How do you take care of yourself? ...when there is no time. Is this an adult illusion that time is something that just happens or is time something that has to be made?. How easy is it to neglect one's self? pretty damn easy.  Cutting corners with self care is a quick way to blow a fuse. A fuse blows when it is overloaded and overload creates more overload. 

 But I create my own stress by being stressed. Does that statement make sense? I don't like being stressed so I get stressed about being stressed. I'm the kind of person who proscrasinates procrastinating. I could talk about procrastination until I have finally caputured the essence of what it is and how it works and why I have it, etc.. but so what?

Self help books explain the obvious ...self help is self help... not self help book help. But what if your self doesn't want to help you? Maybe you have a really uncooperative self? My self is a  really self centered self. I read the self help book and then I think okay self...get moving start helping me. Self says bug off. Self is rotton and lazy. Am I my self? or is my self something else? Self wants to eat at the chinese all you can eat buffet and wear a bikini. Self wants take a nap after breakfast. Self is a nightmare and we have all the PHD's telling us to read self help books? Maybe those books should be renamed Help Self books?

Maybe some understanding can be gleaned by reading about our deficits. It couldn't hurt I suppose... Suggestions such as make a schedule, ...don't work in your pajamas...get up before ten am...take a bath...file stuff. AS IF I don't already KNOW all this. It all makes as much sense as Dr. Phil screaming at fat people and blaming them for being fat slobs who have wrecked their lives because they love the pleasure of eating and give into self. THEN WHY should we buy a SELF HELP BOOK? self cannot help!

 Maybe a book should be written on how to get rid of the self who won't help you even after you read the self help book.

Meaning is derived by doing something positive. Life is an action, a verb, a running river. Why do I procrasinate? or read about what I know I should be doing in the first place... I don't want to be stressed, I don't want to take risks, I don't like being challenged and I am very much at home with being a cozy couch slug, curled up with books, snacks, my laptop and a remote. I have an addiction to being really, really comfortable. I like pleasure. I am a pleasure piggy. But wait...is this really me? or is it the desires of self?

Why do we procrastinate? because who wants to deal with the repsonsiblity. Who wants to move out of the womb and get slapped on the rear and be thrown into a room with glaring light with 25 other screaming new born beings? Unfotunately nature does not allow us to live to age 90 in a womb, it just wouldn't work it out. So we get ejected into reality and deal with stuff from the cradle to the grave.

Another explaination may be "self" is just tired of being harassed to be a super being and would just like to left alone for awhile. Maybe self is "rebelling" against our intellectual nagging to be better at everything we do. Maybe self wants us to stop doing, planning and aspiring for awhile and start being. Maybe we should help self more often. Give self a break and maybe self would start helping us again instead of driving us nuts.

It is probably okay to procrastinate some. Why not? Nuts to those psychologists who are always telling us what is wrong with us and how we can be more productive, get more work out of us, be more efficient, sometimes... as ol granny says, "you gotta let the backdoor swing".  I think self would agree too.

 

This article is copyright and written by sister raya

Sister Raya Self Taught Outsider Folk artist

www.sisterraya.com

 

Sister said: "Maybe a book should be written on how to get rid of the self who won't help you even after you read the self help book."

I think a psychologist would call "self" in this case "ego".
Whenever I am stopped by something it is usually my own ego. Thanks Sister for putting this in perscective with your article! I think you are very intuitive and have a wonderful creative way of expressing your intuition.

Yeah my self wants to be in PJ's and sit with my laptop. Most of my clients are from out of state so there is no worry of them poppin in on me while I am in polka dotted pj's. They can't see me on the phone. But this in not healthy to do everyday!

This is very good wisdom, Sister. It is always a pleasure to read your journal.

I went to Borders for some self-help books. I asked the clerk where the self-help sections was, and she said she couldn't tell me because it would defeat the purpose.

cube

Cube,
that was really really funny!:)