I’m home, back home for Christmas. Home, as in home with my parents, my cat and the world’s comfiest bed, is in Essex. After a very good therapy session this morning I’m now back at home until January. I’m free of work and I have a mountain of books that I want to get through.

After weeks of hospital appointments, weeks of worry and weeks of stress I finally have time to rest. I plan to focus on looking after myself quite a lot over the next few weeks, I really want to take this time off to practice and improve on looking after myself; I want to develop the art of self-care.

Recently I’ve certainly started acknowledging when I need to rest, and I’ve certainly developed some sort of previously not attained skill of actually focusing on and doing whats best for me. During my therapy session earlier today I found myself actually praising myself (wow), I actually mentioned how I was being kind to myself. I’ve managed to notice how I’ve somehow shifted from people pleasing to actually doing whats best for me. I’ve blogged before about wanting to make changes for the better when it comes to acting how I want to act, and not reacting to how I feel others would want me to act. By this I mean it seems I’ve finally actually – naturally – started to look after and focus on myself, rather than panicking and believing 100% that others are more important. I’m not saying that others aren’t important, and I’m not suggesting to be unkind to others, I’m simply declaring that it’s okay to be kind to yourself.

I plan to take some time to rest – to truly rest. I want to read books, sleep far too long, snuggle up with my cat and watch some brilliantly cheesy films. No matter what time of year it is, Christmas or not (you may be reading this is May) it’s ALWAYS the right time to look after yourself. Take some time out, think and re-evaluate things, do what you love, notice the things around you, notice what makes you happy and work on what makes you unhappy. Have a rest and please be kind to yourself.