The change of the seasons brings the predictable gift of allergies and general germ infestations. *that’s a technical term for colds and flu.
My London buddy has been plagued with flu for the better part of 2 weeks and is still feeling like shit on a stick *his words. Because of the way his company works, each employee is awarded some arbitrary score based on number of sick days blah blah.
So is he currently in bed, looking after himself and giving his body what it needs to recover? No. Of course not. There’s a penalty if he does, so instead he’s dragging his germ-infested arse into the office and spreading the love, never giving his body the rest it desperately needs to recover.
When did that become the norm? When did self-care get shelved for profitability? Our value has been downgraded to the point where we are cogs in the profit machine and work we will! No matter what. You feel like shit? Too bad Honey, you’re on duty making money for the machine. Get to it!
I’m generally very good about making sure I leave work on time. I work 7 am to 2:45 pm; those are the boundaries I set from the start and for the most part they are respected. The past few weeks those boundaries have been more of a suggestion and I’m feeling the effects of it.
Coming home too late too cook anything meaningful so I resort to quick and easy. Yeah well, quick and easy comes with consequences and my body feels sluggish and mentally exhausted.
That we constantly sacrifice our self-care at the altar of someone else’s profit is something that seriously needs to change. This just isn’t cricket. My life doesn’t have a dollar value thank you very much!
It’s enough. Our collective sanity has gone down the crapper and for what? How productive can you be when you feel like you’ve been hit by a truck? It winds me up sitting on the train sandwiched between people sniffling and hacking up a lung. Why do the rest of us have to be covered in germs because your boss is a dick?! GO HOME AND REST FOR THE LOVE OF GOD!
I came across this quote today and it sums it up pretty neatly:
“The Self Care Formula is simple. It is NITO(5R)…that is Nutrients In and Toxins Out in the 5 Realms the body works in (Mental, Emotional, Physical, Environmental and Spiritual). Unfortunately, we are doing TINO(5R) that is toxins in and nutrients out.”
― Nina Leavins
This ties in quite neatly with the 4 rooms philosophy I’m testing in my life. Nina adds in a 5th element which is crucial: Environment. The 4 rooms exist within the 5th so it makes sense that it all needs to be viewed holistically. Attempting to balance 4 rooms within an unbalanced Environment isn’t going to have optimum results.
Take an inventory of what environment you’re trying to balance yourself in because at the moment my environment is going a long way to throwing my 4 rooms out of whack in spectacular fashion. There was time to meditate tonight which is something I never do. It was definitely a much needed deposit into my spiritual room and it needs to become more regular.
This is going to be trial and error but it’s a start. At least the errors mean we’ve tried for something.
