It’s Time For a Shift

Here’s a really fun fact… yesterday was International Self-Care Day! How cool is that?! And… how did I not know it?? I mean, it is quite literally my soul passion!

It was a completely random twist of fate that I even found out about International Self-Care Day… driving back from a FULL day at the beach. I was sitting in the back seat, a car location I rarely inhabit, as a passenger and not the driver. As I was returning from a day spent at the beach with two of my dearest friends, allowing myself to be a passenger, a story came on the radio about International self-care Day and how the city of Boston was celebrating. What hit me as I listened were two things:

1. September 24th is International Self-Care Day… a day selected to bring awareness to self-care.
2. Boston “celebrated” this day with free two hour bike rentals to promote getting outside, moving your body and practicing self-care. 

GAH! So many thoughts ran through my head!! First of all… I knew immediately that this would be the mini topic for the week! Clearly! What an obvious topic! And yet… my thoughts did not land on bringing awareness to “self-care”, a fact that will not surprise those who know me. What DID pop into my mind was the idea that we devote one day to bringing awareness to self-care… and that that self-care is so massively misunderstood that a two hour bike ride feels like the best way to promote it. I tend to feel a pang of disappointment when we attempt to address a core human need with something that minimizes its critical importance.  But I digress… 

I know, I know… we have to start somewhere, right?! We do! I am all for starting. But what I want to do is start with a shift and a sigh.

Self-care isn’t about one act or decision. It isn’t about a massage, pedicure, bike ride or day at the beach. Self-care, at its very core, is about knowing and embracing that you are worthy of a life designed for YOU. It’s about leaning into your birthright of fulfillment and joy. It’s about owning that you deserve to be fully loved and cared for…. By YOU! Your job as a human, living your one and only beautiful human life, is to care deeply and profoundly about YOU!

So, your Mindful Mini Invitation this week isn’t about a task or thing… they rarely are. Minis aren’t really mini at all. This week I invite you to lean into your worth and begin to shift how you see yourself in relation to your priorities. Put yourself at the center and shift your thinking around what you deserve. Then sigh… let go of the need to perfect everything for everyone else. This can look like declining invitations and setting boundaries around your time, asking for help or letting others take care of their own responsibilities. This can look like a massage, pedicure or bike ride… but it can also look like saying no, breathing deeply and letting go. At the very core it is the dialogue you have within yourself, the way to talk to YOU and the narrative that is the overlay of your life. The narrator (YOU) should always put you in the highest place of worth. It’s your story. Shift the narration and sigh… let go. The collective release of breath is what our world so deeply craves! THIS is self-care, and I invite you to embrace it unapologetically…. because YOU are so worth it!

Yours in heart,

Kelly Lynn Driscoll