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It’s a fresh and early morning and the world is still kind of asleep.

You wake up. Grab a coffee and then you do the worst thing possible…

You jump on to social media and get stuck in a scroll hole that sucks you into the outrage.

Politics. Olympics. Terrible things happening across the world. You feel your heart rate spike a little. Your day hasn’t started and now you’re annoyed. Hell, you’re about to head straight into Outrage city.

You’re primed to find everything annoying and so your day spirals into a menacing hatred for society and humans as a whole.

This was all engineered. The media is designed to make your emotions flip flop.

However, you’re better than this. You take a deep breath. You open your email and you find this waiting for you.

You get told that life isn’t too serious even when things seem terrible and the world is crumbling.

You’re safe. You’ve got a roof over your head. You’ve got friends and family nearby. You live in a safe community in relation to what’s being fed. You are blessed.

Oprah once penned: ““Gratitude can transform any situation. It alters your vibration, moving you from negative energy to positive. It’s the quickest, easiest, most powerful way to effect change in your life — this I know for sure.”

While everything in the world in on fire. An attitude of gratitude will slap you out to the meh-ness of today.

Stephen Walker

Like the sun that glowered down like a pissed-off solar bad guy, its rage focused squarely on the pale, sweaty faces of England’s unprepared folk.

Air conditioning? What’s that? Some fancy American joke?

I sat at my desk, keyboard sticky with the residue of melted semi soaked face towels and desperation. The fan wheezed pathetically, stirring the air like a geriatric butterfly with arthritis.

But there, on my screen, were the messages. The comments. The reviews.

You, the beautiful, glorious readers…

While the world outside turned into Satan’s sauna, you were still here.

Still reading my fever-dream ramblings, my tales of weirdness and woe.

I wanted to hug you all, but that would involve moving, and moving meant more sweat, and more sweat meant… well, let’s not go there.

So instead, I typed. Because if you could brave this solar apocalypse to read my words, I could damn well write them.

Even if my face melted off in the process.

Thank you, you mad, wonderful creatures for keeping up with my word shenanigans.

Now excuse me while I go stick my head in the freezer and I’ll hopefully be back with my regularly schedules programming tomorrow.

Stephen Walker

A few years ago, a buddy told me he’d cashed in a bunch of sick days to give himself a “self care week”.

His strategy:

Ordering takeout and finishing an entire MyCareer on NBA 2k.

I know I’m preaching here, but that ‘aint no mfxcking self-care.

Swapping psychological stress for neurological stress…

(ie. going on a dopamine bender via. video games, social media, binge-watching, etc)

…Is not going to de-stress you, it’s just going to stress you differently.

(as he put it afterwards — “now I need a vacation from my vacation”)

Remember:

Self-care means giving yourself what you need, not what you think you want.

It means re-building your energy through activities that build energy:

Sleep, good food, nature, friends, meditation, qigong, even exercise in some cases.

It doesn’t mean strapping yourself to the couch and beating Zelda in two weeks.

(ask me how I know…)

Anyway, I’m a big fan of self-care done right; the right type, in the right dose, at the right time.

And that is exactly what I plan to give myself.