Perhaps the best decision you could make this summer, this year, this life...

I was on a call with a client earlier this week and we were joking about sensory deprivation tanks and the idea that sometimes removing all the noise is necessary in order to intentionally bring back what serves you.

So many of us are running on autopilot right now. Our well-being is out of whack, we’re trigger happy, exhausted, and we are still experiencing the long-term mental, physical, financial and emotional impacts of the pandemic that researchers have yet to even understand.

Don’t get me wrong, I’ve also been noticing some themes that have been encouraging.

For instance, I know in our business, we cut down our business hours for the summer and lessened our client load to support taking the creative space I shared more about in last week’s post.

I’ve spoken with colleagues who have also been adapting our policy of a 4-day work week.

I have clients who have prioritized multiple vacations this summer with their families. And generally speaking, I’ve noticed a greater willingness to enforce boundaries around schedules, breaks, and work-life balance.

It truly is encouraging to see.

And today’s post is for you if you haven’t yet made an empowered choice for yourself to take back control of your energy, health, or schedule this summer.

Whether you need a sensory-deprivation tank, an extended vacation, or an accountability structure sufficient to your resistance, as one of my favorite books foreshadows, your body always keeps the score.

In years past, when I allowed my ego or muscled through this experience of burnout or breaking point, this point used to manifest itself for me through recurring sinus infections that required ongoing antibiotics.

For my clients, this breaking point has manifested itself through back pain, migraines, neck spasms, financial struggle, and recurring marital disputes, to name a few.

We cope in the best ways we can, pulling all-nighters to reach a deadline, working on the weekends, or withdrawing from ourselves and our loved ones to manage the stress and overwhelm of living.

But eventually, what I find is that if we are more committed to joy-full living than our personal manifestation of the achievement epidemic we are experiencing as a society or tolerating anymore the long term effects of Covid, we find that sense of personal resolve and we strike a balance for ourselves.

Whether it results from:

A global pandemic that has gone on longer than you’re willing to suffer through one moment longer…
one too many visits to the hospital or the chiropractor…
one-too-many zeros on the end of your credit card balance…
a come-to-Jesus kind of spiritual reckoning moment…
or if you’re lucky enough, a soul-realigning vacation…

You experience the personal transformation of knowing, living and being in alignment.

When you get to this place, you will finally get it.

You will finally get that your personal peace is no longer up for debate.
Your boundaries are no longer negotiable.
Your sanity is more important than your boss’s deadlines or your unopened emails.
And your relationships are the lifeblood of your happiness and are no longer on the backburner.

When you get to this place of personal resolve, where you are no longer willing to tolerate less than you deserve, you will also find:

The soul-filling feeling that coveting your spaciousness has on your experience of life in each moment and the deep satisfaction that results from simply being more present.

The ability to sustain the joy and passion that initially launched you into entrepreneurship while also living the 4-day workweek so many of us deeply crave.

And the wellspring of creative ideas, business visions and inspiration that are so readily accessible and implementable from living your life in joy-full alignment.

Trust me, I know that the prospect of not managing and muscling your way through life can be confronting, when this is all so many of us know in our achievement-driven culture and is something that we’ve been handling to the best of our capacity over the past couple of years.

But truly, Mary Oliver said it best, “Tell me, what else should I have done? Doesn’t everything die at last, and too soon? Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?”

We will be taking our annual summer holiday over the next two weeks, unplugged and off the grid to our family cottage in New Brunswick, Canada We look forward to returning to your inboxes after U.S. Labor Day!

Until then, be precious with today. Be wild, with today.

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Catherine is a Master Certified Coach and bestselling author of Belonging: Overcome Your Inner Critic and Reclaim Your Joy.