refocus on wellness

Move beyond the comparison mindset to step into your true worth!

Closing out the year is a time of reflection and acceptance. It’s a time when we can ask ourselves, as we look back over the year, what is working and what did we skip this year that maybe proved to be worthwhile for our mental and emotional health. So often, we judge ourselves for not doing what other people are doing or for not living up to this imaginary expectation that is set and created by the lens of viewing lives through social media.

Acknowledging that you need to change your thinking is difficult to swallow, but it’s important to create a new way of being.

Accepting ourselves is hard. For example, accepting that we aren’t the type of mom that puts a made-from-scratch meal on the table every night. Or that we don’t decorate the whole house for Christmas; heck, putting a tree up was hard enough!

In the AA world (Alcoholics Anonymous), this is step four; Make a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves. As a 10-year sober person, I’ve seen myself come upon this step many times, not just in relation to my addiction to alcohol. The process of acknowledging and accepting pulls me out of the downward spiral of comparison. The cycles of I’m not good enough, or I’m not doing enough, and in reality, the vision of my life has been set too far away from my truth.

Acknowledging and accepting is a way to take inventory of your life rather than continually making the same resolutions year after year, which results in you feeling like a failure. So let’s flip the switch and try things differently this year!

This is a simple prompt to get you focused on becoming a better version of you. You’ll notice that it doesn’t involve taking inventory of your finances or weight. Let’s move beyond that way of thinking and bring our attention to the mindset that matters in making change. Download the image below, print it out, and post it in an area of your house where you will see it often to remind you of your life goals.

Here is an example of the same prompts one of my clients and I created together to allow her room to step further into her authority of self.

Letting go of the outside expectations we put on ourselves is hard to do, but I’m proud of you for seeing your worth. If you’d like some additional help on this journey, I’d be happy to jump on a call and see if we are a good fit for working together.

This week in the Refocus on Wellness group, I asked this question, “what needs to be burned to the ground to make space for something new?”

Everyone who attended took a deep dive into vulnerability and was honest with themselves. Some folks mentioned needing to let go of other people’s expectations of them. They feel stressed out having to live up to some ridiculous ideal standard of themselves. Creating boundaries around work life and home life is a common theme among our members. It takes time to shift the mindset and lean into the belief that it’s okay that they can not be all things to all people. Others identified with the need to change their mindset around what their day should look like. And to allow room for more joy and time for spontaneous things to take place rather than being overscheduled.

One of the things for me that needs to be “burned down” is the entrepreneur hustle. I’m a “pull up your bootstraps and get back on that horse” type of girl. Some would say I’m resilient. But I’m also exhausted. My yoga studio was closed for 14 months due to the COVID-19 pandemic. I shifted to virtual classes immediately, teaching myself how to use zoom and create the best virtual environment for my clients with lighting, cameras, microphones, and internet speeds. We opened to in-person classes on May 10th, 2021, right when the rest of the world began to open its doors as well. So many of my clients put their memberships on hold to travel for the summer. Meanwhile, my rent was increased.

I’m exhausted from trying to keep my yoga studio afloat during the last year of the pandemic but also right now while I struggle to make ends meet.

I’m exhausted from pivoting.

So next week I’m taking a few days off from teaching yoga and seeing private clients. I rented a house on the water, and I’m going there by myself to write. I’m burning down the idea in my head that resilience is my superpower. Exhaustion is not healthy. Being overwhelmed is not a status symbol. Entrepreneurs who grind away their life on their work is not who I want to be.

I want to make room for my dream of finishing this book because I already have an idea for a second book that I’m excited to write.

What do you need to burn to the ground in order to make room for something new?