Self Care (continued)

This blog post will be a continuation of the Self Care post that I made in April of last year. I’ve realized that as we grow and continue in life, things will change. Our likes and dislikes, friends, enemies, even our body chemistry is liable to change if enough time has passed by. I always like to bring up the fact that I am heavily lactose-intolerant. When I was younger, I had a family member make me a pan of baked macaroni and cheese regularly. Nowadays I could only have one serving and even then, I’m pushing it. But I say all of that to say that the self-care routines that I have used last year is not the same routine that I am using this year.

I haven’t been doing the at home exercises that I was able to do more frequently last year. With my office moving back to “regular” services, I’m expected to be in the office Monday – Friday during my normal schedule. On top of that, due to not being in the best financial position I decided to seek alternative sources for income, specifically food and grocery delivery. Normally I do that after my regular workday, leaving me with little to no time to myself. Before I continue, I would like to say that I do know that this is a very unhealthy way to live. However, when you are faced with challenges that don’t have many solutions to get out of, you often choose the best and quickest solution based on your resources. Unfortunately, right now this is my best solution. Just like my regular work schedule, I do deliveries almost every night and I do deliveries for the full day on the weekends. As identified by my last post I’ve been on autopilot for a good amount of time and this is one of the factors for that. I began to utilize Sunday mornings for one of my favorite workouts which is a 50-minute cardio class with HitHouse. For those who don’t know, HitHouse is a Muay Thai fitness gym located in the Nolita area of Manhattan, NY. For me this class is the best way to decompress from a long week and clear my head for the week ahead of me. When I’m in the class my only focus is on the instructor and the combinations that I am tasked to complete before the “round” is over. Afterwards I’m exhausted but happy that I was once again able to push through the pain and fatigue to have a well-rounded workout. So far I would say that this has been one of the biggest positive impacts to my mood lately, especially when I’ve been going through my own self-identified depressive episodes.

Now I know that HitHouse may not be for everyone. So I urge each and every ready to take the time to really identify their likes and dislikes. Try to determine what makes you happy and relieves stress and what does the opposite. From there you should have a good idea of what you can incorporate into your self-care routine. If you want help navigating this, don’t hesitate to reach out. Otherwise enjoy this read and the remainder of posts on my blog and have a great day.