Understanding Self-Care Through the Lens of Will

And he starts with at the very core of you is your will, and he says the words for heart and spirit essentially in the ancient world refer to that same function your capacity to choose, your ability to create your freedom, that's what gives you a little kingdom and then you have a mind, and that's both your thoughts the ability to reason and infer and perceive as well as your feelings. [00:01:12]

Understanding he says is the basis of care take very good care of yourself, what you would take care of you must first understand, whether it be a petunia or a nation, if you would care for your spiritual core your heart or will you must understand it that is you must understand your spirit. [00:02:29]

And then he talks about there was an old magazine called the reader's digest and they used to run articles um i am joe's liver i'm joe's foot and they would describe the properties of that particular organ or body part and how it is that you could care for it well. [00:03:01]

And the ones that i probably seem to be like working with the most when i'm talking to people in counseling are the mind thoughts and feelings and choice especially somewhat uh with body and habits and whatnot but, so i think that for example that i've used for many years that seems to be helpful to clients is the idea that we're in our minds half rational and half emotional. [00:04:25]

And if you have good rational powers and try to understand something but you still can't really get it get it about yourself or get it about somebody else it doesn't mean it's not understandable it's just not understandable in the rational part or the rational half it's more i'm always saying in the emotional part so learning about that for example. [00:04:51]

So to name them and he gets that idea rankin does from the psalms that the psalmist is always able to to talk about not suppress not repress but to name and express emotions but by the middle of the psalm generally speaking he's moving it into not enthroning plays but giving it to god. [00:05:56]

So understanding that that simple idea about ourselves emotionally and then working at our thoughts as well another idea just in listening to you read that opening about the self and self-care i've gotten to work as you know a lot over the years with burned out people burned out pastors burned out teachers burned out people uh. [00:06:17]

And one of the ways that i would tend to think about self-denial talking about that a minute ago is that that's the ability to get out of our own self and be other oriented to care about the other to love others and i don't think you can read the new testament carefully without seeing just how frequently that becomes a primary concern for jesus. [00:07:20]

And then to deal with our emotions in a godly way to to arrange our thoughts in ways that are noble and pure and um elevated so each of those i was thinking about that i had not thought about it quite like this until just now as you and i have been talking about this uh see what you think about this. [00:08:57]

Self-denial rightly understood is self-care yeah and here's here's what i was thinking if you have a football player and they're a great football player and they're devoted to trying to win um that means i have to be really careful about what they eat and often deny themselves nope i can't eat that because that will not build my body up right. [00:09:22]

And then they have to work out they have to lift weights they have to run sprints they have to do all kind of drills they may not feel like doing those they need to be willing to not do what they feel like doing in order to do that which will help them achieve what they most want to achieve. [00:09:44]

Self-care rightly understood will very often involve self-denial that is not doing what i feel like doing so that i can become the person that i want to become and it will fuel us then for being able to do the things that generate love and service to others and that sort of thing. [00:10:43]