A celebration of small changes

When you think about the last time you changed something in your life - really changed something, in a long-lasting way - how did you do it?

Did you wake up one day and decide to stop smoking, never to return? Or did you paint the interior of your house one room at a time, when you could find time, until the whole space felt refreshed?

I get as excited about life-changing events as anyone. The awe experiences. The quantum leaps. Those transcendent moments after which you’re never the same.

But when it comes to health, movement toward improved wellness almost always happens through a series of regular, small behavioral changes. And these small changes can be celebrated.

When we set out to break a habit or introduce a new, healthier one, we pull into our reality the possibility of doing something good for ourselves. We introduce a new intention or promise to ourselves. Each time we follow through with one of these intentions (e.g. moving our bodies more each day, removing dessert from our daily lives), we show ourselves that we can do it. These accomplishments build confidence, and this confidence empowers our next change.

I think it’s important to acknowledge our small wins.

For those who struggle with chronic conditions (which is the majority of what I see clinically), the journey to stronger foundational health is often gradual. While it can be motivating to hold in your mind an idea of how much better/different you want to feel someday, it’s also ok to honor the place you are at in your personal health journey and to place attention on what you can do today or this week to steer yourself toward the place you’d like to be.

Warmly,

Artemisia

Clinical Herbalist | Chinese Medicine

innervillagehealth.com

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Related Resources

• Recently I’ve been rereading A Field Guide To Getting Lost by Rebecca Solnit. At the outset, she has a beautiful way of describing “the blue of the distance” - that destination you’re always trying to reach, which looks blue when you gaze out at it, but is inevitably not blue anymore once you get there. Some other place then become the next destination, the blue over there. The book (a collection of autobiographical essays) is one of my favorite creative nonfiction works and relates to this idea of observing the present moment.