Self-Care Recipe

Last week, I finally watched the wonderful 2019 movie about Mr. Rogers, A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood, with Tom Hanks and the excellent Matthew Rhys as journalist Lloyd Vogel. I had heard it was good but not really more about it. 

A hard-hitting journalist is given the unwanted task to interview Fred Rogers for the magazine he works for.

Fred won’t do a typical Q&A with Lloyd, despite Lloyd’s best efforts. Instead, he engages with him as a whole person with a full, complicated life and relationships.

We learn during the movie that Fred’s intention is to be fully with the person in front of him at that time. And Lloyd sees Fred do that with new people, every day. 

To be fully with the person I am with is a generosity of time and attention that I aspire to, so I was very interested.

How does he do that, Lloyd wonders. Isn’t it exhausting? Can he really be that perfect? 

When he asks Mr. Rogers’ wife, Joanne indicates that her husband isn’t perfect,

The answer, given by his wife Joanne, is self-care. She notes Fred “… has a temper, he just decides how he is going to respond to it. He swims laps. Reads Scripture daily.  Prays for people daily.”

While those aren’t the particular activities I would chose, the combination of exercise and contemplation really struck me as a wonderful self-care recipe.

I don’t think we need to be “great” or well-known to need self-care or have it improve our life. We don’t need to be the best to have a positive impact on others lives, especially our friends and family.

Do you have a particular self-care recipe that works for you? I’d love to hear about it!