Doing something good for yourself – recharging the batteries for the soul

Doing something good for yourself can help you to gain strength, even in difficult times, according to guest author Peter Schneider.

Morning! Peter Schneider is my name, and I’m the founder and owner of Garage13 in Essen. I spruce up dirty and stripped-down vehicle bodies with washing equipment and polish in my garage. If the car has a beautiful shine, it’ll also make you feel better directly afterwards. That, at least, is my experience and that of my customers – especially after a nice massage, which we offer at Garage13 as part of a package. Treating yourself to a ‘twin pack’, for the car and for yourself.

For me, this is an example of how you can do something good for yourself. And this is precisely what I think is important. Doing something good for yourself is a great way to stay on the straight and narrow, especially during stressful and difficult times. I believe that everyone can benefit from this.

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Treat yourself to something – this especially makes sense when there is a lot of stress

As a self-employed owner of a business, I am used to stress. I love my work and set up my own business for this very reason. But I also make time for myself because I have strongly internalized the value of doing something good for myself over the years.

Who isn’t familiar with this situation: things aren’t going so well, concerns arise, and People line up, wanting something from you? To top it all off, you may have even made a mistake at a crucial point, and now you also feel disappointed with yourself. I think it is very helpful and important, particularly in situations like this, to think of yourself and treat yourself to something. In my experience, those who cannot do this will quickly fall into a trap, because ultimately everyone is primarily responsible for themselves and that responsibility should be fulfilled.

One guiding idea that has always stood me in good stead in such cases is this: you should treat yourself in the way you’d treat a good friend. After all, why should we treat ourselves worse than anyone else? There is nobody closer to ourselves than we are. I don’t think this has anything to do with selfishness.

Doing something good for yourself – let others do it from time to time

While the Bottrop-based naturopaths, Farid Zitoun and Christian Rüger were filming a new video at my place for the Naturheilzentrum Bottrop YouTube channel on the occasion of Christian’s birthday with many practical tips for everyday life, we had the opportunity to exchange ideas about the topic of self-love.

We talked about the fact that birthdays, ironically, are often most stressful for the ‘affected Person’, and that you usually get the least out of your own special day.  If you think about it, it should be the other way around, shouldn’t it? Interestingly, or rather ‘shockingly’, I found a study in connection with this, which the two naturopaths told me about. According to it, dying on your birthday is particularly common. Oh, Lord!  (https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S104727971200110X)

I like the idea of not organizing your birthday yourself, but allowing friends and family to treat you instead.  “Do it, I’ll have a good time.” A perfect example of how to do something good for yourself on a specific occasion.

Treating yourself to something as a formula for happiness?

The conversation with the two bloggers brought another aspect of the whole subject into focus for me, i.e. health. I hadn’t been so aware of this up till now, but on closer reflection it makes perfect sense. If you don’t at least treat yourself to something every now and then, you may lack the resources to gain strength. Or it may even indicate an imbalanced relationship with yourself. That definitely doesn’t sound healthy.

This impression is reinforced when you look at studies on the subject – which the naturopaths from nabo drew my attention to. Among other  things, I have seen a study which indicates that self-love can apparently have a positive effect on psychological diseases (http://eprints.gla.ac.uk/64162/1/64162.pdf).

No matter what it really is, I’ll stick with it: the notion of doing something good for yourself should be in every one of us and it’ll also feel good – as long as you don’t overdo it, of course. Naturally, I am always happy to be there for you if you want to do something good in the form of a really excellent car wash – including a massage.

What does self-love mean for you and do you regularly treat yourself to something, e.g. as a reward? What do you do if you want to do something really good for yourself? I’m excited to read your views on this, so you’re welcome to leave a comment!

Best regards,

Peter Schneider