Nurturing myself seemed like a selfish use of my time when I was raising my children.  My days were already so busy that taking time for myself appeared to be an impossibility.  I felt like nurturing myself would be the opposite of generosity.

Now I’m convinced that the beliefs I had were lies from the enemy to keep me in a depleted, ineffective state.   When I don’t allow time to refresh and recharge myself, my emotional, physical, spiritual, and social “battery” runs out and shuts off, causing me to be useless to myself and others except as an example of what not to do!

However, I don’t think we should go to the other extreme and live in constant indulgence to ourselves and call it nurture.    I used to think a good way to nurture myself was to eat a pound of chocolate and watch hours of television on end to the exclusion of the needs of my family.  We need God’swisdom to determine the balance.

Nurturing ourselves looks different to each person.  The music and activities that soothe me may agitate someone else.  I was so out of touch with who I was as a person that I didn’t know what to do with myself when I did get the opportunity to nurture myself.

Some of favorite ways to nurture myself now are listening to worship music (Sherri Youngward’s Pandora station is my favorite), reading (I’m currently over halfway through Jan Karon’s newest Mitford book), running, writing my thoughts down,  petting my three cats, hanging with my husband, and going to bed early enough to allow myself eight hours of sleep.

What are your favorite ways to nurture yourself?

This post is part of a  31 Day Blogging Challenge entitled Embracing Fifty.  Please click here  to find all the posts in this series.  You can find the work of more bloggers participating in this series here. You’ll be glad you did!