This Friday is going to be glorious! On Friday I’m opening the first ever spots for my Self-Care Curator Intensives.

What the heck is that? I’m glad you asked!

The Self-Care Curator Intensive was created to help simplify your self-care.

So many people feel like if they just had some sort of plan, something to follow to, something laid out in front of them that told them HOW to self-care, they could do it.

That’s why so many of the products and companies that lean into the commodification of self-care are presented as being able to do so.

Here’s the thing - no one can tell you WHAT your self-care should look like, and because of that, they can’t tell you HOW to implement your self-care in a simple and effective way.

The Self-Care Curation process, however, works to do both.

So, you’re doing everything on your list, but you feel behind every single day. You end your day lying in bed staring at the ceiling thinking of all you didn’t get done.

Why? Why is it like this?

You may be telling yourself it’s happening because:

You’re not organized enough

You’re bad at managing your time

You just haven’t got your shit together

You are not capable/bad at what you do/a failure

Guess what? All of that is three thousand percent false.

Y'all, we tell ourselves so many things that just aren't true.

The reason you feel so behind has nothing to do with YOU, and everything to do with WHAT you’re spending your time doing.

We all want to recapture the magic of the holidays we felt as a kid.

The difficulty comes with us now feeling so responsible for making that magic happen for others, and that we don't have enough room to foster that feeling within ourselves.

In a season in which selflessness is underscored, it can be easy to give so much of ourselves that we find we possess neither the energy nor the motivation to do anything for us when our turn finally comes.

You're doing totally fine, right?

You're getting up, you're getting you daily to-dos done, and you're managing to pay the bills and keep everyone alive.

Shit's great.

No matter that you are constantly tired, can't remember what you ever did for "fun," let alone the last time you did that thing, and that you are harder on yourself than anyone else on Earth.

That doesn't count.

Everyone lives like that, right?

WRONG.

You do not have to live like this (a fact I SHOOKETH to discover almost ten years ago!), and the first step to NOT continuing to live this way is self-care.

I know a lot of plant people.

You know, those people who have about a zillion plants and love them dearly?

Yeah, I don't get it.

But I admire them tremendously for their efforts!

They spend a lot of time caring for these zillion plants, and they have all the bells and whistles and knowledge and support to do so.

I often wonder if they're taking as good of care of themselves as they are of their plants.

No joke - if everyone took care of themselves like plant people took care of their plants, we'd all be just fine.

We’re always so excited to be adults as kids, right?

Why? Why are we like that?

It’s a damn trap, right?

Yeah, but it can also be pretty cool, depending on how you look at it.

How great are dogs?

They’re really cute and they are great companions.

They make your house a home.

They bark at everything.

They bring you dead things.

It’s awesome.

It could even be said that they can be instrumental in the implementation of self-care practices.

For years and years and years I have wanted to be the person that had a solid and consistent morning and evening routine.

I could NEVER get there.

I figured since I was still functioning and living life and doing pretty well for myself, maybe a morning and evening routine was just something I didn’t necessarily need, even though I felt like it would help me.

Boy howdy was I wrong.

Since getting a consistent morning and evening routine in place, I have realized it was the piece of my self-care regimen that was really missing.

The messaging and language around our understanding of habits has been hijacked by proponents of productivity and hustle culture.

Habits used to be something that we used as a tool. Now they are these guidelines we must adhere strictly to to achieve the thing or else we are a failure.

Habits are supposed to (hopefully) help us to an end goal, but nowadays they are an incredibly ambiguous set of rules that must be followed daily to make your life, business and home run smoothly. I call buillshit

There used to be an accepted understanding that a habit took a while to put into place. Weeks, sometimes months. Now, you have to perfectly implement this habit in 7 days or less or you aren't functioning at your best.

Wow, friends. Anyone else feeling like you can't take a breath right now before some more heavy shit gets thrown your way?

Things have been heavier for me for a bit, but the last couple weeks, and the general state of the world in addition to all the things going on in my own little corner of life, it's been very whoa damn over here.

When things do get too heavy, the best way to help ourselves, and those around us, is to let them know what's up.

A simple "Hey, things are tougher right now than they normally are. Thanks for your support," can let them know you need more love in the moment, and allow you to express your needs and feel that support.

Lately I've been playing a game. I lovingly call that game, "What the Hell Am I Going To Eat Today?'

Whether it's a suppressed appetite, a depressive episode, or anxiety, so many things can make meals and meal planning super stressful.

Recently I have found some shortcuts to make things a little easier, and I wanted to share them with you today.

Remember, eating, hydrating and sleeping are the big three when it comes to self-care. Doing whatever it takes to get some food in you is important.

I hope these meal hacks can help.

The first podcast episode I’ve ever been interviewed for is out!

I had an amazing conversation with Molly at The Darling Revolution a few weeks ago and the podcast episode that interview was featured on dropped last week!

I loved this conversation so much because it hit on ALL THE THINGS.

"It was a crime of passion, Jan, not a disgruntled employee. Everyone here is extremely gruntled."

Last week, I shared this quote from the American version of The Office with a screenshot of the definition (and evidence of the actual existence) of the word "gruntled" in a fan group for The Office I'm in.

Most of the time, that's what that group is: sharing funny things that we find on the internet and relating them in some way back to our favorite show of all time, OR sharing fun things we find on the internet ABOUT our favorite show of all time.

Occasionally though, someone comes in hot with some level of personal or professional tragedy and we rally.

There are a lot of ideas out there about how grief SHOULD be, but no two people's grief experience is exactly the same.

Nor should it be.

You have the right to feel and grieve exactly as you want.

Do not let yourself get boxed in by expectations or what others think.

There is no "right" way to grieve.

The fact that grief is seldom talked about leads to a false sense of how it should and shouldn't be done.

None of that is real. It's bullshit that we don't talk about it and it's bullshit that we expect people to just glide through it when it's never talked about.

So guess what? Right off the bat - understanding and embracing all the parts of your money situation IS self-care. No judgment, no negative self-talk.

Working to improve it or maintain it, that's what's important. By working to not just ignore or live without any understanding of what your actual financial means are, you are practicing self-care.

Knowing what you can do with your money, knowing how much you have, knowing where it is and where it's going - all of that is helping you to care for yourself.

Two weeks ago, I realized that I was forever and always chasing self-imposed deadlines, working at all hours, and dreading doing the busy work of being a solopreneur, but never actually getting anything done.

Not only was my work suffering, but my rest was too.

When I was supposed to be resting or taking time "off," I was distracted and stressed about the work I hadn't gotten done.

When I was supposed to be working, I was tired and uninspired, and it took hours to crank out one piece of viable content.

I was really over it. So I sat down and created a new "work" schedule for myself that include massive breaks, and gave me only a certain number of "working hours" a week.

Guess what? It's working.

Sometimes I have to read something several times before I recognize it for the game changer it is. Other times, I read something once and it sticks with me permanently. What’s interesting to me about every single book here is that every time I read them, a brand new something sticks with me. I hope that you enjoy these books as much as I have. Happy reading, friends!

For the longest time, I didn't know that I was living with anxiety. I thought that the stress and worry I lived with everyday was something that everyone experienced.

I didn't understand how some people could walk through the exact same experiences as me and not have the same reaction.

When I finally came to realize that what was happening in my brain was actually NOT happening in everyone else's, I didn't know how to handle it.

I didn't really want to acknowledge it. I felt like that gave it some sort of power, that somehow that meant it had won. If I pretended it wasn't really a thing, it wouldn't be. Spoiler alert: it was going to be a thing no matter what I did.

I am a list maker. I make lists for all sorts of things. The Notes app in my phone is one big pile of lists.

I add things to my list after I've done them just so I can mark them off.

I love lists.

Even if you don't think of yourself as a list maker, you are. You make lists by default in your head when you decide how to prioritize tasks. You make lists when you think of who or what you want to focus on.

Whether you're a person who makes paper lists or a person who makes mental lists, your lists still probably share one commonality - you and your needs aren't on them.

Not only should you be on your own list - you should be the very first thing on it.

I've said it before and I'll say it again, the idea that self-care can only be achieved by throwing a ton of money at different products is absolutely false.

Self-care also doesn't have to require all the energy you currently have.

So often, people don't pursue self-care in any form because they feel it will be too expensive, or take up too much time, or be too draining.

I wanted to share a few low-cost and low-energy self-care ideas so that you could see that isn't the case.