My Best Self 101 Blog
Dread words, but ones we have all said in the benighted times of our lives. Myriad challenges lead us this mindset: betrayals, setbacks, failures, mistakes. The shadowed condition of our minds in this state is miserable.
Someone recently asked me “what motivates you?” The immediate answer was my fiancee. She constantly supports me and helps me in every endeavor; I am so grateful for her. However, another answer crept into my mind, “Money.” Honestly, this answer surprised me. It scared me too, and caused me to worry “Am I really that materialistic?”
Spring is (almost) here! With the sun shining and the world awakening, it is natural to feel a sense of enthusiasm for life. I find myself feeling that fresh desire to dig into spring cleaning, sign up for a half marathon, try new recipes, and get outside. While these things are all good, beware of giving into the urge to speed up too quickly. As with running a long race, sprinting can burn you out quickly, whereas a gradual acceleration and maintainable pace can help ensure that you have enough left in the tank to make it successfully to the finish line. Resilience is defined as the ability to recover successfully after a change, challenge, or adversity. It can be easy to equate resilience with “doing it all”. To the untrained eye, we may assume that someone who is having lots of achievement is also resilient, however, resilience is not found in the ability to stretch, but in the ability to recoil. The space BETWEEN stop and go is the place where resilience is grown and maintained- it takes place in what I like to call the yellow zone.
My older brother had been missing for the past twenty-four hours, and we knew he was not in a favorable mental state. Everyone else in the family was on the road to his home in St. George, Utah to look for him. I was the closest, being in Provo, but I didn't have a car. So, I waited, sitting in fear and trembling, hoping that this was just another one of his solitary trips for introspection.
It wasn't.
A few days ago, I found myself in a very quiet place. It is a space of stillness and meditation, so quiet that even whispers can be heard by others in the room. I was sitting next to my cousin, and something we said or a look we exchanged must have set us off, because it wasn’t long before both of us were inadvertently caught with a case of the giggles. I turned away from her, told myself to just breathe, and I swear, I nearly composed myself a few times.
Some days I wish I had been born into a quieter decade where my attention wasn’t on constant assignment to (what feels like) one hundred million different tasks. It’s easy to lament the increasingly distracting world: being continuously bombarded with a slew of notifications from Apple News, pop-up advertisements, email dings, group-me pings, and text messages. While it’s thrilling to hear which states federal agents are being deployed to and the recap of the 2026 golden globes within the span of 30-seconds, I’m afraid my life would be a lot less noisy without these buzzes on my phone.
Growing up, and especially once I was an undergraduate student, I would hear people around me promoting self-care as a way to prevent from becoming exhausted. Some common phrases were: “Don’t stay up too late doing homework,” “Treat yourself every once in a while,” or “Find something to take your mind off of work.” It wasn’t until I was a graduate student in clinical psychology that I learned from my professors how self-care is actually an ethical requirement for being an effective therapist. This really changed how I viewed and esteemed self-care. Before I learned about self-care in an ethical context, I saw it as something that only affected my own quality of life. Now, I see self-care as a behavior that impacts the well-being of those around me, especially in my work as a therapist. If I can’t meet my own needs, how can I possibly help someone else meet theirs?
We all carry dormant parts of ourselves waiting to be awakened, facets of our Self that, when cultivated, allow us to live with greater wholeness, presence, and purpose. Psychologist and ecologist Dr. Bill Plotkin in his book Wild Mind outlines a nature-based model for reclaiming wholeness by embodying innate resources within each of us through archetypal representation of the self.
How do we grow? Do we look to our siblings or our parents? Do we rely on our favorite social media influencers or friends? What about our religion or values?
Here is the question that has been on my mind: Am I growing?
Like you, my life is not perfect. I noticed this when a manager reprimanded me for something that I felt was unfair, when a friend group left me out of activities, and when I had an illness growing up that affected me until almost 18 years old. Do any of these seem familiar? That is because they are common experiences felt by many. When difficult trials arise, we can either choose to be “better or bitter,” as my mom taught me. Let me set the stage.
Have you ever had a big goal that seems impossible to complete? A New Year's resolution to eat better, lose weight, or quit a bad habit? Many people struggle to stick to their goals, especially in the long term. While this can often be frustrating and make situations seem helpless, not accomplishing and stopping unrealistic goals should not be viewed as a failure and can result in better physical and psychological health (Miller & Wrosch, 2007; Wrosch et al., 2013). True growth comes from aligning your goals with your values and allowing yourself to succeed and fail with compassion. An important thing to remember is that practice makes progress not perfection. As goals are developed, they should be specific, challenging, personal, and meaningful (Nowack, 2017).
