Buckle your seat belts, stow your carry-ons, let your seat backs and tray tables up on take off and landing, blow into the red tube to inflate the life vest, there’s a flotation device under the seat, 2 exits in the front, 2 in the middle and 2 in the back, and if there’s a drop in cabin pressure, an oxygen mask will drop — place it over you nose and mouth, adjust the straps and always put on your own oxygen mask before you help other people.
Always put on your own oxygen mask before you help others. Why would you want to do that? It’s counter intuitive, especially when we’re trying to protect someone we love from harm — like small children or the elderly. But think about it. If you don’t put on your mask first, you could potentially lose consciousness, and if you lose consciousness, you’ll be no help to anyone and that person you want so badly to help could also lose consciousness.
The safety speech for the airplane oxygen mask is a great analogy for life and your happiness. Some of us ignore our own happiness, health, and well-being for the sake of someone else’s. You’re busy taking care of the kids, taking care of your spouse, taking care of your parents, taking care of work, and everything in between. But when will you take care of you?
You must know that you can’t give someone something that you don’t have. So if you aren’t healthy and happy, you can’t give health and happiness to anyone else.
What is it that your heart truly desires? Are you allowing yourself to have that? Are you carving time out of your day to take care of your wants and needs. If you’re not, you need to.
If you’re a giver, you’ve probably been putting others before yourself and sacrificing for the people you love for a long time. It’s probably really hard for you to take time to do the things you want to do, because you feel guilty about it.
Maybe it’s easier for you to think of it from this vantage point. What do you want to teach your children about their own happiness? Do you want to teach them that it’s okay to put everyone else before themselves, and to sacrifice their own happiness in life to please others? They do what they see you do, not what you say. What would you want your spouse, your parents, or your loved ones to do? Would you want them to give themselves permission to find a way to take care of their responsibilities but to also do what they love and find joy in?
Honestly, I understand the mentality that it takes to live life in a constant state of unhappiness, putting someone else’s wants and needs before your own, because I’ve done it too. You tell yourself that you’re stronger than they are, so you can handle it. You get so accustomed to accepting dissatisfaction with your life that you forget that it’s not normal.
No more of that. Say this out loud with me, “I give myself permission to take care of myself first, to fulfill my own wants and needs, and to pursue my own happiness.” Truly give yourself permission to put your oxygen mask on first. Your consciousness if vital to your health and to the health of the people you love.