Show Up (For Yourself)
June Blooming
This month, I want to encourage growth. The year is passing quickly (yet, it’s painfully slow at the same time), and it’s too easy to get caught in the current — being dragged along without really paying attention to what’s going on. “Where has time gone?” usually means, “WTF have I been doing?” We stop being present, stop setting goals, and our progress crawls to a halt.
Let’s not have that, shall we?
Welcome to A Sassy Little Substack, a reader-supported publication about cultivating happiness and eschewing toxic positivity by certified happiness and trauma-informed wellness coach, Sandra Ann Miller, a.k.a. The Happyist. New posts drop each Wednesday.
Please like ❤, comment, share and subscribe. Free subs get all main posts. Paid get the archive, bonus posts and full podcast episodes. All subs receive a link to a free PDF to help answer the question, “WTF Is Happiness, Anyway?” Read that welcome email!
Become a member of The Happyist Substack. A paid sub there gets you a paid sub here! And if you want to wear your happiness well, visit the Etsy shop. Happiness is Punk AF, friends! Check it out! xo
June seems like a wonderful time to shift. Get our shizzle together before we greet the start of the last half of the year. Where do we begin?
By showing up. Mostly for yourself. And also for the people you gave your word to, which is a way to show up for you, too. It’s so easy to make excuses as to why we can’t do something or why we changed our minds. But let’s get a little bit curious about those Whys, and how they keep us stuck.
What do you want to change? How do you want to grow? What are the things you want to do/accomplish/participate in? And why aren’t you doing them?
Let’s be honest, the simplest answer is: If I don’t try, I can’t fail. And what a turd burger that is to swallow. That’s a quit before the start. And that’s no way to show up for yourself.
Failure is a key element on the path to success. If you are afraid to fail, success must be a concept that makes you soil your shorts. But you do want to succeed, don’t you? Of course you do! So you are going to have to embrace failure, flops, embarrassment, disappointment and all sorts of uncomfortable feelings.
Take this in deep: Trying is the first phase of succeeding. And to accomplish that, you have to show up.
Where are you letting yourself down in that regard? And, nope, that’s not a call to beat yourself up. It’s a call to get curious. What are the areas you avoid or half-ass?
Let’s use the simple examples of wanting to wake up earlier/getting more sleep…which are basically the same thing in that they both require going to bed at a decent hour so you can achieve that goal. The easy way to fob that off is to be on a screen — your phone, tablet or TV. This is the downtime you deserve, dammit! Right? You’re allowed to numb-out after the day you’ve had! And, sure, you might be in bed whilst on your preferred screen. Maybe 10PM is your new bedtime; technically, you honored that by being under the covers. But it’s 12:05 before you finally turn off your screen and close your eyes. And how does that feel when the alarm goes off?
Very human. Very common. Very silly.
What was the payoff? Did you really enjoy what you were watching/scrolling through? Did it add value to your life? Or did it make it harder to wake up and you more tired?
There’s a part of us — ego, inner child, stubborn ass — that utterly rejects change, even the changes that are for our benefit. So, we end up stuck and wondering why we can’t unstuck ourselves.
Because we have to get over ourselves. That ego, inner child, stubborn ass.
In the words of a marketing genius paid by Nike: Just do it!
It’s really that simple and that completely challenging. You know what isn’t working (the same sh!t), so why do it. If you want something else, do the new. Don’t keep repeating the same habits and behaviors that have kept you stuck! Honor yourself enough to “sacrifice” that screentime for better sleep. Yes, you are too tired to make dinner, but is a bag of chips/fast food/crap-that-tastes-good-and-makes-you-feel-awful the answer? Or can you meal plan and have everything ready for you at the start of the week?
It only takes a bit more effort and a tad of planning to get you started. More importantly, you need to make choices that support your decision to get unstuck. Avoid doing things you know will hinder you. Leave your phone in another room. Choose carrots over chips. Instead of sitting in front of the TV, use that time to do something you actually need to do — meal prep, house cleaning, setting out your clothes for the following day, fitting in some movement or mediation.
These actions are not punishments. They are helping you change, move forward and get unstuck! Look at them that way instead of focusing on what you’d rather do…which did what for you exactly?
Exactly!!!
You’re smart. You know what to do. You know what doesn’t work. You have a pretty good idea of what might. Start there. Show up for yourself each day — yes, ev-er-y day — and do what you know needs doing. Watch the changes happen from that, because they will. Then, your job is to keep moving forward; don’t go back to the habits that held you back. And do that ev-er-y day. Keep your focus on what’s good for you, what is the most beneficial. And, when you stumble — because you will, because you’re human — don’t see that as defeat and an excuse to go back to your old ways. See that as an opportunity to examine again what holds you back and start moving forward again. Because now you see the benefits of showing up for yourself, in all the ways. xo
Like this sassy little ‘stack? Please ❤️, comment and share it with friends. Thank you! xo
What’s Happening at The Happyist
A paid subscription at The Happyist gets you a complimentary paid sub here!