I sometimes reflect on where it all began for me in terms of thinking about wellbeing and self-reflection and self-care. I remember about ten years ago being given a book, called Feel the fear and do it anyway, and devouring it on the bus to work. It felt liberating seeing words that spoke to loose thoughts I’d been having in one way or another for a number of years.
The next thing I did was to enrol in a course at Inner Spacein London. The course was free, and really simple and easy to digest. It allowed me to think more openly about my moment to moment feelings and thoughts. By attending the course I found time in my busy day to slow down and reflect and get still.
From then on I have explored a plethora of wellbeing activities (yoga, meditation, coaching, talking therapy, physiotherapy with a focus on relaxing the body and letting go of tension), read books, watched Ted talks, gone on training and attended workshops.
I have built my understanding of different approaches to wellbeing slowly but surely over the years. But it certainly started very small, and very slowly.
Attending to wellbeing and self-care doesn’t have to be massive. It can be reading a helpful book, or attending the odd workshop, or watching the odd Ted talk. Interest in wellbeing tends to build, because when we become aware of it we start to learn how amazing it can feel to prioritise it, but essentially all we need to do is just start somewhere.
So where will you start, what can you do this week to tend to it just a tiny bit – ten minutes of yoga? A five minute Headspacemeditation? A five minute School of Lifetalk?
When you start to engage in even the tiniest bit of wellbeing you become calmer, more positive, more hopeful, a better team player and more productive. It’s certainly worth starting.
We’d love to hear what wellbeing strategy you are trying this week.
With love as always, Hannah and the Bird team
If you would like to speak to us about delivering a workshop in your organisation please don’t hesitate to get in touch. Our most popular workshop ‘Building Personal Resilience in a Fast Paced World’ is going down incredibly well at a number of not-for-profit organisations at the moment. If you’d like to equip your team to be resilient,get in touch.
Photo by Simon Migaj on Unsplash