Self Care, or Escape
What’s the difference between self-care and escape? How do we determine when stepping away from our life is something that we need to do to protect our sanity, or if we’re running from something? I’d argue that it is both at the same time.
As I write this, I’m sitting on a train headed to visit my dear friends that live in Vermont. Whenever I visit them, I joke that it fees like walking into a Nancy Meyers movie. Their lifestyle is my inspiration and aspiration. And their kids are my two favorite tiny humans - I hope my kids are half as rad as these two.
And as I sit on the Amtrak Empire line with dappled afternoon sun dancing across my sight line, filled with excitement and gratitude that I have people in my life that welcome me into their home to experience that FEELING of home, I wanted to explore whether stepping away can also be running away.
It’s been an interesting time for me in the last year or so as I’ve fully embraced the self-employed lifestyle. Until a year ago, I intermittently had a second gig in the Disney on Broadway press office that allowed a sense of financial security that I took for granted. Now seeing what this lifestyle is really like, I’ve learned I spend too much. And yet, here I am on a train headed to a ski weekend in Vermont.
In this moment, I am both stepping into self-care (their home truly feels like nowhere else I’ve ever been and I cannot wait to create that sort of environment and experience for the people I love), and escaping from a trapped feeling of not having enough. From an objective perspective, the abundance is palpable (ski trip. Vermont. But also my own home and the gifts that the universe offer including a loving family, lots of houseplants, my weird and wonderful cat, supportive friends and community, and the list goes on), and yet all I can see is scarcity.
I’m hopeful that this weekend away will allow me to reframe my viewpoint and truly FEEL the abundance - and deep gratitude for it. I have to believe that the universe will take care of me, as it always does. That sounds like I’m asking myself to trust in the unseen - another way to say “Emily, have faith.” So, cheers to some faith in 2020!