What I learnt in June 😍 🙌 ✨

Hi ,

Thanks so much for clicking on this email.

Happy July. Hopefully you are warm, feeling cosy and have a beautiful Saturday ahead of you. ☕️🌈🌷

When I reflect back on June, the one reminder more than a takeaway for me was a conversation with Paul which I want to share with you. I asked him if he was ok with me writing about him (& us) and he was so excited to finally be featured. 🤩🎉

So towards the start of the month we were sitting in bed, with our coffees talking about his gym sessions. Technically he was supposed to go 3 times a week but it wasn’t happening.

I started by asking him why, as he doesn’t love the gym but he feels like it helps him both with his physical and mental health. As we spoke, it all started to unravel. 😓

He was TIRED. He mentioned that although he loved his Therapy Assistant work with the kiddos, they all needed so much more from him this year. He felt the mornings were a rush, to get up, go to the gym, shower, dress and get out the door. 🏃🤦‍♂️

The evenings, he was finishing later and then there was still pilates to go to, dinner to cook, washing up, and the list continued.

He was EXHAUSTED. 😵‍💫💤

We circled back to the gym and exercise because we both know how important it is. We talked about how we liked to go to pilates together. In full ‘fix it mode’ I thought maybe if I joined his gym or we looked at going to boxing or something else we could make exercise fit.

Boy was I wrong. Paul broke down. In tears.😢

Often when things aren’t working, we feel like it is one thing that needs to be tweaked and it will all work out. We kept on talking. We looked at it in different ways. In the end, it took 5 changes to take the pressure off. 👇

Gym was paused. Instead Paul joins me for a morning walk when he can. ☀️

We now do pilates twice a week together. 💖

We moved our ‘cheap and cheerful’ dinners to Tuesdays as that’s the night Paul gets home late, so now he doesn’t have to rush to make dinner. 🍔

We moved groceries to the weekend so that we can do them together and make it an ‘us’ time activity. 🛒

We moved one of his Therapy Assistant clients so that he can have Fridays off or go back to doing relief teaching for some variety in his week and term. 📆

These weren’t huge things, but they were exactly what was needed.

The lesson for me was how many things actually needed changing.

When you are tired, overwhelmed or just need things to be different - how many changes are you putting in? How soon do you give up because it’s not working? 🤦‍♀️

We forget that it takes a while for us to feel this way and it will take more than a few quick fixes to undo the damage.

So use this new month to reflect - and if things aren’t working, talk to your partner, your loved ones. Start making changes and don’t stop until you are feeling how you want to feel. 💖✨