I feel like some weeks fly by and other weeks just drag and drag. And I walk into some Fridays relaxed and present and others are just a mess. I feel like this Friday came kicking and screaming and I spent most of my day trying to re-ground myself and recover from the mess that was this week
But recover I did
I had the conversations I needed to have and the conversations I was scared to have. I did most of my work. And then I just decided it was time to take care of me. So I exercised and did some yoga and decided it was time to rest in a bath.
Now I feel grounded and much more peaceful than I did this morning. I still have too much email sitting in my inbox and at some point I will have to clear it up. But I think I made the right choices today. And I’m grateful to have had the space to make that possible.
Yes to showing up for ourselves. Yes to doing what we need. Yes to connecting.
Here’s what I found out today. This project is working out for me amazingly well. I had a pretty tough week this week and I was still able to do most of what I want to do for myself and having this project is help me make the right choices.
I’m exercising more. I am eating better. I am taking time to connect with myself. I am taking time to do my art. And I’m trying to take better care of my body.
And when a day is exceptionally tough and I don’t do those things I am now giving myself so much more grace because I know that I do them more days than not.
Some of the days are tougher. Today was a tough day at work and I am letting myself feel that because saying yes is also about feeling my feelings.
And yes I also got to connect with a close college friend with whom I hadn’t chatted with in at least 6 years. Between that and my morning chat with my friend Kelly, I am grateful for good friends and for friends whom you can neglect for years and then chat with as if no time passed at all. So thankful for friends like that. So thankful for friends in general.
Yes to feeling what is. Yes to friends. Yes oh yes to good friends.
This morning I woke up and did all my meditation and exercise before any of my day started.
And I am grateful that I did that because my day went downhill fast and now I have no interest in this project or doing well. All I want to do is lie on the couch.
But that’s ok and I can give myself grace and I am glad I moved my body this morning. Tomorrow is a new day and there will be more opportunities to do more.
Years ago, I took this class at work that was about how I used my energy and how I optimized around things that give me energy versus take away energy etc.
One of the things the teacher highlighted was that there were ways to stack up things that we wanted to do. For example, I might want time to connect with my kid and I also might want to get healthier so one way to do both is to go take a walk with my kid.
Last night I got to take a bath and relax and also at the same time talk to my mom and my nephew which checked off my connection bucket. This morning I got to listen to classical music and journal at the same time. It’s been interesting to see how I can combine some of these wellness activities that I care about.
now that I’ve experienced a few of these I think I’m going to look at them and see if there are more possible opportunities for stacking.
Things are still mostly going well and I’m trying to get a good balance between giving myself grace and encouraging myself to do more of the items on my list because they are all meaningful to me.
Wednesdays are hard. Today my first meeting was 8am and my last meeting ended at 8pm. In the middle there, I had to go get groceries, put them all away, cook some food for the week and now it’s 8:37 and I feel beat.
I noticed this last Wednesday so this week I chose to exercise in the morning instead and now I am tired but I am grateful for the decision I made this morning to get out of bed and exercise.
The evening me is thanking the morning me.
I think paying attention to the flow of the days, hours, weeks and months is something I haven’t done enough of and when I do I see benefits pretty quickly. There’s so much good in going with the flow vs trying to swim upstream.
Yes to paying attention and yes to working with what is.
To ensure I can keep my word close all year, I take @aliedwards One Little Word class. It’s a class that has monthly prompts to help keep your word front and center.
The February prompt is one of my favorites. It’s to make a vision board and this month is led by the magical @lucrecer who is so inspiring.
I used to do this project by hand but I don’t own any magazines and it is challenging for me to find images so a few years ago I decided to use pinterest to collect images and quotes that are meaningful for me and then use them to make a digital collage.
I love doing this process each year and a huge side benefit is that I can then print it and glue it to my journals throughout the year. But the best part, for me, is that I also make it the background and screensaver for my computers. Since I am on the computer all the time for work, I get to see and be inspired by my word all day long.
I love having all the layers and discovering some detail each time I look.
Yes to being inspired. Yes to creating tangible reminders of my word. Yes to connecting with why I wanted yes as my word and what I want to say yes to in my life!
Some awesome positive steps today! First of all, still doing the meditation first thing in bed and that’s working so far.
Second, this morning I attempted to exercise in the AM and managed to finish the 4 classes and shower and journaling all before my 9am meeting. Which made me feel like a rock star so I plan to keep trying that for as long as I can pull it off. Getting the hard part done makes the day feel so much better every time.
Grateful to be journaling again too. It never ever fails to be immediately useful. And grounding. The opera continues to fill me up.
So today was a positive day, this project still feels ambitious and we’ll see how sustainable it is but I am feeling grateful so far. Learning a lot about what works and what’s hard.
Also learning that stacking a bunch of 10-min tasks feels exponentially easier for me than commiting to a 45-minute task. Likely psychological but still.
Today was the second day of my 100 day project. Since I am already doing year of yes here, I started @karenikadoeswellness just to track that particular project which is more about focusing on different types of what I consider to be wellness for the next 100 days.
I looked over my list yesterday as I was asking my friend Kelly for more ideas on things to feed my soul. And she suggested listening to more classical music or opera and lighting candles. So this morning I put on some Pavarotti, lit a delicious candle, and journaled.
It was the most excellent way to start my day. It filled my soul up all the way.
Yes to music, yes to journaling and yes to focusing on wellness. Thank you Kelly!
I helped kickstart the meditation today by doing it first thing when I woke up. which then helped me get on a good cycle and I was able to do journaling and listening to some wonderful opera. Continuing on that good cycle I managed to do art, All before work started.
So soul work went well today. So did nutrition and exercise. I did wonder if there’s a way I can slowly move more of my exercise to the morning too but for now I’m really enjoying getting to lie in bed early in the morning instead of feeling the urgency to get up and exercise. A slow start is good for my soul.
So far so good with this project, it’s managing to encourage me to do more of what I want without making me feel pressured.
