Practicing Emotional Wellness by saying YES... to yourself!

I recently went on a trip with one of my longtime friends, and as the trip drew near, they started saying things like, “I just need to make it to the plane,” and “I just need to grind this out and then it will be vacation time.” I think we collectively tend to feel the need to “just get one more thing done before I can rest,” or the “I already committed to that, so I have to go” mentality. This struck me- why do we do this? Why do we often push ourselves past our capacity in the name of hustle, obligations, or vacation? We had a long talk about rest and tuning in to our emotional needs one of the days (ironically as we found ourselves on a hilariously treacherous hike up a mountain that resulted in so much laughter and legitimate concern that we would need rescue, but that is beside the point here), we were able to lean in to our emotional needs and talk about listening to our bodies and honoring what we need. 

I invite you to join us in this listening. There are endless avenues for deepening our awareness of emotionally caring for ourselves. Asking yourself, what is one way I am going to take care of myself today, and identifying small moments to step away, unplug, move your body joyfully - in some manner to recharge your being. Our wellness is something that needs to be tended to like a garden - it is up to us to figure out when to water and when to weed out.

The first skill is to notice where you are starting from and do so without judgment. Are you so deep in prioritizing your wellness that there's a tremendous amount to unpack? Let’s start there! Wellness should be an exciting journey of learning and leaning, adapting and refining. Establishing a practice for yourself fills our cup for those times when we overcommit or find ourselves in seasons that won't relent. Being able to fall back on a wellness practice of setting boundaries for yourself and creating moments of self-care is a great place to start.