Here is the last episode of my Rest Rewind series where I bring up some of the most impactful episodes from the archive to celebrate the milestone of sharing 100 podcasts and for the final episode, we’re talking about pride. Pride in the small areas as well as the great is so important. It's time to celebrate our prideful moments as we work toward achieving our goals.

How often do you feel like you haven’t done enough, or you need to do more? The concept of not being or doing “enough” comes up time and time again when working with clients. It could be a result of evolutionary biology needing to contribute to a community, it could be down to family expectations, or it could be because we have internalized societal messages about who is “valuable” and why. 

When we allow ourselves to fixate on others, we become frustrated and blame them. But when we recognize thoughts and emotions as our own, we can begin to take responsibility for our actions. Taking personal responsibility is hard sometimes but at the end of the day, is incredibly freeing. 

Over the next couple of weeks, we are doing a Rest Rewind, where I bring up some of the most impactful episodes from the archive to celebrate the milestone of hitting 100 podcast episodes! Today we kick off the series by talking about allowing emotions and unpacking the messages we were taught as children about what to feel, who can emote, and why we express ourselves. We look at the societal roots and the social impact of the messages we receive that suggest that emotions are bad.

Y’all it is episode 100! How did that happen?! I started this podcast about 2 years ago, and we have hit 100 episodes. 100 episodes of free, accessible teachings and coaching to help you and other public health professionals reduce stress, get more time, have more confidence, and do more of what you want.

Leadership responsibility is the action and decisions you make to support your staff and the work based on your role. It’s the guidance, feedback, and correction you give, but it can also be volunteering at an organization, leading a committee, or organizing an event. One thing that underlies all of these scenarios is that you cannot execute leadership responsibility if you haven’t taken personal responsibility for your thoughts and feelings.

One of the most important and valuable skills you can learn to build the life you want is to be able to sit in the awareness of what you are learning. To sit in that awareness and not react, resist, shame, or judge yourself, but have compassion and patience for yourself instead as you learn and grow. Yet so many people learn new things and then use this new awareness against themselves in some way, holding themselves back in the process.

If you want to change something in your life, whether it is your emotional experience, your decisions, your actions, or your outcomes, you have to take responsibility. Not just for changing those things, but also for the life you have now that you have created up to this point. Taking responsibility is key to living a rest-centered life.

Procrastination is simply the action of delaying or postponing something. When we think about delaying or postponing, we view them as active, empowered choices, yet procrastination is still viewed as a problem. We have been taught that procrastination means we aren’t organized or committed, or that we don’t care, but this often isn’t the case.

Anxiety shows up in a lot of different ways in my life, and for years I wanted to figure out the why. Learning the why has helped me to a degree, but the thing that has truly helped me the most is becoming friends with my anxiety. When you learn to do this, everything changes. So let me ask you, what would be different in your life if you accepted your anxiety?

When we think about resting, capacity, and having more time for ourselves, one of the biggest barriers we face is indecision. Indecision keeps us stuck and it drains our emotional energy, leaving us ruminating and questioning without actually taking action. It’s a concept that I’ve started to call The Maybe Hole.

One of the key aspects of living a rest-centered life, having more time, and feeling better and less stressed is building the skill of letting your emotions come along for the ride. Allowing your emotions to join you in whatever you are doing doesn’t have to distract or deter you, instead, it can greatly enhance your life.