions, and you will uncover your hidden mental strengths. This will help you to identify things and materials that are toxic to your mind and to avoid them. The great thing about mastering the spiritual, emotional, and psychological aspect of self care is; it makes the social aspect easy and effective. Socially you won’t be under pressure because you have peace within. You radiate what you have within unto others and that brings fulfillment and gives you relevance. You bring peace where peace is lacking, You bring love where there’s hate, You bring joy and smiles to those mourning and comfort to the distressed, and hope to the hopeless. The thing that sum this up is the ability to give unto others what you have within, Holistic self-care is not complete and effective without contribution to others. Connection is the essence of living, and true connection happens through sincere contribution and service. This is so because we are all one with humanity.

You see, when we work towards all those different aspects, the physical aspect becomes easy. It is very important for us to work on our physical body, but when we fail to take care of the main things first, it becomes a problem. Most suicides is not as a result of lack of money or poverty. Rich people who can afford any spa, hire a professional trainer, get the best nutritionist and so on still commits suicide. Why; because of psychological, spiritual and emotional distress. They feel empty, unfulfilled and lack of inner peace and meaningfulness. This is not just some blog to make you feel good, these are proven strategies that will help you practice Holistic self care effectively and make it a lifestyle. Is it going to be easy? NO, Is it going to be possible and practicable? YES! Is it going to worth it? ABSOLUTELY YES!

As I leave you today, I want you to decide on the area you want to focus on first, you can’t do all at once, it will overwhelm you. I want you to focus on one at a time and give it a go with all you’ve got. Applied knowledge is the real power not knowledge itself. You wouldn’t know what you are missing in your life, until you experience the advantages of Holistic self care. Remember first thing, think about Holistic self-care, have a mental picture of what it means to you, hold unto that mental picture, focus and reminisce on it. Then you will start attracting the things that will make that picture possible and repel the things that won’t. Only then can you begin the journey and take on each aspect of your concentration. I hope this blog was able to inspire you to take action, you deserve the best and the best is what I wish for you. Thank you for your time, love and support, please subscribe and I will see you again next week.