Selfcare and life Essentials
Self-Care and Life Essentials
We were delighted to take part in two community exchanges last week, one in Glasgow and the other in Mid Argyll, sharing and exploring ideas on what constitutes the essentials of life. The exchanges left a lot of room for thought and exploring what is essential and how do we bring this into our lives is worth exploring further.
While food, shelter and warmth were mentioned along with money, this was not the main thrust of the exchanges. These were more around our connections to each other. There was so much emphasis on having love in your life, friends and family, pets, being tolerant of each other even when we disagree, having a strong sense of community and trust, not only in each other but in those who serve us and feeling respected and valued. We explored the importance of everyone’s job role as being important and how we should be kind to people, sharing examples of different occupations can be taken for granted and the difference it can make just saying thank you to someone. Those affected by power cuts from the recent storm gave examples of appreciating the people who came out in that weather to get the power going again, to remove trees which were an obstruction or a danger.
It was interesting that those who shared all had a connection to at least one community group/facility and a strong sense of being part of something and belonging.
As we approach selfcare week it is worth reflecting on what are the essentials for life and the impact this has on our sense of wellbeing e.g. someone’s dog may offer so many things, exercise as they go walks, together, companionship if they live alone, love and affection as they are there to greet them when they have been out. However, pets come with costs, food, vet bills, cat litter if a cat and the list goes on. When we think of money its perhaps not money in itself that has the value, it’s what we need to buy that is essential for life and do we have the money for that?
There were also really interesting exchanges around how we prioritise what is essential. Interestingly no one mentioned mobile phones, but when this was thrown into the conversation there was an interesting exchange around power cuts and how some people reacted to the electricity going off and how to fill time when there was no TV etc. This led to an exchange about how we handle boredom and also how being bored may actually be good for us at times as it can make us more creative, maybe give us a chance to recharge and reduce stress, it also encourages us to do a bit of self-reflection and work out what is important to us and how we bring that into our lives. The more we discussed this the more we recognised that being bored actually gives you time to think as when we are constantly doing things/watching TV etc we do not get that space just to be, it was also recognised that being okay being bored was something to cultivate and finding ways to do things not reliant on tech may be of value to all generations.
Originally, we had thought the exchanges would help us revamp the Financial health booklet, however, feedback suggests that is fine as it is. What we are considering doing instead is capturing the richness of the exchanges to share in a way perhaps offers food for thought around what is essentials to us as individuals really and how we bring that into our lives.
As we move towards selfcare week next month, it is worth taking the time to share ideas with each other around what are your life essentials and how you bring them into your life.
There was also a lot about our values and being able to live our values. Lot to think about so wanted to share as may be of interest to others and be great to hear what you think.
What I learned was the amazing wisdom that people have and how when we get together and share, how we can build that kinder world and realise despite what the news chooses to share with us, there is still a lot of hope and goodness in the world
Thanks for reading
Hilda
This is the link to the financial wellbeing booklet https://www.copescotland.com/resources/financial-wellbeing-in-times-of-challenge Feel free to share