"Take Care of Yourself" is a phrase we have all heard before, and it became more real to me over the years as a powerful Futureproof Foundation for ensuring one's vitality is cultivated into the future, regardless of life challenges and world changes.
It's a deeply personal act of giving regard to yourself and recognizing that the ability to feel good and to feel good about yourself is linked to the act and commitment to take care of yourself. It will set you up for the future, and Futureproof you no matter what happens.
The important practice to "Take Care of Yourself": click!
These days, there are so many healthcare modalities and approaches that it can become overwhelming. There are so many gurus, and trainers, and conflicting focus. And there are concepts and techniques, and fads. So many fads! It seems like people are fickle too, and there's always a particular modality that happens to be the "in" thing at the moment. So where do we even begin!?
I, too, wondered for a long time about what to focus on with regards to "taking care of yourself" and over time, I saw the necessity for an approach that included what is holistic and essential to a human "being". (It will make sense when I explain this further below). Importantly, I knew that on one hand, taking care of oneself had to holistically involve the body, mind and emotion. Yet on the other hand, it had to include what was essential to the healthy functioning experience of being human, regardless of fad, and applicable to anyone.
I realized that certain vitality markers are definitely observable in what would be considered a good healthy state of being. I included these in a framework that I developed and benchmarked with whether I "feel good and feel good about myself". The framework is useful enough as a gauge for one's overall state of health since it accounted for both the holistic and the essential.
Along the holistic axis, it made sense to account for physical, mental and emotional aspects of an individual's state. And along the essential axis, it made sense to benchmark with the "self-inquiry of being human" whether you "feel good and feel good about yourself".
This is what I constructed below:
Physical: Sleep & Move
Mental: Breathwork & Meditation
Emotional: Laughter & Thanksgiving
And as you can see,
the holistic inclusion of various aspects of our "being human" with our physical, mental and emotional aspects.
And the essential vital signs of our health of "being human" can be observed (and personally inquired, tracked and tested):
(1) in our physical, by our quality of sleep, our practice and ability to move our bodies through a range of motions with ease and strength, which contribute to and reflect the vitality of our physical state.
(2) in our mental, by our ability to regulate our breath under different circumstances and ability to be peaceful and still, which contribute to and reflect the vitality of our mental state,
(3) in our emotional, by our ability to laugh (and thereby exhale and expunge any and all suppressed breath) and ability to practice giving thanks, which contribute to and reflect the vitality of our emotional state.
The physical body needs sleep as an essential. This is without question or debate. Adequate quality sleep is the cornerstone of physical vitality. Without it, everything deteriorates. Next is movement (which can be considered "exercise") and instead of debating which form of exercise is best, it can be easily and remembered as essentially the need to move the body.
The mental aspect can be regulated by breath-work to induce a calming or inflaming effect, and it's evidenced by fight or flight breathing. Breath-work is essential to the quality of the mental aspect. The prolonged practice of breathwork can transform the quality of our mental state. This is also true and essentially paired with the practice of meditation and stillness.
The emotional aspect is healthy in its vitality when it isn't suppressed or repressed, and the practice of laughter (without reason to laugh) such as with the laughter yoga movement, or in private practice of gently mimicking the exhaling breath in laughter can lead to the habituation within the body of a natural release whenever tension is building, thereby leading to a natural expunging or tension in the body, which is vital to emotional well-being. Paired with the practice of consciously giving thanks regularly, this trains the inner state to become actively observant and grateful in daily moments, thereby shifting the natural perspective over time, and stacking layers of emotional "wins" because of all the "thanks" in one's life.
This may seem simplistic to some, and others may be quick to argue for other factors to be included, and I am glad if this provokes discussion; but more than that, I would challenge others to actually test out this framework.
To me, this framework represents the quintessential baseline of holistic vitality. There are always more that can be added or argued, but if more people practiced this simple framework, the number of people who feel good and feel good about themselves will be multiplied.
Constructing your pillar of Vitality for Healthcare: click!
In "The Futureproof Way", we talked about city-society system dependencies that keep us in a DUST state. When it comes to Healthcare, it would be wise to not completely rely on a city-society's pharma-medical-hospitalization system which ultimately lead to dependencies because of the inherent current incentive structure of profiting without liability which has become the norm. If your true goal is personal wellbeing and wellness and wellbeing, then you are better off by learning and practicing Self-Care as HealthCare for boosting your own immunity and vitality.
"Take Care of Yourself" for personal vitality is a decision to have a personal healthcare practice that is holistically covers your physical, mental, and emotional aspects so that you feel good and feel good about yourself. Having your own Independent Futureproof Setup of Vitality for Healthcare is valuing your health and caring for yourself.
This sets you on the path towards independent personal wellness and healthy wellbeing, as you realize you have the capability and responsibility to have healthier habits that will inevitably impact your FutureSelf and actually make a difference in your independence because you are not physically, mentally, and emotionally reliant on systems that condition you into compliance and dependence.
This is a necessary pillar to construct and path to trek these days.
And we have no excuse with the examples, routines, and practices available for use towards our own futureproofing, and that of our loved ones.
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Start here: The Futureproof Way
Autonomy: Futureproof for WORK.
Relevancy: Futureproof for EDUCATION.
>Vitality: Futureproof for HEALTHCARE.
Optionality: Futureproof for FOOD.
Campfire: Insights on The Futureproof Way
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