Episode 270: A Gentle Reminder for a Discouraged Day
Join Kelli as she shares a gentle and simple reminder to lean into on a discouraged day.
To tune into the episode, listen on iTunes or Spotify.
Show Notes
Given this discouraged day, what is one small thing that you’re able to do, easily within your reach, that is in alignment with your values?
When I think back to the hardest days of anxiety, the days when I couldn’t leave the house and was having multiple panic attacks a day, I was very consumed and very limited.
But, when I acknowledged that anxiety was my current reality, as painful as that was, and something that I was actively working through, I was able to start taking small steps toward a meaningful life.
So, on a really hard day I would move my body, one of my top values, by doing 20 min of yoga instead of a spin workout, or even though I couldn’t go grocery shopping, I’d have my husband pick up some ingredients on the way home from work and try a new recipe for dinner, and while I didn’t have a lot to give because I was so busy surviving, I was able to make my husband a cup of coffee.
I know these actions seem small, they were wayyyy smaller than how I wanted to be living my life at the time, but they were
a) within my reach and
b) in alignment with my values.
Here’s the thing, even seemingly small steps toward the life you want to live, what you care about or value, in spite of a discouraged day, still cultivates self-efficacy, the belief in yourself to take on challenges.
So, you can see why cultivating this, even in small ways, can support us as we start stretching and challenging ourselves more and more!
Even on a discouraged day, we can move toward our values in small simple ways that continue to grow that self-efficacy – discouraged days aren’t necessarily a complete loss. And sometimes we need a breather, which is valuable for nourishing a tapped nervous system.
