This month I’m conducting a workshop at the California Library Association Conference: Ten Self-Care Tips: Looking for Sane Practices in Times of Insane Demands. I’ll break down those tips for you here over the next ten weeks.

Tip #1: Be you—no one else, just you.

Be you. . . and no one else. Don’t try to be some idea of what you should be, doing what you think you should do, going where you should go, thinking what you should think. To take care of yourself, first know who you are.

If you don’t get down to the basics of who you are, you’ll be busy trying to protect and nurture someone who isn’t you, some phantom character you’ve developed as your stand in. That’s not satisfying. That’s not real.

I once had a vision that I was in a boat that was taking on water. I worked hard to scoop the water out by the bucket full. A continuous labor, time consuming and tiring. But I felt so proud of myself. I was keeping the boat afloat! Yay me! Then, feeling proud, I looked up to God for approval. He said to me, “That’s not your boat,” and nodded his head toward a beautiful, stable, powerful boat beside me. “That’s your boat.”

Yep, that’s the story when we’re trying to take care of some life that we think is ours, trying to be that imagined person, but not taking time to know our true self. And always, the true you is much better – more beautiful, more stable, more powerful. That’s who you want to take care of.