We are not meant to live in isolation. What makes us healthy and whole is the connections we form with one another.  With our families. Our friends. Our colleagues and our community…  The thing we need the most to feel healthy has become harder to get.

After more than 30 years in the field of social work, I know one thing to be true. We do not need to be victims to our situation. We have choices to make, each and every day about how we want to live our lives. How we choose to show up for ourselves and each other.

Practice #11 - Do 3 Things

I always find it interesting how art imitates life. Or, in my case, how my course material often seems to synchronistically dovetail with the wierd world we all live in. It helps that I teach Psychology, I suppose, but I know friends who teach English, History and even Culinary Arts and somehow they too are finding deep correlations between the health of their soudough starter and the ability to manage their mental health.

Coincidentally, today’s topic was stress and its impact on health and well-being. We talked about the fight or flight response, a mechanism centered in the most primitive part of the brain, the amygdala. We talked about what happens to us when catastrophes strike. The process that takes us from shock to community response to letdown and finally, reorganization. About how chronic stress tests us; the capacity we have to weather stress and regain our footing when stress is acute (short term) but how we struggle when stress is chronic (long lasting). I’m not kidding. You can’t make this stuff up.

I asked my students what practices they have to manage the stress they’re feeling. One of my students, Roberto, said that every day he makes a commitment to do three things for himself. “They’re not big,” he said, “I take a bath. I buy myself myself a Snickers Bar. I take a nap. It changes from day to day but I try to do it every day.” It’s his way of taking care of himself.

Try this: Begin each day with a promise to do 3 things for yourself. They don’t have to be big things. Buy some sunflowers for the kitchen table. Make banana bread. Learn a new song on the ukulele. Write them down if it helps but commit to doing them. If you fall short one day, go easy on yourself. Begin again tomorrow. Take good care of yourself. You deserve it.