Releasing the Guilt of Putting Yourself First
Balance is a tricky word to digest in our lives. It’s tossed around in conversations about mental health and living our lives to the fullest, but in reality, it rarely sticks. Balance is the least adhesive word in the English language. It’s one with a strong meaning with the weakest understanding.
As our lives pile up with personal obligations, career goals, dating expectations, and the never-ending stress of doing our best in every single layer of our lives, including self-love practices, balance doesn’t seem achievable. I’m first to admit demanding your life to push in multiple directions is not sustainable. In a culture where up is the only direction, there’s minimal support for just being. Being yourself, being still, and being in the moment.
Our inability to find a sliver of balance boils down to the word’s arch nemesis: guilt. The pit in our stomachs and the ache in our chest when we think we haven’t given enough. Enough to our friends, our career, our love life, or ourselves. Riddled with guilt for not being where we believe we should be in life or not being where society thinks we should be. The guilt of living in the moment as opposed to living for the next.
We fill Google Calendar with trips, parties, weddings, and meetings. All exciting and daunting. But it’s the scrolling through upcoming months looking for a blue reminder for me time that stresses us out. Not to say having plans isn’t important. All the marks in our calendars are all intricate parts of our lives. The key is learning to focus on those plans. Then planning a trip, whether abroad or a staycation, with the only intention of only you.
Days scheduled with our agenda or nothing at all. Saying we are planning a trip for us is easy. Where it gets hazy is the execution. The first step is marking time in our calendar for ourselves when all major obligations are complete. A time when living for others is over. Dedicating time in our lives for moments in our friends’ and families’ lives is important. The trick is training our minds to live in those moments. It may aid in allowing room for ourselves. There’s a sense of relief knowing we’ve given our best to others and focusing on the moments between us.
The next stage is lessening our emotional obligations to people.
It’s vital to listen to our gut. Instead of the guilt of turning down another date with our new match. One of the hardest lessons to learn is that we can choose ourselves and use it as a valid reason to postpone a date or put a hold on a new romance.
Cheesy lines are our friends. What’s meant for you, will find you again. But for them to find us, we must find ourselves. After eight days of doing all the above and living for myself down in the South of France with no agenda, I think the key to the word balance is minimizing our internal guilt. Putting all distractions and obligations aside and let each moment carry you into the next. Guilt pauses life’s moments, turning our view to the next. Without it, we see life through a fixed lens. Seeing through our prime lens sends our sights inwards to internal happiness. A surreal feeling that you’re right where you’re meant to be. All the previous moments, from past obligations, led you to this divine moment.
The surreal vision of driving through winding, unexplored roads and stumbling into fireworks over Cannes are the pivotal moments that release the rest of your guilt. Instead of chasing balance, you’re just living. Living in your own moments. Living in the memories you made for yourself. Forget about balance and focus on diminishing the guilt inside. Let go of the guilt connected to what others think and the guilt of the pressure you put on yourself. With nothing left to do but to live for yourself.
Google Calendar still lives on our phones with future memories to come with friends, dates, family, and yourself.
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