"4 Rs": Relax, Release, Reinvent, and Reflect
Self-Care and Life-Improvement
The Process of Change
Relax, Release, Reinvent, and Reflect.
Relax means to calm down, to get out of your stuff for a little while, to stop your usual worrying or fighting or whatever you do on a daily basis. To still short-term emotion.
Release means to give up your insistence on being right or being harmed or being vulnerable. To let go of those things that keep you trapped in the long-term.
Reinvent means bring to your consciousness your own deeper choices about yourself and your intentions that allow you to move on. To choose something for your own future.
Reflect means to reflect on your choices and adopt your own choices at a deep level so that you get to feel the true significance of your choices that encourages change in your subconscious, beyond a simple act of logical thought.
I want something for you. Self-Care and Life-Improvement are themes that I present again and again throughout this website. Relax, Release, Reinvent and Reflect are the simple-sounding self-care steps that I want my readers and listeners to be able to achieve. Learn something about these abilities and you will have the basic capability to make meaningful changes in your life. Life-Improvement, based on these steps, is the deliberate and planned process of making changes that are realistic and that have a real impact on your own life.
Of course, although the simplified aims of the "4 Rs" Relax, Release, Reinvent, and Reflect sound quite simple, most people struggle to achieve any one of them consistently without some form of assistance or training. They all happen naturally and accidentally from time to time, but don't you think it would be better to be able to put them to use whenever you needed?
Luckily there are many many approaches to achieving the "4 Rs" and I introduce a few of these in these web pages. When you learn how to do these and then put your learning into practice you can then adopt a conscious habit of Life-Improvement.
We are all involved in Life-Improvement in one way or another at one time or another. Whenever we make a healthy change, however small or big, we are attempting to make a change for the better. Of course, we also make changes that are unhealthy and these inevitably lead to diminishment or ourselves or others. Life-Improvement seeks to make those changes that will give us improved happiness, improved fulfilment, improved success, improved safety, improved purpose, improved esteem, improved relationships. There is an almost endless list of things in life that we can seek to improve.
How we go about Life-Improvement varies from person to person. Some of us take little steps, some of us big, and most of us know surprisingly little about what it is that we are doing even though we are doing it to the best of our ability.
Life-Improvement can be achieved in many, many ways. It includes choosing to go to the gym. It includes eating nutritiously. It includes looking after ourselves. It includes earning money. It includes setting up a family home. It includes getting to know our self. It includes dealing with issues. It includes personal growth.
Life-Improvement, just like house-improvement or business-improvement or social-improvement, sometimes involves major change. Sometimes it involves steady progress. Sometimes it involves a change of appreciation rather than an external change. Sometimes it involves allowing change to happen over time with only a light touch to guide the process. Sometimes it involves education and training. Often it involves appreciating the moment. Whatever it involves though, there are appropriate tools for the job and appropriate support to seek out. Some people thrive on a DIY (Do It Yourself) approach and some want more guidance or direct support to speed the process up and some want to share every step of the journey with like-minded others.
Doing The Chores
Nearly everything big thing that we experience in life includes doing our chores. Owning a house, holding down a job, maintaining a relationship, raising kids. All of these require us to do our chores in order to get anywhere near what we want, and Life-Improvement is no different. If we want to avoid problems and maintain our sense of self then we need to take some notice about consciously maintaining ourselves and this is the basis for any serious therapy or self-support.
Some people call this "Doing The Work" in recognition that if we don't take the trouble to work at our own thinking process then we be much less likely to achieve the results that we want.
Here are some Life Improvement links to resources on this website: