The Hemp Connection + women

Healthy Splurging: An Oxymoron?

Today is National Splurge Day, a concept I absolutely love. While I believe in adhering to schedules and having as much consistency in our lives as possible (it eases stress, creates predictability, and soothes the PCOS brain), I think there’s not only space for splurging in our lives, but a mental health necessity for it as well. Splurging is a verb defined as: 1. To indulge in an extravagant expense or luxury. 2. To be showy or ostentatious. 3. To spend extravagantly or wastefully. Personal definitions of what constitutes a splurge may vary widely. If you’ve got an Oprah-sized budget, maybe nothing in the world qualifies as a splurge anymore. If you’re pretty prosperous, it might mean flying first class everywhere you go, even though business class is more than adequate. And if you’re kind of average, it might mean buying berries when apples are the most fiscally prudent fruit choice, or springing for tickets to the play-off games for a once-in-a-lifetime experience. For some, splurging can be a dangerous lifestyle – they buy whatever they want, whenever they want. They don’t worry about saving for the future, or how bad their credit card debt might be. They indulge all the time. Not only are there financial risks to this approach, there are the risks of burning out, of having the splurge lose the quality of the splurge, and becoming mundane and unsatisfying. Don’t you appreciate your $5 latte a whole lot more when it’s a payday treat instead of an everyday indulgence? On the flip side, we have the under-splurgers. They’re so frugal, you can hear the pennies squealing as they pinch them ever-tighter. They risk food poisoning on a regular basis because they don’t want to waste anything that’s looking or smelling a little questionable. They wear their clothes far past the point of fashionability, and into a state of disrepair, even when they can afford to replace them. Or they can’t imagine ever spending THAT kind of money on themselves, for a treat. Even the idea of eating a meal outside the home may seem to reek of over-indulgence. I find that a lot of us are feeling stressed, overworked, and overwhelmed most of the time. We don’t take time for rest and relaxation. We don’t allow ourselves enough time to get to place from place in peace, or to plan for and cook homemade meals. We end up engaging in minor indulgences on a daily basis, or even multiple times a day. No time to check e-mail at home? No problem, get a data plan for your phone. No time to make coffee in the morning? No problem, grab a cup at your favorite gourmet coffee place. No time to stop by the store and try on a shirt? No problem, pay $13.50 in shipping charges – both ways if it doesn’t work out. We don’t think of these things as indulgences, but they are. They’re indulgences in the wrong way, indulgences that have become necessities. We think we can’t exist without them. But they degrade the true meaning of indulgence, which is to treat yourself or someone else to something memorable, special, desirable, and pampering or self-nurturing. I think we can’t get enough self-nurturing. It doesn’t have to come in the form of money we spend, although that’s one way to get it. And I don’t think we have to be wasteful with our money to define it as a splurge. We can be prudent, yet achieve great satisfaction. That being said, if you want to do something wasteful on this National Splurge Day, go for it. Maybe it means you actually get enough sleep, for once (and wasted time you could have used for housework – hmph!). Maybe it means that you take yourself out to lunch, instead of skipping it altogether. Maybe you treat yourself to fresh cut flowers, just because you can. Those would all be great splurges that affirm that you like having fun, you like beauty and pleasure, and you like yourself enough to practice a little shameless splurging. It’s a great way to say, “I’m worth it, and I deserve it,” and when you give yourself those messages in an external way, you reinforce them internally as well. Gretchen Kubacky, Psy.D. is a Health Psychologist in private practice in West Los Angeles, California. She has completed the inCYST training. She specializes in counseling women and couples who are coping with infertility, PCOS, and related endocrine disorders and chronic illnesses. If you would like to learn more about Dr. HOUSE or her practice, or obtain referrals in the Los Angeles area, please visit her website at www.drhousemd.com, or e-mail her at AskDrHouseMD@gmail.com. You can also follow her on Twitter @askdrhousemd.

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Healthy Splurging: An Oxymoron? + women