Taking care of myself doesn’t always come naturally to me does it? I thought to myself as I reached up to grab the sleek, dark green, expensive bottle of probiotic pills that are meant to be taken daily, that I hadn’t taken in a week. As my thought finished, my motor skills did not follow through, and the glass jar somehow fell out of my hands and into my sink, and the sexy dark green pills lay in a pile of (biodegradable) dark green glass.
How timely, I thought to myself as I FaceTimed my mom to ask if I should risk rescuing the pills and potentially swallowing (expensive) glass. The answer was obviously no, but as I often forget to take the pills, my subscription has piled up and I have a brand new bag of probiotics to rip into, so I took the loss.
But I wasn’t going to ignore an opportunity to acknowledge a sign, a message, or a lesson (I love assigning meaning to everything, sue me) and I realized that the dropped bottle of expensive probiotic pills represented my lack of consistency with my physical self-care.
There are “self-care” things that I love to do. Therapy, meditation, journaling, reading, neural reprogramming, and even being alone with my thoughts.
Most of the things I listed above are things that don’t require moving your body, they require moving your mind. I realized I am resistant to physical movement because I have let myself get out of the practice of movement. Over time it creates a feeling that’s a mix of laziness and not wanting to be alone with your body. Even a face mask becomes too much.
Maybe you are like me and you need to move your body once in a while (EVERYDAY) Maybe you could use a bit of alone time with your mind. Start with a long walk in silence, or make sure you brush your teeth without looking at your phone. Join me in a 15-minute stretch tomorrow.
for me, these are my small focuses:
Take my supplements daily (I only take well-researched, high-quality supplements, that actually make a difference, for all the haters!!)
Eat breakfast
Brush my teeth three times a day. Actually scraping my tongue every day and actually wearing my routine.
FLOSS. FINE
Consistency in my skincare
A workout video and some steps
Is that not the most obvious list you’ve ever seen? It’s like you asked ChatGBT how to stay alive, not smell bad, and have decent skin. It’s actually as if a second grader did?
But unfortunately, that is my sad and a bit embarrassing truth. I struggle to do all of the above for longer than two weeks in a row.
As I continue to live with more intention, I enter this new era of radically taking care of myself no matter how uncomfortable it feels. Consider this your sign to fill in the blanks that are missing, even if you can’t do it perfectly. Less gaps in between slip-ups, ya know?
I’m gonna go floss I guess.
Xx Chlo
I wrote this newsletter two weeks ago, but as I type this part before scheduling this issue tonight, I can’t go without mentioning the stress and heartache I am feeling for the Palestinian people of Gaza. Please take a moment to recognize their beauty, creativity, and humanity and read their stories.
Sending more love than you will ever know. Thank you for being here.