The Value of Self-Maintenance

For today’s blog, I wish to explore the value of self-maintenance. To achieve whole health, a person must properly maintain all aspects of their well-being. This includes mental, emotional, spiritual, social, and physical health.

Healing from abuse greatly affects a person’s mental and emotional health. Because of forgiveness’s critical impact on spiritual health, I have stated its importance in many previous posts. Maintaining healthy relationships and avoiding toxic individuals is also crucial for overall well-being. Additionally, physical health must not be neglected. Karen Robinson, a friend and colleague of mine, provides excellent resources in the area of whole health at https://www.healthrivedream.com/cbt-classes/.

Healing is an exhausting journey to venture onto. To remain on its path takes complete commitment and cannot be achieved with half-hearted attempts. I commend all of you who read my blog posts with the intent of using what I provide to help you or someone you care about break the chains of abuse and advance on your pathway toward freedom.

The Value of Self-Maintenance

To see more Crystalisms, visit https://www.facebook.com/groups/1360983917796761.

Because healing is all-consuming, it is critical to take care of yourself. Allow time to rest and enjoy life. Daily, do an activity that feeds your soul. Nature is a soothing salve to the soul. As a result, I surround myself with God’s beautiful creations as much as possible. To share this joy I’ve found with you, I take photos of nature and use them in my Crystalisms for each blog post. To see additional Crystalisms I’ve made over the years, visit https://www.facebook.com/groups/1360983917796761.

Another way I care for myself is through exercise. Because I live with the degenerative effects of Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome, I must keep my muscles strong to make up for the lack of ability in my compromised, slack ligaments. Maintaining strong muscles also helps me regulate my pain. To achieve this muscle-strengthening goal, I frequent our local gym three times a week. However, during July, maintaining this regimen became a challenge.

Rich needed surgery, which required us to travel out of state. During this timeframe, I was unable to continue with my usual gym regimen. Anytime I slack off in my exercises, because of the syndrome, my muscles deteriorate extremely fast, which is what happened. Added to this, I tore muscles within both of my hips and the pelvis region. This interruption in my usual schedule, combined with the injury, caused me to descend into a downward spiral. The hip and pelvis pain got so severe that I battled slipping in and out of shock daily.

Getting Back on Track

All healing work requires self-maintenance. And once such a regimen is interrupted, it can be quite challenging to get back on track. Without conscious care, a person will easily slip back into the grooves of dysfunction from which they came.

Like a well-traveled dirt road, each time a vehicle ventures onto that entrenched path, its tires dig the already established grooves further into the earth. Those grooves soon become gaping trenches, difficult to pull out of. A driver journeying down that well-used road must take care to avoid these deeply etched pathways. Similarly, our habit patterns etch grooves into our behaviors, and we can only avoid those grooves through conscious action.

For Crystalisms, visit https://www.facebook.com/groups/1360983917796761.

Holding my breath is a behavior groove I frequently catch myself engaging in. This action is a common behavior for survivors of sexual abuse. My sister, CD Kreger, author of Face the Storm, and I discussed how we both tend to take this action. Face the Storm gives candid accounts of abuse both she and I faced as children. You can find her book at https://www.amazon.com/Face-Storm-C-D-Kreger/dp/B0BZFJMJVQ, and https://www.barnesandnoble.com/s/Face%20the%20Storm%20by%20cd%20kreger,

Whenever I hear myself gasping for air, I am alerted to the fact that I have been holding my breath. While exercising, it is extra difficult to abstain from this unhealthy behavior. To keep breathing, I whisper-count reps to myself. This conscious action helps me to avoid falling into that well-formed groove that has the power to hold me back from my healing.

Don’t Compare

Let everyone be sure that he is doing his very best, for then he will have the personal satisfaction of work well done and won’t need to compare himself with someone else. – Galatians 6:4 (TLB)

Because of my syndrome, I’ve never been able to build muscle like most others do at the gym. Even so, I do what I can, and my achievement is monumental. I have come far from the decade I spent bound to a wheelchair. See https://www.crystalmmhuntley.com/revealing-my-healing-the-miraculous-truth/. It will only discourage me if I waste time comparing my abilities with someone else’s. Instead, I make the best of what I can with what I have.

When I keep my focus on how far I’ve advanced instead of comparing myself to someone else who may not have had as many challenges to overcome, I remain joyful. We who have suffered through abuse have had our self-worth stripped away. This lack of self-worth becomes an obstacle to our ability to treat ourselves with love and care. Without conscious efforts to overcome this obstacle, we repeat what was taught to us, etching deeper grooves into that harmful pathway. We cannot see and respect our own value when our focus is placed on comparing ourselves with others.

Do you compare yourself to others? Self-maintenance cannot be achieved if you do this action. Exploring your actions to see where you might be engaging in self-defeating behaviors is an effective way to further your path of healing. Where do you repeat harmful patterns that bind you in chains to the past and impede your healing? Break loose from those chains and experience the joyous freedom of whole health.

Upcoming Posts

I invite you to join me next time to explore the differences between willingness and expertise.

UPDATE on 2025/8/25 – Due to an unforeseen event, the topic of my next blog post has changed. I invite you to join me as I share a special occurrence dear to my heart.

Note to My Readers

To further support your healing journey, I’ve added a direct access hotline/resource page to my website. Find it at https://crystalmmhuntley.com/resources/.

Writing is my passion. It is also an excellent healing tool. The beauty of fiction is that it allows you to create outcomes that don’t exist in the everyday world, which is why I have chosen to write my book in this genre. I pray that all who indulge in my written creations find entertainment and enjoyment, and that you also become inspired to move forward in your healing journey. I pray that all who indulge in my written creations find entertainment and enjoyment, and that you also become inspired to move forth in your healing journey.

Hopefully, you have gained value from this blog post. If you have, I would like to offer you the opportunity to purchase my books. You can purchase The Hidden Diamond and Robin’s Gift here at BUY THE BOOK – Crystal MM Huntley.

An additional site where you can find my books is https://bkbookshoppe.com. However, if you prefer to purchase from Amazon, you will find The Hidden Diamond at http://www.amazon.com/The-Hidden-Diamond-Crystal-MM-Huntley/dp/1665573767 and Robin’s Gift at https://www.amazon.com/Robins-Gift-Crystal-MM-Huntley/dp/B0CVL7746N.

Each purchase of my books supports my mission to break the chains of abuse. Once you have read either of my books, feel free to leave a review on the site from which you purchased it. Your review will encourage others to seek out the path of healing.

***The Hidden Diamond*** – Immerse yourself in a journey that uncovers the worth of a wounded soul amongst a lifetime of sin.

***Robin’s Gift*** – Lost and alone, Natalie’s biggest dream is to fulfill her desire to be loved. A tragic accident calls her home. Can she return and face her greatest fear?

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The Value of Self-Maintenance

Getting Back on Track

Don’t Compare

Upcoming Posts

Note to My Readers

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