Reconnected To Life

👵🏻 The 100th day of school celebration is when the Kindergartners dress up like old people and they do a performance about all the things they’ve learned in the 1st hundred days. They sang a song thanking their teachers for helping them along the way and ended with the school fight song.

🔴 Part of my daughter’s costume was the Life Alert necklace. You know, the commercial where the old lady “has fallen and can’t get up”, but can press her Life Alert button and get the help she needs? Not to be confused with the Easy Button. That’s a different commercial, and pure fantasy. However, the Life Alert button is very real. And we can access it anytime.

✨ When we are angry, sad, happy, scared, and even in despair, we need only press the Life Alert button to realize THIS IS LIFE and we are gifted this day to do something with it, EVEN IF conditions aren’t ideal. They rarely are. But regardless of our feelings and environment, there is always something we can do to move forward toward the best version of ourselves. There has to be. Time won’t stop, and if we want to live the life we were meant to live, we mustn’t stop, either.

Be “Self-Centered”.

As the first weeks of the new year draw to a close, I find myself obsessing about all the things I want to do and the changes I want to make.

And then I’m reminded about the book I recently read, Four Thousand Weeks, and how we ought to quit thinking we are ever going to accomplish everything, and how once we surrender to that fact, we will finally give ourselves the freedom to pursue our passions with deep attention and joy.

We will slow down enough to be here now instead of constantly being dissatisfied with our unattainable expectations of accomplishment, and actually accomplish more! Seems counterintuitive, but I think he may be on to something.

For example, I’m proud to share that I read 15 books this year! It started with one and the momentum grew to a new behavior that is worthy of my time, and I’m hopeful that this year I will continue to allow myself the time for being still, nourishing my mind, and being present for the things that matter most. I hope you will, too. Be “Self-Centered”!

Do you ever feel weighed down by life’s demands? Lol, just kidding. We aren’t going there. 😅

❕It’s time to remind ourselves that WE are responsible for about 95% of our perceived “weights”, like our children, for example, lol.

➡️ Whatever we consider a barrier to practicing self-care, especially exercise, we need to learn to reframe those thoughts. In fact, it’s because we have prioritized time for our physical health that our mental health is more stable and the things that “weigh us down”, including the numbers on the scale, become a little lighter. There are no shortcuts! No excuses!

Be “Self-Centered”!

💤 Until recently, it had been a month since I had been at a birth. A month of uninterrupted sleep! It also happened to coincide with the Whole 30 nutritional reset I was doing. I was really able to spend time noticing the connection between sleep and the other seeds of self-care.

🥗 When I was eating well, my sleep rhythms naturally improved. When I spent more time in prayer and meditation because I wasn’t drinking because it’s not allowed on Whole 30, my stress levels reduced and my ability to be mindfully present increased, which also improved my sleep patterns. Everything is connected!

💚 This week I challenge you to notice, when you say, “I can’t sleep!” or “I slept terribly”, what else is going on. What other seeds of self-care are lacking that could be the real culprit for your sleepless nights? When we realize everything is connected, we can make better choices about our habits, who we associate with, and what we want our priorities to be in order to more fully Be “Self-Centered”.