When you move your body because it supports your mental health. When you eat in a way that fuels your energy, your focus, your mood. When the goal becomes feeling better, not looking different.

What does it mean to love yourself?……He described it like this: imagine your relationship with yourself as a roommate situation, a roommate you don’t really like, you avoid spending time with them, you talk to them passive aggressively, you’re impatient, critical, and dismissive and worst of all you don’t exactly enjoy their company.

God was in that unwanted pause. He was in the conversations I didn’t want to have, the ego I was forced to set aside, the healing that happened between my dad and I when I thought nothing was happening at all. Without that season, the one I fought, I would have carried regret I could never forgive myself for.

Now, at 46, getting closer to 50, I’m realizing I don’t feel any closer to the goals I once set at 20 and instead of that feeling like failure, it feels like an invitation. An invitation to choose more deliberately. To wake up each day working toward something, not running from something. To slow down. To celebrate more. To laugh more. To notice the small moments. To trust that I’m exactly where I am because I’m choosing to be here.

Looking back now, I understand where it came from. My dad was a police officer. His job required him to be vigilant, to anticipate danger, to look for the bad in order to keep himself and others safe.