The Power of Small Moments
How you can reset, restore and replenish in just a few minutes every day
Jean Edelman: Great to be with you this week. This week, let's go back and talk a little bit more about self-care. Why is it that maybe we don't put enough of it into our day? I was thinking if we broke it down into micro moments in our day, maybe we could find a little bit more time for self-care. So the micro moments are the moments in between, the moments in between a meeting or maybe a meal, or maybe you're driving somewhere. It's just micro moments. And if we put them into our awareness, maybe we can fit some more moments into our day. And they all count as self-care. It’s about taking a breath, maybe a little stretch, observing how we feel just to bring us back into some balance. It's being aware.
Are we out of balance? Are we stressed out a little bit? Are we doing a little bit too much? The micro moment can just be that moment that just brings us back into our body and into our awareness. It can start when we wake in the morning, maybe before we jump out of bed. Take a couple of full, deep breaths. When we get out of bed, maybe do a couple of stretches, maybe some little light yoga poses as we prepare for the day. There's lots of little opportunities to stretch and breathe and plant our feet on the floor.
Eating breakfast, that's a nice time to take some micro moments to just have some self-care. Just tune in and be in tune with ourselves. The other great opportunity is the weather's getting better. Maybe we can plan a walk after lunch or plan a walk after dinner.
The biggest key to self-care is just tuning into ourselves. And so step one, how are we feeling? Are we eating? How often? How much are we eating regularly throughout the day? Are we sleeping? Are we sleeping too little? Are we sleeping too much? Are we connected with others? Are we talking with others? If we've got an issue, are we using our journal as an outlet? Are we creating some movement in our day or a week with some yoga, tai chi? Getting our walks in?
The beauty of each day is that we get to create it. We get to make it what we need and we can flow into our day. Those little micro moments where we can have some self-care. The biggest thing is to remember to just have awareness. So the other thing that I think for self-care is to schedule fun. The weather's getting better. Go find a new hobby. I started watercolors. I have a friend coming over once a week and we just sit and we play with our watercolors. There's no right or wrong. It's just totally fun. But it's a new hobby. It's something for self-care for me. Find some art. Find some music. Get out in the garden. Have a movie night and game nights.
Maybe for self-care, we get out of our routine and go have a meal in a different room or maybe go have a picnic somewhere. It's just a wonderful time of year to embrace ourselves and get those micro moments of self-care. Embrace it, enjoy it.
And so my word of the week is going to be real simple. It's going to be SELF.
This S is to Save, to conserve. Why do we want to work ourselves to exhaustion every moment of the day? There's no fun in that. Find those micro moments, those little breaks during the day to reset, restore and replenish, and then we can go about our activities and engage with people and we'll be happier and we'll feel better.
The E is to Enjoy, to savor and appreciate just ourselves. You know what? If nobody told you today, we're all good enough. We have what we need. Just enjoy the moment.
The L is for Light, weightless and free. This is what we want in our micro moments. And you know what? We will want more of them once we start experiencing that.
And you know what the F is for: Fantabulous. Stupendous. And amazing. That's what we are. I love fantabulous.
So have a great week, everybody. Take care of you. Enjoy the weather and find those micro moments and have a fantabulous week.
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