Preservation is “the activity or process of keeping something valued alive, intact, or free from damage or decay.”* Self-preservation, then, is the act or process of keeping ourselves alive, intact and free from damage and decay.

How do we do that? Certainly through self-care, self-love, self-healing and even self-evaluation. And yet it feels as though there’s something else that must be enacted to truly preserve ourselves.

Preserving the self

We notice to preserve the self is to preserve the quality of life, the quality of relationship, the quality of caring necessary for optimal well-being. This is an act of preservation which requires a form of commitment to one’s life - one’s worth - we notice humans sometimes avoid, sometimes fear, sometimes present as selfish.

Well, there’s no beating around the bush happening here. It doesn’t take much thinking, pondering to feel the truth of that channeled message. We’re often one-sided when it comes to matters of self-care, and that side isn’t necessarily our own.

More often than not, we’re probably looking out for, giving way to, foregoing our needs for the people in our lives. I do it, although I actively work on undoing the societal and familial teachings that led me there.

Do you? Be brutifully** honest with yourself about that, sweet soul. This is important.

Self-preservation is about putting our oxygen mask on first. And while I’ve used that metaphor in the name of “basic” self-care before, self-preservation exceeds self-care. It’s a whole other level, which is far too easy to forget.

The industry of self-preservation

The industry of self-care speaks to the niceties; the face value; the surface. The industry of self-preservation speaks to the depths; the life force; the human being in its wholeness.

The use of “industry” is interesting. I see its application to self-care, because it is a bit of an industry. Applied to self-preservation, it’s a different tone.

There isn’t a face mask or a night cream or a spa treatment for self-preservation. We’re it. We’re the mask, the cream, the treatment. We’re the force - the only force - that can keep us “alive, intact and free from damage or decay.”

And even then, that force comes from within us. It starts with an unwavering, unshakeable, non-negotiable commitment to our aliveness. From there, it extends its reach to enroll the external parts of our life.

Do you have that sort of commitment to your aliveness? If not, will you promise yourself to pursue it?

Blessed be.

*according to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary online

**hat tip to Glennon Doyle, who I believe is responsible for combining brutal and beautiful to create “brutiful”