Hey, Reader.

There are some things motherhood prepares you for.

A broken collarbone is not one of them.

On the fourth day of school, my daughter broke her collarbone.

And if I’m being completely honest, the injury wasn’t the only thing that rattled me. It was watching her have to adjust to a completely different version of her normal.

She couldn’t move the way she normally did. She had to slow down. Certain activities were suddenly off limits. Her typical routine had to change because her body needed something different from her.

And it reminded me of something I know very well, but sometimes still have to learn the hard way:

Life will require us to adjust our routines.

Motherhood does it. Work does it. School does it. Our relationships do it. Sometimes our bodies do it for us.

And that’s exactly what happened to me.

When I started my MBA program last year, something had to give. Between work, school, motherhood, and everything else on my plate, I simply didn’t have the time I once had for my workouts.

So I adjusted. I told myself it was temporary. But temporary has a funny way of becoming normal.

By the time summer rolled around, I had gained about 10 pounds. I felt sluggish. I didn’t feel as strong or energized as I had before.

And that’s when I realized something important. My focus on intellectual wellness had caused me to neglect my physical wellness.

And while I’m proud of what I’ve accomplished academically, that imbalance wasn’t sustainable.

The five wellness points I talk about so often are not five separate boxes we check when we have time.

Social. Physical. Spiritual. Emotional. Intellectual.

They work together. When one gets neglected for too long, we feel it. So, as of August 1st, I started rebuilding my fitness routine.

Not because I suddenly found a magical extra hour in my day. Not because I decided I needed to “get my body back.” But, because I needed to feel like myself again.

I’m down four pounds. My clothes are fitting again. I have more energy. And honestly, I just feel better. I’m still balancing work, school, motherhood, wife life and all the other things life keeps throwing at me.

But I’m making room for physical wellness again. And maybe that’s the bigger lesson. Self-care isn’t about having a perfect routine that never changes.

It’s about knowing when your life changes, your routine may need to change with it.

Sometimes self-care means doing less. Sometimes it means asking for help.

Sometimes it means letting go of the routine that worked last year and creating a new one that works for the life you’re actually living now.

And sometimes it means looking at yourself honestly and saying, Something is missing. I need to make room for it again.

That’s really what I wanted to capture when I wrote What Self Care Looks Like.

Because self-care isn’t one thing. It’s not a spa day, a bubble bath, or a reward for surviving a hard week.

It’s about protecting the parts of you that make you you. If you’re in a season where your routine has been completely thrown off, I hope you don’t see that as failure.

You may just need a different way back to yourself.

If you haven’t read What Self Care Looks Like yet, this is a good time to pick it up. And if you’ve already read it, revisit the wellness points and ask yourself which one you’ve been giving all your attention to, and which one might be asking for a little more from you.

I’ve also linked to Season 20 of the podcast below. The season pairs well with the book and dives deeper into what meaningful self-care can actually look like in real life. Because life is going to keep changing.

Our routines will change with it. But we don’t have to lose ourselves in the process.

Here’s to getting back to you.

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I appreciate you,

Brittany

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