Hello and welcome.
I'm Emily Grass,
Creator of Booked Out Wellpreneurs,
And I am here to give you a pep talk for the days that it doesn't feel easy to show up for your life or business.
I know that there's a lot of talk about aligned action,
Feeling blissful in your work,
And moving in flow.
We know how this looks and feels.
Someone laughing as they work,
Latte in hand,
While their dog snuggles by their feet,
They eat a delicious lunch.
Everyone's nice to them.
And sometimes it really does feel like that.
The problem is no business,
No life looks like this 100% of the time.
It's easy and fun to get things done when you're feeling in flow,
Aligned and blissful.
Everyone knows and behaves well then,
When everything is awesome.
But what happens in the ebb part of ebb and flow?
When you keep falling behind on deadlines,
When your clients are upset,
When your head hurts and it feels like everything's falling apart,
When your loved ones are sad and you feel overwhelmed with compassion fatigue for them.
What about those days?
These matter too.
When I used to run cross country,
We never won a race by passing people on the downhill.
We got inches and feet ahead,
We remained steady or picked up the pace on the uphill.
When everyone was challenged,
We kept going,
Despite it being hard.
Because strength was built in the practice and it let us run up the hill.
It was the time where we got the lead.
Everyone runs downhill.
That's easy.
Everyone does better,
Behaves better and shows up when things are going well and the way that they want them to.
Most people stop up the hill when the momentum slows.
And I get it,
Sometimes you need to stop.
While running,
I learned to give myself this check in and I hope it helps you.
Hey,
Emily,
Can you breathe?
Yes,
Self,
I can breathe.
Hey,
Emily,
Are your legs going to collapse?
Are you going to collapse?
No,
Self,
I am not about to collapse.
Hey,
Emily,
Why do you want to stop running?
Well,
Self,
It's challenging to run up this hill.
And if that check in went like that,
I would refocus on my breath and the heel arch toe push motion of my foot.
It's how eventually I ran a 5K in 21 minutes.
This is what we trained for.
This is the point that all the prep work,
The long runs,
The recovery,
The strength training was preparing us for.
To run up the hill when it was necessary.
Anything worth having is challenging at times.
Even the things we absolutely love,
Our relationships,
Our family,
Our jobs,
Our house come with challenge.
And these times of challenge are the best times to check in with how our practice is going.
Whether we want to stop something because it feels wrong,
Then we stop.
Or we want to stop because it's challenging to run up this hill to get over this hump.
Of course,
If we had a spring to ankle,
We wouldn't run the race.
And some races we gave our best for the day and it wasn't our best ever.
That's to be expected and welcome.
The time of challenge is when we really get to see all of our practice.
It's not always easy.
It doesn't always feel good.
Choosing to keep going maybe after a good cry and a day off and staying with us,
Gets us ahead and where we want.
This is an important part.
This is the hard part approaching the top of the hill.
When we want to give up and want to throw in the towel.
Oh,
When we throw our little fist down and say,
I'm gonna burn it all down,
Forget this.
And the more that we train and recover and practice and the off time when things are calm,
The more capacity we have to run.
It's the greatest tool that we have for building trust in ourselves.
Being able to sustain through a challenge when we want to give up.
Because life doesn't always feel aligned,
Blissful and in flow.
Like if it can feel like everything all at once and all the time.
And I want you to know that if you are there,
Check in.
Is this something that is out of alignment and I should stop?
Or is this the challenge that I have been preparing for in my practices in my life?
And I will decide that I have the strength within me to finish this race,
To go a little further.
And no matter what you do,
Know that your choice is perfect.
Thank you so much.
I appreciate you being with me today.
And I'm sending you all of my love.
