Dear Tiffany,
You have permission to know that you need something, and to not yet know what that something is.
You have permission to need something, and know what it is, and not know how to get it.
You have permission to know what you need, and how to get it, and to not act on that knowledge yet.
You’ve defined self-care as ‘any action that honours your needs’ and sustainable self-care as the result of bringing awareness, intention, and compassion to those actions.
That’s the result of years of work, and the wisest thing about it is that you swapped out ‘meets your needs’ for ‘honours your needs’ because the act of acknowledgement can be a deeply caring act even if it doesn’t include an immediate step towards meeting the need.
I trust you, chickadee.
It will take as long as it takes, and it will be annoying and you’ll feel like a failure but you’re not a failure. It will feel repetitive and useless but it’s not useless and it is repetitive and that’s okay.
You’ve been wobbling on the edge of burning out (again) all summer, but you’ve kept yourself going and you’ll figure it out.
I love you.
– Me