Summertime is a busy season for Camp Fire councils around the country—a good thing! Watching kids connect with nature during summer camp is one of our annual joys. As much as we plan for, work toward, and work with youth and their families in our camping programs, we also need to take time to remind ourselves that it’s hard work. Even joyful events take their toll on our energy.
And with Camp Fire, we don’t just check out at the end of August; we actually gear up for school programming, scheduled to begin right after we’ve tucked summer camp away for another year.
Paige Kennedy, Program Coordinator, Camp Fire Green Country, recently shared her thoughts on self-care and why it’s important. She counsels, “Remember, in order to help others, we must first take care of ourselves.”
In today’s world especially, taking care of ourselves needs to have more priority than we probably give it. When we’re worn down by news of discord in the presidential election and violence around the country and the world, we need to remember the faces of those kids who learned to light a campfire or walked in the woods for the first time. We need to smile at the memory and then take a few moments to breathe into it. We all know our own special “quiet spaces,” whether they’re in the backyard hammock or within our thoughts when we close our eyes. For Paige, when she turns to baking, yoga, coloring, talking with a good friend, long walks, and napping with her cats, she finds the care she needs.
Explore your own ideas, then curl up and relax with the gift of time of you give yourself.
