Ask just about any woman if she’s got a bag in her bag and the answer will most likely be yes. Women, in general, like to keep things inside of things so that we can find them, and I use this term loosely, “easily”. There’s just something comforting about knowing that our things are someplace safe.
The same is true when it comes to our families and friends. We like to know that everyone is well-cared for, well fed and I say it again, safe. That’s one of the reasons our phones are almost always on and within ten feet at all times. We want to be available for anyone who needs us at any time, no matter what! Sometimes this is to the detriment of our own health and well being but honestly, we really don’t care about all of that, especially when we have our laser vision goggles on!
And that, in my opinion is the Bag in a Bag.
Think about it, we compartmentalize so much of our lives, we put each part in its own little (or big) bag. These little bags then get put into our really big bag, the one that goes with us everywhere! We can’t get away from the bag, no matter how hard we try. Or is it that we can’t get away from the bag because we can’t relinquish the reins, we can’t allow someone else to take control of even one little bag for a short period of time, not even for even just a little bit. Why is it that we, consciously or subconsciously, refuse to ask for help? I’m not saying that this is true 100% of the time but if you really look deep into yourself, you will see that it is likely more often than not.
The question then, is “how do we ‘let go’ of the bags within our big bag? How do we stop carrying all of them with us all of the time? The answer is literally in our bag friends! It’s the little bag called self-care. Most likely it’s the tiniest bag but it’s definitely one that should be amongst the biggest. If we don’t take care of the self-care bag, then there is absolutely no way we will be able to handle all of the other bags that are in our really big bag.
Self-care is something that is not easily defined either. It differs not only by individual but also by where you are in your life’s journey and the experiences you have had. There is no one right answer, no one size fits all. Like life, it’s trial and error, it’s self-discovery, it’s really digging in and finding what fits. And what fits in one season of your life might not fit in another and that’s okay. I would have never guessed four years ago that I would be sitting here writing a blog, doing yoga, cycling, hiking, and many other of “my” self-care things. Yet here I am. And it’s all because I unknowingly started relinquishing control of all of my little bags. They’re still there and I take control of them at different times but rarely are they all in my big bag all at the same time. The one consistent bag is always self-care because without that one bag none of the other bags can be taken care of.
A bag in a bag………if you need a little help with your bags reach out to me and I can help you find your answers.