(free printable from The Crafted Life)
In case you missed the first part of this series, read here.
Here we are at the start of another year, and I am typing out a post that is quite the opposite of what I thought I would start the year with. Although it is exactly what I know I am supposed to share. As promised, I wanted to go a little deeper into why it became so important to me to address mental, physical, and spiritual health. When one of these aspects of our lives experiences strain and neglect, it starts to bleed into other areas of our life. When we can take a little time to care for all three parts of our being, we work towards WHOLENESS. When we treat our health in it’s entirety, only then can we can begin to experience peace.
Less than a year ago, it had been a particularly …..difficult day, and my nerves were shot, my tank was empty, and I felt like I didn’t have control over anything in my life. It was as if my legs were dangling over the edge of a breakdown and I could see how dangerously close I was to falling off. I felt anger boiling up within me for not being able to understand what was happening. I didn’t understand why I felt this way because I was in the thick of it. I didn’t realize how much I was bottling up and suppressing before it boiled over to the surface.
(photo by Haley Sheffield)
I knew it was time to get to the heart of it all, and undo the knots. I knew I couldn’t just sword fight my way through this one like I usually did. I needed to face the reality that things had to change. As women, and especially for me as an INFJ personality, it is very easy to put my own health to the side. Even though we know self care can give us the foundation to actually give care to others, we so easily let it be last on the list of to-dos. It was really hard for me to start peeling back the layers, because I had to face the fears and doubts at the root. I hadn’t taken enough time off after having Azelie. I had given myself no time for postpartum healing, and I was a new mother of five trying to keep a full time business alive on my own. There wasn’t enough of me for anything to be done well. It was a humbling place to be. I had piled too much on my plate again. I wasn’t asking for help when I needed it. I was expecting too much out of myself. I wasn’t trusting God with my life. It was the same repetitive pattern of habits I thought I had overcome, but when life gets difficult we tend to slip back to old patterns. In the process, my mind, body, and soul felt strained. It was time to hit the rest button. It was shortly after I wrote the post Holy Grounds, and I started to fight harder for renewal. This is when I began to see so clearly how important whole being health is. Our bodies are not just physical temples to care for. Inside of our bodies is a mind and soul that needs equal amounts of care.
Since then, we made some big changes in our home as well as some small personal ones. I almost quit the blog, but we came to this conclusion instead. This has changed our day to day lives in big ways, and Gabe and I both were able to get back a more balanced rhythm, as well as implement better routines into our family. I still need practice not falling into old habits, especially at this time of year which is why I started the reset and renew guide.
If you are in the middle of something similar, where life feels a little out of control or stress is a part of your day to day life, I hope you will consider doing this challenge of self care along with me. It can be small simple proactive habits that can drastically change our relationships and our quality of life.
Some of the highest triggers for stress are the following:
Financial strain
Job loss/ job uncertainty
Education stress
Death of a loved one
Moving to a new place
Illness or child with an illness
Birth of a new baby
Poor health or injury
Every time we experience stress, the hormone cortisol is released in response by the adrenal glands. The side effects of increased levels of cortisol can damage our physical and mental health if we don’t fight it the right ways:
Disrupted digestion, mental function and metabolism, depression, lowered immune function, high blood pressure, imbalances in other important hormones (such as DHEA, estrogen, progesterone, and testosterone), impaired healing and cell regeneration, loss of muscle and bone, mood swings and depression, hair loss, skin problems, thyroid imbalances, sleeplessness, weight gain or weight loss, and the list goes on.
Mental stress can shut down our bodies and prevent us from connecting to the people who mean the most to us. I hope just opening the conversation allows some space for you the reader to know that there is always hope to walk forward. To improve, grow, expand, and even THRIVE. You are never alone in your challenges no matter how big or small.
If it helps, I typed out a list of stress busters/self care practices for the mind in the guide as well as some helpful resources if you want to have a look! I will be doing these throughout January so I printed four of the weekly checklist sheets to hold me accountable. I’d love to hear how it’s going for you along the way!
With love, Anna
DOWNLOAD THE RESET + RENEW GUIDE
“When we relate to our bodies as having soul, we attend to their beauty, their poetry and their expressiveness. Our very habit of treating the body as a machine, whose muscles are like pulleys and its organs engines, forces its poetry underground.” – Thomas More
P.S. Immune system and gut health + Rebuilding from the inside out.
