I want to relish in the moment, live here in the present, in these moments where I am proud of myself, and celebrate! So that got me thinking... what does a self-celebration even look like?

My doctor at my therapist's office asked me three things I was proud of today. I laughed nervously. Three?! You want three?? I think I can come up with one but do you really need two more? She said yes- that she'd barely been talking to me for 15 minutes and could already list 5 things I could mention. I'm thinking heck, why is this so hard? Why can't I see these things in myself that other people can?

I see now I am whole, with my problems. My problems are part of me, they're part of my life journey. And some of my problems include experiencing chronic pain.

Today I invite you to get curious and take a little deep dive into yourself and imagine your life if you didn't feel like you had to impress anyone.

Go ahead, ask yourself,

What if... I didn't feel like I had to impress anyone?

I tend to ruminate. I go over and over the same situation. Again and again. Analyzing my actions and words. Sure, this is ok to do maybe once, so I can pick out any lessons learned to take with me into the rest of my life... but the part where I keep mentally beating myself up repeatedly AFTER I've already realized the lessons, is the unhealthy part that is not serving me or my highest good.

I'm leaning into bringing "play" into the equation. What if we looked at everything we do as play? What the heck does that even mean? Play is doing something out of enjoyment, for no defined goal or outcome. Play is full of imagination, creativity, spontaneity, experimentation, discovery, and learning.

How is your new year going so far? Tbh, mine doesn’t feel very different than 2020… but honestly, why should it? Only a few days have passed. Everything’s preeeeetty much the same as it was a week ago. I think we put way too much pressure on the new year.

Do you give yourself a hard time when you don't finish a task, if you "mess up" or say the wrong thing, if you have a bad day or don't think you did a good job on a project? Or if you made dinner and it turned out like total crap? (hahaha I hate that one) But seriously, what does your internal dialogue look like? Are you beating yourself up? Or are you responding to yourself with loving kindness and compassion? If your best friend came to you with that exact situation, would you be telling them the same things you're telling yourself?

The other parts of the dreams are the ones I want to talk about. The part where my cat was on the ceiling... and the entire rest of the dream I didn't get into. The parts that may have hidden and secret meanings between the lines. The juicy messages our subconscious wants to reach us with. Maybe your dreams are hints to real-world events, with hidden messages sprinkled in.