Stargazing and other apathy antidotes: How toddler me is teaching me about delight, curiosity, and mental health

NOTE: This was originally posted on my Substack and I will only occasionally repeat those pieces over here. PLEASE be reminded that my Substack is free and you can access it via your browser, no need to download an app. If you have a moment and could go over there and engage with some of my material, I would appreciate it.

I have this memory of myself around the age of three and a half, and I think residing inside this memory is the blueprint for my happiness. I might even assert that it’s the blueprint for any human’s happiness.

I am outside, by myself, standing under the night sky. (It was the early 1970s… kids were free range… perhaps to the extreme but it was what it was.) The full moon is sitting high over a field across the street. It sits nestled in a blanket of stars. And I am just, well, star struck. I am in awe. I can feel this feeling in my body to this day.

I am still that little girl every single time I see the moon. Maybe you feel the same. It’s like the moon is new to us every night. (Side note: If you do feel the same, you might be shocked to find out that not everyone feels like this. There are people who barely notice the moon. I know! It’s really quite terrible.)

Fast forward and I am 11 years old and I’ve saved up all of my birthday money and allowances to buy my very own telescope. Seeing the moon’s surface, I am speechless.

Fast forward again and I am in my 30s and I own the house outside of which I sit on a stoop in snow pants in the middle of winter so I can gaze up at the moon and Orion (my fave).

Now I live in a city with too much light pollution and I am sad. These things are not unrelated.

We are going to be changing our circumstances soon, but it has taken me about six years of living here to understand all of the ways I have cut myself off from my toddler self and her connection to the moon and the natural world and what that cutting off has meant for my mental health.

My mental health (and probably yours) is complicated, of course, by our current political situation, but really… I know I would be handling even that much better if this toddler self were being taken care of.

She lives off of awe and fascination and curiosity and intense noticing.

And that… that right there is the blueprint.

The disease of apathy

I’ve written about the part that despair was playing in my depression, and I am relieved that I am no longer that stuck, but I am still somewhat stuck. Like before I was in quicksand (and hello!? Where is all the quicksand Gen X was warned about!?), and now I am in some regular old mud… maybe to just below the knees.

That mud is my apathy.

I am doing things but I’m not feeling great about those things.

I am doing things but I’m doing the bare minimum.

I am doing things but I’m no longer dreaming.

And that right there is awful. My dreaming muscles used to be so strong, and they were strong enough that they led to actions and to the building of those dreams.

I used to believe in the beauty of life and in my capacity to create beautiful things.

But the last decade has been so hard. There is the political reality we’ve all been living within, but on a micro/personal level, I’ve gone into full menopause (anyone else?); I’ve lost my soul cat at the age of 9 (far too young and it was sudden and traumatic); I went through two years of living with, treating, and healing two frozen shoulders (yep, one after the other) so my overall movement got smaller and smaller, and there was more, but you get the idea.

The depression cycle was bad.

There are remnants and bad habits left behind.

The biggest remnant and bad habit is the apathy.

How I noticed it

I hadn’t really… noticed it, that is. It had/has become such a regular feeling and state in my life.

I have started to wonder, is this it? Is this how life gets as we age?

I recoil from those questions. I refuse those questions even as I find myself constructing them.

None of my old tricks were helping. None of the old routines were kicking in. Nothing I was doing was working, until I started to pay attention to someone whom I’ve known of since I was writing my Blisschick blog about 20 years ago ((what!??!)): Andrea Schroeder of Creative Dream Incubator.

As a teacher, I often find myself lacking mentors because I’m so focused on self directed learning and the creation of my classes and methods for my students.

But as they say, when the student is ready, the teacher will appear.

I finally signed up for one of her smaller courses, Project Miracle. I ran through the material faster than the 30 days it’s intended for but I couldn’t help it. I could feel the energy building and I was… what is that feeling???… excited!

The miracle I was working on was simply wanting more positive energy in all its forms — physical, emotional, and spiritual. That’s how deep my apathy had become — that positive energy would feel like a miracle.

How the energy showed up

It’s always in some unexpected way, right? We ask for one thing but get something that seems to be not it and then it turns out to be exactly what we needed.

For quite a while now, I’ve been trying to get movement in first thing in the morning. I got to the point where I gave up because nothing I tried was sticking. I just couldn’t. It started to feel like I was bullying myself. The resistance was that bad. Staying in bed later than I wanted to, cuddling with Begonia cat, happened every day no matter the systems I set up.

Then a little over a week ago, Andrea asked this question in one of the Project Miracle units: what are you willing to change to get what you want?

I kept reading/hearing it as: what are you willing to give up?

Finally, from deep inside me, I got a very clear and loud answer: APATHY.

I called myself out.

I don’t know what was different about this time… not exactly. I know that I had done a lot of introspective work with Project Miracle but the miracle of it all was the way it just suddenly! Poof! Change!

I got up easily the first Monday after that and walked almost four miles right off the bat.

Crazily, I immediately could feel how cemented in the change was.

The results of this “small” thing keep accumulating: my brain is clearer; I’m giggling more; I want to move more (which is more normal for me); life feels… good.

More anti-apathy work to be done

But I also know this is just the beginning and I’m working another course with Andrea to keep my mind focused in the right direction.

And I’m looking for other anti-apathy tools. So let’s start a list, shall we? I would love for you to add to it, but here’s the beginning:

• Notice a time in your life when you were young and you were so full of yourself, meaning you were who you were born to be. Notice what she loved. Notice what sparked her joy. Is there a blueprint in all of that for you?

• Start doing the things little you loved to do, no matter how ridiculous you may feel. Like me getting roller skates a few years back. I sucked but I did it anyway. (Then the frozen shoulders happened.)

• Add in little things like checking the moon every night. Put reminders on your phone if you need them. It can be hard to remember on our own when we’ve not been doing these things.

• Make lists of things you love. Do this every day. For example, I’ve restarted the practice of a joy/sanity list on my socials every morning. I used to do bliss lists long ago and people would comment how much they meant to them. This has started to happen again. (Ripples!)

• Go outside more.

• Go look at art wherever and whenever you can.

• Listen to more music. Listen to favorites from times in your life when you felt good but also find new things. (Each of those approaches does amazing and different things for your brain.)

• Ride a bike. Really. Find a hill and go down as fast as you can. (Or find another equivalent of this type of activity.)

• Sit by water as much as you can. (There’s too much research on the efficacy of this to ignore it.)

• Look around at the people in your life and do not be afraid to notice who is bringing nothing but negativity to your spaces. Clean house. (I don’t mean to sound cruel there but life is short and we know it’s important who we allow in to our inner circles.)

• Be cautious of what you’re watching and reading. Feed your brain and heart with things that grow the states of being you want to experience. I’ve written about Japanese healing fiction and now I’m into my third novel of that nature and I am more in love than I thought I would be.

• Pick something small to focus on learning. I was just reminded the other day of a summer that I spent in my backyard in Erie learning all the different sparrows. There are so many and there are often very small differences. But this seemingly tedious differentiation task made me feel connected at a new level.

For now, that’s enough from me. Like I said, I’d love to hear from you. And I’m sure I’ll be writing more about this soon.

I've been frozen since news of the rape academy broke

And of course, that news was on top of other news that was on top of other news and on and on. And I’m just talking about news about violence against women right there; my god, if we add all of the other news that is constantly hitting us, it’s no wonder we can even still breathe and move about some days.

But the rape academy news was what broke me. Last week, I could barely write even small posts, much less the longer writing I’ve been loving doing over at Substack.

After a bunch of conversations with smart and loving friends and a bunch more in my own head, I finally came to some conclusions about what was happening to me, the larger picture in terms of shared trauma, and a way out of freeze and into a more functional state.

My way out included a novel, which makes 100% sense when you know what a reader I was when I was younger and how much I hid away in books when things were scary and how much book after book saved me.

Books didn’t just give me a safe place but taught me that there were other ways of being and living in this world. They gave me a template that was worth surviving for.

And they are doing it again for me, at the age of 57.

Go here to read the piece shown in that photo. And hey! If you have a minute to spare, could you go to my page over there and maybe respond/react to some of those smaller bits of posts? I would be super grateful!

The power of yes in a dark world

Henry Ossawa Taylor, The Annunciation, 1898

In a strange (or not) turn of events that I didn’t see coming even six months ago, I’ve been doing some actual practices for Lent this year. It’s definitely been a bumpy road.

And I wonder if Lent without serious bumps in the road is actually Lent? (If a tree falls in the forest sort of question.)

Regardless, I have had a good many days when I have wondered why I was doing any of the reading or Lent journaling that I was doing. I wondered if there was a point. I wondered if I even believed anything anymore (I mean, I have gone through a long cycle of pessimism and atheism recently. Longer than ever before in my life). And I certainly keep wondering about the role of a religion that centers a man and makes very little space for women at all.

Darkness

I’ve been wondering that, though, since I was about 11 and went to the city library’s religions of the world section and kept pulling books off the shelves, desperate to find a religious system that didn’t center any kind of human figure or that did not anthropomorphize their god head. Alas, this seems to be something humans are incapable of, and the best we can hope for is that the gods/goddesses are built around the best of our own inclinations.

Too often, of course, this is not the case. A minister I follow on Bluesky said it best, “A god that needs violent men in order to succeed is a god invented by violent men.”

So yeah, I have been working through some dark night of the soul shit, for sure, but what’s new? As often in my life that I’ve felt deep devotion and connection to faith, there’s been just as much time when I’ve felt the opposite.

For me, currently, I keep coming back to Pope Leo and his strong and direct calls for a stop to all things that maga believes in and is putting out into the world. I go back to Oscar Romero and all of the Latin Americans who developed the ideas of liberation theology.

And I go back to Mary, Guadalupe in particular. (Did you know she’s the only one who is represented as pregnant? She’s wearing a Aztec pregnancy belt.)

I go back to this idea that she was asked to do this incredibly dangerous and risky thing so that we might know a different kind of world … or that we might be given a vision of a different world: one that’s not built on violence and power but on compassion and inclusivity. (I have a lot to say about that but I want to get closer to my point here and you know my heart.)

So I am, for the moment, not in that dark space — or I should say, not in a totally dark space. There is a window that is open and there is some light coming in. I am also actively lighting candles.

I am, for the moment, focused on the best parts of this thing that somehow is a piece of the puzzle of my mental well being and has been since I was small.

Light

I keep thinking about why I can’t get that same thing from, for example, personal development and self help sorts of writing. Why can’t I get it from all of the art and literature I love? What is it about theological discourse in particular that brings me solace and hope?

For me, I do not deny the dark parts, but the light… when I’m willing to engage with the mystical voices from the past (those well developed voices like Merton, Day, Francis and on and on the list could go)… when I am willing to release the hold that current day dark versions can impose, I can get to the core that is beauty and is the best of us.

When I’m reading Merton, there are times when I think he could see into the future, but it’s actually that he could so clearly see the present and the past that he could see the patterns, and the patterns, when it comes to humans, are always the same.

Not only could he see those patterns and clearly articulate them, he could articulate the type of candle we would need to light in ourselves to banish the dark and to go on with our work.

There was no naivete left in Merton when it came to this intertwining of dark and light in all humans. He just carried hope more stubbornly than I am sometimes capable.

He speaks directly to some part of me that is lacking (as we are all lacking in some way) and he doesn’t make me feel shame or even that I have to “fix” it. He shows me my weaknesses and convinces me time and again that I can be stronger in other ways. He believes our weaknesses are part of who we are and those parts are actually usable if we embrace them.

Newness

One of the things that has thrown me out of the dark and has me headed toward my own inner light again is a passage from my daily Merton readings.

He’s talking about how some people, regardless of chronological age, are living as if they are “old.” They live with old ideas, old memories, always looking backward, and are convinced nothing new is possible.

Then he says this:

“The new (human) lives in a world that is always being created and renewed. S/He lives in this realm of renewal and creation. S/He lives in LIFE. The old (human) lives without life. S/He lives in death.”

— Thomas Merton, March 18, 1959

And it hit me like a rock between my eyes: that in my despair, I live in death.

YES

Which brings me back to Mary.

Many many years ago... early in the heyday of blogging... I decided to do the word of the year that had just become a thing and I chose the word YES because of my Guadalupe devotion.

I ended up sticking to that word for many years because of what it was doing to my life. It changed my life in ways I can’t begin to list. My devotion to that word, to the idea of Mary, pushed me out of my comfort zone, made me choose the new over the old, and made me see that vitality and abundance of my own creativity.

The word is part of how I ended up dancing again, how I got my ass on a buss and went far away for trainings, and how I eventually opened my own bricks and mortar studio (which a lot of you might remember was called Girl on Fire… for Guadalupe).

I kept thinking about getting YES as a tattoo, but I eventually got the Dickinson quote on my wrist: “I dwell in possibility.” When I first got that, it felt like a yes.

But it’s not totally. It doesn’t have the powerful momentum, the PUSH, of YES. It does not have the birthing power of yes.

I need to add yes back into that equation. I can get stuck in possibility. The dwelling aspect can become so comfortable that it, too, becomes old.

So I’ve decided to re-devote myself to YES. Maybe you need to do something similar.

What is calling to you? What do you need to say yes to in your life right now?

This writing feels somewhat incomplete to me, but then we’re not at the end of Lent yet, and each day (even today as I edit), I can sense that the journaling I’m doing is leading me somewhere important — not any kind of end destination but perhaps a well lit place in which I can feel my devoted self again. That would be enough. For now.

War, Snicker Bites, and Joy

I wrote a couple of weeks ago that, for the first time in a long time, I was going to do some things for Lent. When I was more of a practicing sort of Catholic (though in my own wonky ways, as you all know), Lent was actually one of my favorite times of the year.

Which sounds like a weird thing to say but I loved the 40 days set aside for deep diving into our own inner dark caves (as a priest in Erie put it one time). This was a time for me to seriously up my daily spiritual practices and to explore the shadow sides of me that had maybe taken over a bit too much.

Over the last few years, I’ve been drowning in a sort of existential despair that has dragged me into total and complete atheism — a place that is really dangerous for my mental health. I know some people create a really happy and meaningful life as atheists. There are many paths in this life. So I’m not knocking atheism but admitting that it is harmful to my own particular psyche.

The world is too dark for me to not believe in anything. My own brain is too dark, actually. I need a place outside of myself to place and practice devotion. For me, that’s usually Our Lady of Guadalupe and other forms of Mary, but it’s also the writings of Thomas Merton and Dorothy Day and writings about Saints Francis and Claire and Hildegarde and Teresa, to name a few.

For this Lent, my first really in many years, I am doing daily morning reading and writing that is focused on this time. I’m trying to be more mindful about my own inner world.

And though I’ve not succeeded, I am, as I wrote, attempting to let go of apathy and lethargy.

Then there’s…

Sugar

This one seems silly and trite, right? Like when we were little and we would give up something we loved. Or how some people see Lent as this weird time to backdoor some toxic eating habits and maybe lose some weight.

I wanted to give up added sugar and chocolate because I was feeling like it was too much in my life. Like I was no longer in charge of it. Like it was no longer a treat.

Also, my family has a lot of diabetes so this was, for me, a reset for my health. Again, a pretty self centered Lenten practice but I felt like I needed that added motivation.

Then Craig said something to me the other day that made me stop and think. He was teasing but it hit me deeper: “What’s gonna happen at the end of Lent? Will you just eat ALL the chocolate?”

If I’m really wanting or needing a reset for my health, then this all or nothing thinking is not helpful, because eventually, I will just land back at ALL.

War and Joy

I had already reevaluated my lenten practice at about day 12, and then this vile and stupid administration decided to put the entire world at an elevated level of danger by starting a war in Western Asia (a more proper way of referring to the Middle East, which is a colonizer term).

There are a lot of reasons to be extra afraid about this war. I won’t go into that all here because that’s not what this space is for. But suffice it to say that this is way worse than is being talked about in mainstream media.

I’m paying attention but I’m also trying not to get too lost in the dark maze of frightening details about what is happening or what could happen.

Because there’s a point that that will just flatten me.

A little bit of compartmentalization can go a long way right now.

Back to sugar…

It struck me that I am living in this state of denying myself joy when we have no idea what tomorrow will bring.

That is always the case, of course, but right now, it feels more … real… more noticeable.

So here’s the conclusion I came to:

We must find bits of joy where we can right now.

For me, that’s a Snickers bite with my second small coffee after lunch. And maybe a second.

We owe ourselves good care. We owe those around us a certain level of care for ourselves too.

Most often that care looks like making sure you’re doing movement practices and spiritual practices and studying that supports your mental and emotional and physical health.

And sometimes that care looks like chocolate.

(Speaking of practices, a new session of Peony Somatic Dance and Quickie Yoga online starts next week so go here to see what’s up and to register.)

And check out my most recent Substack about my migraine journey, neurodivergence, and disability.

I never said this was easy...

And I’m talking to myself there as much as I’m talking to anyone reading this.

Even in the best of times (and I would say we weren’t aware how good the times were before the whole Drumpf era began)… even in the best of times, I’ve never said any of this was easy.

I have tried to be clear: even doing this thing I love more than any other thing I do, even getting my ass into my tights and putting on music and breathing and waiting and allowing for movement to arise, even that is not always easy.

There are days when it is easier, for sure, but most days it is anything but.

And living in this political hellscape has brought depression down upon my head again in ways I never thought would be possible.

So here I am, as if I am at the beginning again, except I don’t have the beginner excitement and curiosity I had the first time around, because, well, that’s just not possible.

I’ve been exploring and creating and teaching this stuff for over 17 years now. I’m not a novice anymore, and though I try to reenter beginner mind, it’s difficult, and it’s especially difficult as we are triggered every day, multiple times a day, by the evil of this administration.

But I’m trying. I’m failing but I keep trying.

I’m trying to find that enthusiasm again. I’m trying to find the joy and the awe and the whimsy.

I fail and I try; I fail and I try; and right now, that’s the best I have.

Recently I made a discovery about a shadow part of myself that I’m not totally proud of and I’m hoping that now that I know it’s there, I can stop failing quite so much. Seeing it is the first step, so go check out my most recent Substack post. And if you haven’t, subscribe because that would be awesome.

Movement Mantra Mondays

Every Monday on my Facebook business page and on Instagram, you will be seeing Movement Mantras. I won’t be sharing them all here so be sure to follow me at either of those places to see them.

They are a simple offering, but I think they can be impactful if you actually play with them.

I made these hoping they could provide you with a focus point for the week for your body/mind practices. And though this work will not save us from the rising tide of authoritarianism and the violence in the world, I know it will help use to have the energy to do the things that we need to do… to contribute in the ways that we can.

I’ve started thinking about my work in this way: tools for sanity and joy. Because we still deserve and need both of those things.

Like all the things I teach, these are inherently modified and can be used in a variety of ways. (If you find another way to use one that I’ve not listed, let me know!)

Ways to use Movement Mantras

• You could take these to your meditation. Whether you do seated or walking or some other form (like wrapped in a blanket and hiding out from the world for a few minutes), just add this mantra to your breath pattern and notice what arises.

• Most obviously, you could take the mantra to your somatic dance practice. Put on a piece of instrumental music and start to repeat the mantra over and over. You could say it out loud if you’re in a safe space for that. Notice how it feels in your body and then allow yourself to start moving.

• And you could use these as journal explorations. Start with the mantra at the top of your page and sit back and breathe for a few moments. Then start writing. If you get stuck, write the mantra over and over until something comes up.

No matter how you use them (and I suggest mixing it up), try using them throughout your week to see how the experience of them transforms over the days.

Topophilia: bond between human and place

If you’re not from Erie, Pennsylvania then you don’t realize the unique beauty of that small city. It sits on Lake Erie, as do plenty of other towns and cities, but it has something they do not (and no other Great Lake does): the peninsula, Presque Isle.

I was standing on the lake side of the peninsula in this photo. On some of the many miles of beach. Presque Isle has the most sand beaches of all the Great Lakes.

Presque Isle juts into the lake; a bit of land that is shaped like a long hook. And on that little bit of land there are seven — yes, seven — distinct bio regions. Like I said, this is a truly unique spot on this planet.

I was born one block up from the bay — the other side of this photo.

And I and this lake, this specific place on this lake, are forever connected.

We are all connected to some part of this earth

Long enough ago that I can’t remember to what or to whom I was listening, I came across an interview with a man who was part of the indigenous communities on, I think, New Zealand. He was also someone trying to get people to move more, to exercise more.

But they weren’t interested no matter what he taught them about the benefits, and then he realized it was because they do not see benefit to anything that isn’t about the larger community, and in particular, the relationship between larger community and land. Specifically, they thought of themselves as “mountain people,” and once he connected movement to being together on the mountain, voila! Exercise commitment to the max!

He then realized he was a river person, and he believes strongly that all people are a something type of person.

I am a lake person.

And he believes, you can’t take that out of yourself. You can’t move all over and away from your original landscape and expect to be fully happy, fully content, fully at peace, and wow, have I ever learned that in the last 9 years.

Topophilia and Estrangement

Living in Columbus has only gotten harder the longer we are here, the longer I am away from the lake and away from my peninsula.

Another thing you may not know about me: I was at the peninsula almost every day, unlike a lot of people who live there in a more disconnected way. Even if I could only squeeze in a quick drive to the entrance and stand at the water for five minutes, I did that. That was enough for my connection, my sense of self, and my mental health. (Time at the lake is a much larger piece of my mental health puzzle that I ever thought.)

Almost every time I stood at the lake’s edge, I heard her — or I heard the voice deep within me that she made space for me to hear.

So living here, I have become estranged from my landscape. I miss that lake in ways that are indescribable with words.

The names of birds

Living in Columbus is like living on a blank slate. The rivers never change: they are brown and I have never heard their voices.

There are things around here that people call lakes and I know when they say that that they have never seen nor spent significant time at an actual lake. These “lakes” are reservoirs. Man made abominations compared to the real thing.

It hurts my heart to try to go to any more of them; I have been fooled enough times. No more.

But in the last six months, I have noticed something that took me longer: I am losing the names of birds.

And why? Because there are so few here. (And I have spoken to people who have lived here a long time and they have said they’ve noticed the same thing over the last decade.)

Once in a while, I see a cardinal.

I have never seen a damn blue jay here. Not once have I heard it’s annoying whiny voice ((ha)). I miss that sound now.

And a few weeks ago, I realized that I have never seen one of my favorite birds and I realized I could not find its name in my mind.

For a bird nerd, this was … devastating.

I am sitting here typing and having a hard time finding it yet again… JUNCO!

Every early spring, I would know spring was really on its way when dozens of juncos would start turning up in my backyard.

Losing bird names is losing part of myself

This type of loss is endemic in a culture that encourages constant change and moving around for barely any real reasons. People used to move because of things like natural disasters, war, need of food.

Yes, sometimes there are still reasons like that to move, but often it’s a desire for adventure or something new. And though it’s not a bad thing to want adventure, what are we losing in the process and what are we missing in terms of depth experiences if we are constantly distracted by the details of moving and learning new places?

We have become grass is greener people in every sense of the phrase, not realizing that the grass (metaphorically speaking) that we are born to walk upon imprints itself on us and calls to us, no matter how much we try to deafen ourselves to its voice.

The Dalai Lama encourages people to try to stay in the faith tradition they were born into. As someone who believes in reincarnation, he believes there is a reason you are born into specific traditions at specific times and in specific places.

Though that’s a compelling idea, I don’t think we even have to consider this to be mystical to understand that maybe, just maybe, the places we come from are places that remain inside of us and we in them and that there is a relationship that is formed between us and land (or water or mountain) and it’s a relationship that is meant to be lasting.

Back at it: daily dance and the problem of boredom

Though I had a week with an exhausting head cold that interrupted my new routine, I have been getting back to daily dance. I have been managing a half hour. And for working by myself, this is a good start amount.

In the recent past when I’ve tried to do this, I immediately feel a deep boredom, so I thought back to my practices years ago and came up with a couple of…

Key “rules”

• I can’t force myself into using music that I think I “should.” Yes, even I have this issue. I go into practice thinking I “need” to work on serious pieces. Nope. Whatever works is the best thing.

• So I’ve been using a lot of pop music for now. Like this list and also this list that triggers joy molecules from my tween years at the skating rink.

• And the most important rule of all: the second I feel bored with the music and/or my movement, I change the song. Sometimes that means fast-forwarding through a few songs at a time, waiting for my body to respond.

• Finally, I always start with seated tummy circles, like I start just about every single class I teach. Or if I’m feeling extra dull or sad, I start with Mud Body and then go into seated tummy circles. I ritualize the start of my own practice time just like I do classes and this tells my body, here we go, and it grounds me… helps me to let go of work or overthinking.

Other rules to keep in mind about this sort of practice:

• Don’t change your clothes if that’s getting in the way. Dance in whatever you’re wearing. Or maybe only change your pants. (I do that one a LOT.)

• Don’t fret about space. You can dance in a closet.

• Set time goals for yourself but don’t force it. But also don’t just give up. Find that delicate balance between the two.

• Maybe find a friend (like me!) who could help you with accountability.

• If you hear a song while you’re driving or doing something else that gets an immediate response from your body, make sure to put that on a list.

Let me know if you have any issues with getting into a daily practice or if there are any questions I can help you with.