The Reset Begins

It's a self-love kinda week.

Today was day one of my Delicious 7-Day Summer Reset, a week I invest in myself to reset for beautiful health. Body, mind, heart, and spirit. Attention to fabulous clean, whole, in-season noninflammatory foods, movement, breath work, hydration, sleep, meditation, journaling, nature, and attention to what brings joy and happiness. 

Today was challenging because it was a long day at work with a reception after our services. My intention was to make the best choices possible, and I did pretty well. Had I been more mindful I could have done better, but all-in-all, good choices. 

The stress on joy, health, and celebration certainly set the tone for my leadership today. We celebrated a family, staff member, and college student who are leaving us. In spite of the congregation's sadness for these departures, they are steps these folks are taking that are life-giving, so we were able to celebrate all this and bless them as we sent them. Our transition team met also and continued to plan the congregation's first transformational event, set for September. An emergency took me to the hospital to visit a member. I had expected a much more serious situation than I found. It is brilliant to see the kinds of healing miracles that happen sometimes. I arrived home just before 5 in the afternoon. I'd left for church at 6:45 in the morning.

As part of the prep for this week, I filled my fridge and pantry with great veggies, fruit, nuts, and prepared some quinoa. I made a nice vinaigrette with a good olive oil and a fine balsamic vinegar. I didn't have the energy to thaw and cook anything this evening, so I got my protein from other sources. There are times when it is all I can do to get some arugula on the plate, spoon out some quinoa, add avocado and nuts, and drizzle the dressing. Today was one of those days. But I did it. Fortunately, there is nothing in my fridge or pantry to tempt me toward anything else. A local peach rounded everything out. 

My kitchen is filled with the fragrance of peaches.

I'd like to take some time tomorrow and make some plans. It was suggested that we approach this week as if it is a vacation. That's going to be interesting since it's the week before I'm taking some vacation time and I usually work harder the weeks before and after I am away. I was listening to a feature on NPR this week and they were talking about Americans' vacationing patterns. One of the reasons we don't take our time is for that very reason. Too much work before and after. Many of us don't have someone who can actually do most of our work. It's an unsustainable cultural pattern we've created. There are far too many of us who are stressed out and who are not engaging in healthy, life-giving patterns. 

Cultivating good health is countercultural these days.

All you have to do is to look at the landscape and the expansion of hospitals to see what that kind of culture is producing. Vast campuses of medical centers and profits for the health care industry. I'd like to keep myself away from all that if I can.

It's a journey. And it's complicated. There are a lot of moving pieces. But one by one, I am attending to them and loving myself into sustainable good health.  






The Summer of Self-Love is a daily writing practice created to harness three months for thriving. The goal at the end is to host a dinner party. Sounds like an unusual Hero's Journey, doesn't it? Most of them usually are.

  

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