Monarch
Wellness
Finding a Happy Balance
By: Nicole Moriarty, MS, LPC
Licensed Counselor with Office of Counseling Services
I love the concept of self-care. What could be better than having the time and space
to meet your own needs? Unfortunately, in this crazy, fast-paced world, when time and
resources get tight, self-care is usually the first thing to go.
But, I want us to rethink that. Self-care is not a luxury. It is a necessary life skill.
There are a lot of different ways to think about self-care. One way that can simplify the
concept is to picture a scale.
On one side of the scale are all of
the things in your life demanding your
attention, things happening today, things
you are worrying about, things that already
happened but won't seem to go away.
On the other side of the
scale is all of your energy.
Kind of makes sense why most of us feel so tired all the time.
If that wasn’t enough, we are also primed in our genes to tune into negative events. This
means that when something negative happens, our brains grab onto that information. But,
our brains don’t give the same attention to positive events.
Why is this? Our ancestors had to be alert to every danger. Early humans who jumped at
every noise coming from the bush, lived to have children. And they passed down their
easily spooked genes to you and me. So, we connect to danger signals, or negative
emotions much more quickly than we do to positive ones.
If we truly want to care for ourselves, we need to nurture and reinforce the positive
experiences we have.
When we think of positive emotions, we usually think of the big ones, happy and excited.