"be careful how you talk about yourself, for the warrior within is lessened by your words" - Chinese proverb I've been rereading "An Arsenal of Gratitude" and I'm on a chapter that talks about the warrior within. It covers a lot of different things, but my key takeaways from this chapter were: "A warrior waiting to die cannot inspire another to fight" "The enemy of good is great" Boredom: being satisfied in all my needs but wanting more. What a privilege it is to have the ability to tap into more and not just focus on survival. The only one that we are convincing with our excuses is ourselves... We are defined by our actions. am I okay with being held accountable for the things that I didn't step up to? Can't eat mental garbage and not get emotionally sick. ..... So...how do we show up in the world? How do we show up for ourselves? Are we getting more sick or are we taking care of the gifts weve been given ? November is my favorite month because it's a time to double down on gratitude based living and being even more intentional... But I also recognize that I make excuses and at times limit my own joy. How is your life going? How is the warrior within being taken care of?

𝗜𝗻𝘁𝗲𝗿𝗲𝘀𝘁-𝗕𝗮𝘀𝗲𝗱 𝘃𝘀. 𝗜𝗺𝗽𝗼𝗿𝘁𝗮𝗻𝗰𝗲-𝗕𝗮𝘀𝗲𝗱 𝗠𝗼𝘁𝗶𝘃𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 (If you want to skip below for strategies, please do) I've been thinking about why at times I can KNOW that something is important and IS actually important to me/in general, I can WANT to WANT to do the important thing, but something within me just struggles to get going. Even though the importance is high, the friction is also high. I've often talked about "knowing your why" and then knowing the why behind the why and I've also spoken about values and how all of this can help with taking steps towards accomplishing tasks/goals but sometimes even tapping into this may just not be enough. Sometimes we benefit from additional things to help support with follow through. So, I've reflected on my life and looked at how I've gone about doing things and I realized that a lot of what I accomplish is related to a few factors: interest, novelty, challenge, urgency, and/or utilizing external environmental structures to help me complete the goals and keep me on track. Importance /value /truth are still main variables, but I needed to use these other things to help mobilize me better. ---------- Some people are motivated primarily by interest: a task is easier to engage with when it has a level of novetly, when it's challenging, stimulating, urgent, meaningful in the moment, or offers immediate feedback. (shall we call it..dopamine centric?) Others can more readily mobilize around importance: a task needs to get done because it aligns with their values, responsibilities, or long-term goals, even when it’s boring or uncomfortable. Everyone uses both systems, but the balance matters. Interest-based motivation is influenced by novelty, curiosity, challenge, immediate reward, emotional engagement, and time pressure while importance-based motivation relies more heavily on goal representation, delayed rewards, planning, self-regulation, and the ability to tolerate low stimulation in service of a future outcome. **Sleep, stress, mood, task difficulty, executive functioning, and the environment can influence both.**

Self-care, self-love, self-reflection....self, self, self. These all seem to be great things, but is there a dark side to this? Have we become so obsessed with ourselves that we're actually doing more harm than good? The opposite, self-abandonment and self-neglect, are not great either. Is there a line that we can walk better? Can we have a better relationship with our selves? 𝐏𝐇𝐈𝐋𝐀𝐔𝐓𝐈𝐀 Philautia (φιλαυτία) comes from Ancient Greek: philos = love, affection autos = self - Meaning: self-love or love of oneself. In some contexts this was seen as a virtue while in others it's seen as a vice. So, I suppose context and further definition matters. 𝐄𝐌𝐏𝐎𝐖𝐄𝐑𝐌𝐄𝐍𝐓 Healthy self-regard is beneficial for wellbeing....I'd argue that humility is being able to be grounded in truth. It's not about downing oneself, but rather about being abile to see something for what it is--we'd be able to see our strong points and also our weak points. But with our ability to see our weaknessess and mistakes, we would also need to pair that up with self-compassion This leads to more resilience, more accountability, and increased ability to learn from our mistakes. In this sense, self-love isn't arrogance but it's rather the foundation of growth. 𝐒𝐄𝐋𝐅 𝐀𝐁𝐒𝐎𝐑𝐏𝐓𝐈𝐎𝐍 Many philosophical and religious traditions offer a caution though-- when the self becomes the primary object of our attention, something begins to distort. Psychology also echose this in some way--we know that excessive self-focus is linked to heightened sensitivity to perceived threats/criticism, rumination, anxiety and depression. If the mind becomes trapped into the loop of "how do I feel", "What does this mean about me?", and "how am I being perceived" and this has detrimental effects---the more we obsess about ourselves, the less fulfilled we become. Our relationship with others AND our relationship wtih ourselves suffers. It becomes pigeon holed and doesn't take our whole being into account. If you've gotten to this point, here's what I read that inspired this whole post:

This weekend we celebrated one year since we bought our house, and it was pretty much the perfect weekend. We had 36 people over for a BBQ, from 3 to 82 years old, and everyone was sitting around eating, talking and laughing together. It was one of those days where you look around and think, this is exactly what I wanted this place to be. The next day we did the cleanup but also took a break and went to the beach. We swam, played in the waves, sat in the sun enjoying one of the last warm days of summer, then came home, made dinner and were getting ready to watch a movie together. And then I spilled a cup of hot water all over my thigh. 🤦🏻‍♀️😂 So instead of ending this lovely weekend watching a movie with my husband, I ended it standing in the shower running cold water over a pretty nasty burn. What I found interesting afterwards was how easily that could have become the story of the weekend. We do that so often. Something goes wrong, especially at the end, and somehow it gets more weight in our memory than all the things that went right before it. But when I thought about it, the accident hadn't changed any of what had already happened. I still had that wonderful Saturday with 36 people enjoying our home, I still went swimming on Sunday, I still sat in the sun and had a great day with my husband. I also burned my leg at the end of it. 😄 I think I'm getting better at allowing those things to exist together instead of letting the bad thing rewrite the whole experience. It was a wonderful weekend AND I had a crappy accident at the end of it. Both are true. And maybe that's worth remembering the next time one thing goes wrong and our brain immediately wants to use it to grade everything that came before it. 😊

Happy September, Inspired and Empowered Fam! :) I don't create short posts too often, but I figured I'd like to do a check in and see how you're all doing and see what's something that you'd like to focus on this month. :) What's something that I can follow up with you guys at the end of the month? 𝗔𝘀 𝘄𝗲 𝗯𝗲𝗴𝗶𝗻 𝗦𝗲𝗽𝘁𝗲𝗺𝗯𝗲𝗿, 𝗰𝗼𝗻𝘀𝗶𝗱𝗲𝗿: - 1.Which area feels most energized right now? How can I continue nurturing it? - 2.Which area feels neglected? What might it need from me? - 3.Is there an area I keep saying I want to prioritize but rarely give my time or energy to? - 4.Which area, if improved even slightly, might have a positive ripple effect on the rest of my life? - 5. Where am I doing things because I genuinely value them and where am I operating from “should”? - 6.What do I want to experience more of this September? - 7.What do I want to intentionally make space for? POLL: Which area would benefit from some love, attention and intention?