Grains get a bad rep nowadays. But why? Is it because they make you fat? Nope. Because they have gluten?
Intro Paragraph should contain some keywords for search engine optimization (SEO) purposes and a sense of direction OR your personality and a story. Make us like you. Make us want to continue reading. No pressure, right? Just be your natural self, while also trying to think like your ideal reader–it gets simpler over time. You likely won’t feel the same about blogging as you do now when you’re 20 posts out in the future.
Answer this riddle.
- I am one syllable.
- Me and cigarettes don’t get along.
- My opposite wants to do everything.
- I was probably one of your first words.
Who am I?
(Jeopardy music…doo…doo…doo…doo…doo…doo…doo)
Can you guess?
N-O.
No.
No is one syllable.
“Just say no” to smoking.
Yes=the opposite.
And, as a toddler, “No” rolled easily off your lips.
However, fast-forward to adulthood and “No” became increasingly difficult to say…especially when people pleasing came into the mix…
As a middle-schooler, you wanted the populars to like you…so you said “Yes” to whatever the Queen Bee asked you to do (Wear pink shirts on Fridays? Yes! Let her go first in the lunch line? Yes! Not like her crush? Nooooo problem!).
As a high-schooler, you may have tested the waters with your parents (telling them “No” through your ‘rebellion’ with your curfew, friends’ parties or dating the ‘bad boy’…but, at the end of the day, the word ‘Yes’ won out if you didn’t want to get grounded…for life).
And in your college and adult years, ‘Yes’ still prevailed…you wanted to ‘do it all’, ‘be it all’, and, of course, still win the approval of everyone else.
“No,” became more difficult to say (especially if you want to look like Superwoman).
- “Yes, I can drive the carpool.”
- “Yes, I can have that project completed by tomorrow morning.”
- “Yes I can make the meeting…and the party…and the coffee date…”
Phew.
Are you exhausted yet?
I’ve been there. Got the t-shirt.
I used to “do it all”—and take pride in “doing it all.”
Exhibit A: College
- Babysitting 3-4 days per week
- Interning at the NBC station 2-3 days per week
- 18 hours of classes
- Young Life small group
- Campus Crusade bible study
- Interning at 2 local city magazines
- Working out 2-3 hours per day
- Doing something social at least once per day
- Umm…not sleeping
Looking back on that crazy season…I wonder how did I do it?
Constantly feeling like a Stretch Armstrong Doll, “No” never rolled off my tongue…Until one day…I snapped (or my health did).
Adrenal fatigue hit me like a ton of bricks—forcing me to take a step back and re-evaluate my own self-care.
If you’re not familiar with “adrenal fatigue,” essentially, it’s your body’s way of saying, “I can’t take it anymore!”
After years of chronic stress, my body was tired of fighting and in turn, I incurred a slew of side effects that took me a good year to climb out of; things like:
- Hormonal imbalances
- General fatigue and apathy
- Poor digestion
- Difficulty breathing
- Poor recovery from workouts
(Check out my posts here and here on the subject).
Your #thrivelife project today?
Just say NO.
Dig deep within yourself and find the power in that simple word for your own self-care.
Say “No” to something you really don’t want to do. Say “No” to something that is stressing you out. Say “No” to a habit you’ve been trying to kick (“No” to undereating, overexercising, binging, overworking, not spending your time wisely).
I know…I know…it’s hard. Especially when you want to do it all!
But sometimes we have to say “No” in order to be able to say “Yes.”
You never know what opportunity is on the other side of your “No” if you allow the time, and (head) space to do stuff that you want to do (and do stuff for your own self-care).