Improving yourself, your body, your relationships, your self-confidence, or your life is HARD. It takes a lot of time, energy, and most of the time it is uncomfortable. Lasting change can happen, there is hope for you, and hope for the life you want. But real change takes time, and unfortunately set backs happen along the way, they are to be expected. So what do you do when things have started to improve and then wham, you’re hit hard and it feels like ground zero again?

Here are some quick easy ways to turn set back into launch pads.

1. Acknowledge that you’ve made progress. The only way you can have a set back is if you were doing better already, so take a moment and recognize that you must have been doing something right, and that means you could do it again.
2. Take a moment and mourn. Recognize the setback, and label it as such, go ahead and feel sad about it for a moment. Heck, maybe even longer. If you are worried about getting stuck in this phase, be concrete about it. Go set your kitchen stove timer for 1-10 minutes and then use that time to really feel bad (if you don’t need the whole time that is great). But once that timer goes off, that’s enough. Time to say it’s over and I can do better from here.
3. Remind yourself that what matters now is your next right choice, and try to make it quickly. Do something good that works towards your improved life, and avoid the things that your know make things harder. If during this step you consider feeling bad about your setback, remind yourself that you already did that, and the time is up, so nicely talk to yourself about letting it go and focusing on what you can control now, and go make a good choice.
4. Watch for improvement, and as it happens praise yourself. Celebrate the small, until it turns into the big. The cool thing about set backs is that they give you even more opportunities for improvements, so the possibilities of what you can now accomplish are vast. Go for it, and when you experience successes, regardless of how small, celebrate them.
5. Remember setbacks, heck even failures happen, and they often happen before greatness. It took Edison over 2 years of failure before getting the right combination to make a light bulb burn, but when it did, it burned for 15 hours. His next improvement yielded a bulb that burned for 1500 hours.  What great feats could you accomplish with that much perseverance?
6. Finally, remember a great message I learned growing up from the Care Bears “It’s never too late if you care enough”. As long as you are still breathing there is hope. Let me say that again, as long as you are STILL BREATHING THERE IS HOPE, for you, for your relationship, and for the life you want.

So now, take a breath, tell yourself you can, and go out and live the life you want. You deserve it!

There were a few deaths of classmates during my high school years. At the times none of the people who passed were what I would classify as friends, but I did know them as any other classroom acquaintance would know someone with whom you'd suffered through algebra, or simply been going through the same stage of life along side. I remember having feelings of grief for their families, and friends, but I was also struck by how I experienced the people around me grieving.

I remember wondering if there was a grief bandwagon that I should be climbing aboard, since people who were admittedly not close to the deceased were crying in the hallways, attending funerals, and simply acting grief stricken. I remember one person in particular that was close to someone who had passed being very angry about how others around him were grieving for his friend, and I found the whole thing a bit confusing. 

Years later I realized that grief compiles upon other losses, and that some losses are simply easier to feel than others. So now when people cry, or grieve in ways that might feel in-congruent to the outside observer, I recognize that the person is not just grieving over this one things, but about every loss or hurt they have ever experienced. Regardless of if it is for people or lost dreams we all have a lot to grieve over, and many of us haven't given ourselves permission to be sad, or experience the whole of our emotions. 

For me, this puts an understandable context around how people grieve for those that we do not know, and how celebrity deaths can feel oddly personal. Take the death of Princess Dianna or Michael Jackson and how hoards of people came out to leave flowers, trinkets and hold vigils to honor their loss. Yes, these people impacted people's lives, and that should be honored in some way, but they were not close relationships. This weekend, t.v. Glee celebrity, Corey Monteith, died, and although this loss does not affect me directly, I found it untimely, and thus surprising. What I haven't been surprised by is the reaction from fans of the show, and friends who have been feeling the loss more personally.  So, if you are feeling a bit down-hearted lately, or have shed some unexpected tears, take a moment and be kind to yourself. This is about a loss, but it is also about all your losses and hurts, and those should be honored with time and tears. 

Self Care gets a lot of word play now days, but to be honest, it's because it IS important, dare I say essential to making us all better people. And who doesn't want to be a better person interacting with better people? Seriously if it were as easy as buying the world a coke, wouldn't we all want that?

Self Care is nurturing yourself (doing the things that you know make you feel better). Self care often looks different for different people. For some it is journaling, drawing, taking a walk, soaking in a bubble bath, reading, exercising, meditation, deep breathing, music, etc. It is basically anything that leaves you feeling refreshed, recharged and rejuvenated. Because it makes you feels so plug into yourself and re-energized it is ESSENTIAL to your ability to face the daily world.

When you feel refreshed it's easier to take on hard things, deal with crisis, or put up with people that are difficult. Self care makes for better moms, better individuals, better spouses, and better humanitarians. Because let's face it, when we feel good we treat other around us better, and interact with the world in a more respectful and loving way. All good, right?

So why aren't we walking around all respectful and loving, and feeling good all the time? Why don't we do the things that plug us in and refresh ourselves? The main answer I hear to this question is: I don't have time. But what most people are really saying when they say they don't have time is: I feel selfish making time for myself when there are so many other responsibilities and people who need me. And to that I say - Yes, it is hard to choose yourself when you take on so much, and have so much to do, AND that is why it is so important. Plus, YOU ARE WORTH IT!

Now for my blunt hard to hear answer - and when I say this I am mostly saying it to myself because even I am guilty of thinking I can't put down the tasks of the day to take care of myself... so here is my harsh truth (that to me feels like a slap across the face, with the bitter sweet sting of reality). If I take 5 minutes for myself (to do something that makes me feel better - (going to the bathroom with the door shut) or (playing piano)) the world will NOT end. I am not so very important to everything that things will self-destruct if I take a moment. To believe that I am is pretty egocentric, even when it feels like it's all on me. But if it feels like it's all on me, hello that means I am stressed, and what is going to help the most with that? Plugging into myself and doing some good old fashion self care. In reality, if I really am all that important, then I better be taking those 5 minutes, and ideally even more than 5 minutes, because yes, a LOT rests on my shoulders,..so I better strengthen those shoulders with some me time ASAP.

Addionally, when you feel guilty about taking me time... you need to practice some self-talk. So here are some worlds you can borrow when that voice that says "you shouldn't be doing this" pops up:
"A lot of people depend on me. Taking time for me helps them".
"I am worthy of time and my body deserves my respect".
"When I feel shame it is my old self trying to recruit me back into feeling bad. I don't have to go. I am a champion in my life."
"As breathing nurtures my body, this nurtures my soul. I don't plan to hold my breathe, why deny myself this form of air?"
"I'm worth it."
"Replenishment now saves me from using sick time later."
"I am teaching my kids that I am worthy of time, and respect. Through modeling this, they are learning that they are too."

Taking time to nurture yourself is the core of self care. Take time today to connect with yourself and re-establish your worth. You can do it, now and every day. You are worth it.

We all have choice all the time. Sometimes it doesn't feel like the options are any that you like, but there is still choice in what you decide to do. There is even choice in doing nothing, for in and of itself doing nothing is a choice.