live like a sim and light your candles

When people are feeling bad I always try to use metaphors to illustrate my point and today I’m going to share with you two unique metaphors that I have thought of to cope with self care and management – which is a really freaking important thing if you didn’t know.

Live like a Sim

Some of you may be aware of the very popular video game ‘Sims’ which is where you care for a virtual character known as a Sim and try to make them as successful in life as possible (unless you’re one of those people who prefer to drown their Sims in a tiny swimming pool or burn them in a shed) Anyway, in the game you have to make sure that all your Sim’s needs are met and this is represented by little bars in the corner of your screen.

(if you have no idea what I mean, I’ll insert a picture here)

Ta da!

Well, I think EA did a pretty good job in deciding the  most important things for human/sim survival and  I think if these things are not fulfilled in real life, there’s something wrong. Picture yourself as a Sim in the game and think to yourself, as a game player, what are my needs right now?

Are you hungry? Tired? Do you need to socialize more? Have you been alone all day?

Do something about it so you can fulfill your potential as a great Sim…. oh wait human.

Sometimes looking at things from a fresh perspective can make you realize what you have been neglecting. These are the basic things that are keeping you alive and I promise you, they are VITAL to your physical AND mental health. Now and again, picture the core Sim needs and question how full those little green bars are.

 

Lighting your candles

With this little metaphor, you’ve got loads of candles (yay!) and these candles are representing various elements of your life. Some of these candles are really important, they’re the big candles, the expensive ones and they are your core needs. But you’ve also got some little scented candles, which are fun, but will burn out quickly. Try to keep your core candles burning, because if they go out, then that’s really bad news. Whilst, enjoy your little scented candles, but accept their tiny candle deaths, because all good things must come to an end, but you must move on and enjoy your new candles, in order to keep the core ones burning.

For example, one of my big candles is my ‘hunger’ if this candle dies I’m starving. Bad news, obviously. One of my little candles is my ‘friendships’ for me PERSONALLY friendship is important, but I know that  friends will come and leave throughout my life. It hurts, but I should never let this grief draw my attention away from keeping my hunger candle burning.

You can change up your scented candles, which should represent the little things in your life, but make sure to keep your big candles to the core needs, that should probably be the same as the ones I mentioned before in the Sim metaphor, but you can add a few extras if they’re REALLY REALLY REALLY important. The big candles are your life or death candles! Be honest with yourself!

It’s never really good to put a person as a big candle, because they may leave eventually. But you can definitely put ‘social’ to remind you that there are always new people to meet and there are always people there for you when you need it! I guarantee you that I will ALWAYS be there for you if you need anyone to talk to. Please don’t be anxious talking to me, my email is theinternethotel@yahoo.com if you need to chat!

Appropriate candle image for appropriate candle metaphor

 

I hope you enjoyed this post. I know these metaphors are silly and weird, but they really help me and maybe they will help you too! Take care of yourselves!

Thank you so much for reading,

Alex