Loneliness - A Modern Epidemic
As many of you know, I'm loathe to use the term self-care . Many of the world's religions and spiritual traditions consider cherishing or clinging to the self as the fundamental source of suffering. Why would we take care of the thing that's the root cause of what makes us miserable? That being said, I acknowledge that burning the candle on both ends is ultimately depleting, and depletion hampers your capacity to fully participate in life. This past week I delivered a presentation on self-care to rural mental health providers. I arrived armed with my usual array of slides, charts and factoids, all in the interest of delivering an argument for what I consider to be the basics of self-care; sleep, cardiovascular exercise and meditation. While I do not feel that this list is exhaustive, I generally focus on these three as the first-order foci in developing a sustainable self-care regimen. The first two hours of the presentation included several double-takes at my watch. I