Blogging is Self Care- 8/22/2020

It seems hard to believe that it has been over two weeks since I have blogged. The last few weeks have been crazy busy to say the least. They have been full of transitions, long days and more. It seemed like at every turn there was more work waiting for me, the pile never-ending and by the time each work day was done, I was utterly and completely exhausted. The only thing I wanted to do was sleep and everything else fell by the wayside.

What kept me so busy, you might ask. First of all, I have been super busy getting my son ready to go away for his freshman year at West Virginia University. In addition, as the School Based Technology Specialist for my school, I have been organizing laptop distribution for all of our 930 students.  This has resulted in very long days with many steps as we took our laptop inventory and prepped them for student distribution.

Even making time to walk my dog became difficult this past week. I squeezed a few podcasts in during my daily commute. But my routine was definitely off. During one of my commutes, I was listening to one of my favorite podcasts, The Innovators Mindset with George Couros while he was interviewing Mandy Froehlich. During this interview, they were discussing her new book, Reunite The Flames. This is on my TBR pile, which keeps growing every day. During their discussion, she shared how not only had George encouraged her to blog, but that she had found it to be essential for self care.

This really struck me. As my life got busier and crazier, my work-life balance became non-existent and self care was relegated to only sleep. All of my daily habits ceased- I stopped exercising each morning, stopped reading each morning, and I was definitely feeling off kilter- stressed and past the point of exhaustion. I needed to get myself together and sitting down in front of my computer and blogging seems like an essential beginning step.

So here I am, blogging again and it feels so good.. At the beginning of 2020, I set a goal to CHALLENGE myself. One component of that was to blog for another year. Each day, over 200 days, I had journaled and reflected on my CHALLENGE goals. This practice not only kept me focused, but increased the gratitude in my life. Sometimes, you don't realize the impact of a  practice or habit until it stops. That is how I feel about blogging. Sitting down each week and reflecting on my week, it centers me. It helps me grow and learn from my practice. It truly is self care for me.