Stronger Together

Now that we are just over halfway through the spring cycle, it’s time to pause and reflect. Take a moment to assess where you are in your journey. Think back to the expectations you had for yourself at the start of this cycle. Are you farther along than you anticipated, or has the process been more challenging than expected? Take this week to think and journal about these questions: How strong or weak do you feel? Are you enthusiastic and energized, or resistant and bored? Are you super-solid, or just hanging on by your fingernails? Share your reflections with your dyad partners and be open to feedback. Sometimes we’re harder on ourselves than we should be and letting another person into the process can bring balance and even lightness where we may only see darkness. By acknowledging where we are, we gain clarity and empower ourselves to make intentional adjustments. Let’s continue with renewed focus and determination.

The holiday season can conjure up a mix of emotions. For some of us, it’s a magical time of year and for others, it’s a quagmire of fractured relationships and trigger points, with seasonal affective disorder complicating things even further. If the latter rings more true for you, we want to encourage you to take the next month as an opportunity to make different choices when dealing with yourself and others. What can you do to make this year better? How can WIT be a healthy distraction? Here are some things to consider around your program to increase your sense of wellbeing: Get sun. If you have a fitness leg, consider braving the cold and taking it outside one day a week. Increased exposure to the sun equals more vitamin D and higher levels of serotonin, and the crisp weather has been proven to make the body burn more calories. Sweet cheat. If you have a nutrition leg, plan it out in such a way that you’re able to indulge a little at celebratory meals. If your family is a source of stress, it may be nice to have the option to comfort yourself a bit while around them. We’re not advocating you go off the rails but it could be a drag to have to practice lots of self-control in a high pressure environment. Be realistic and set yourself up for success. Frontload. Get your program done early during the weeks where your routine may be out of whack due to travel and family obligations. Again, we want you to anticipate potential stressors and prepare for them. You may not be able to control delayed flights or petty fights but, with the help of your accountability community, you can choose to get your program off your plate so it’s one less thing you have to worry about. We hope this holiday season is your best one yet!

So much of what we do is rooted in shadow work, which is the concept of looking for and exposing the hidden motivations behind our actions. Shadows can be negative (like a habit of self-sabotage as we near the completion of a goal) or they can be positive (like being unable to recognize a good quality in ourselves but admiring it in others). Good, bad, or ugly, we want to shine a light on what’s going on inside of us so we can better navigate reality. [read more] Negative shadows, if left unchecked, can lead to incomplete programs, trips to the wilderness, and worst case scenario, being asked to leave the cycle. We want to see each of you succeed, not just to check something off your list, but to walk away empowered with new knowledge of who you are and what makes you tick. Here are a few questions you can ask yourself to help uncover what lies beneath the surface:  How do I react to stress? What’s my favorite way to decompress after a long day? When things don’t go my way, how does it make me feel and what do I do about it? The answers to these questions can expose bad habits, addictions, or limiting self-beliefs that keep us stuck. The good news is that, once we know what we’re doing wrong, we can start to do something about it. Share your insights with your dyad and/or phalanx/sacred heart partner this week and invite them to share their feedback. You may be surprised at how freeing this process is!

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We have entered into a time of year that can either be full of immense joy or incredible sadness. We don’t all have families or the families we want and a lot of deep wounds can bubble up to the surface. How can you stay on track? One thing to remember is that whatever your program is, you created it to care for yourself. If you’re feeling lonely, self-abandonment may seem appealing, but it will only make the loneliness worse. Even if no one else is showing up for you, you can still show up for yourself. Lean on your WIT community for extra support. You have a whole group of fellow shadow hunters who are willing to stick beside you in the dark.

We are four weeks away from the finish line. Have you fallen asleep at the wheel? This is the point in the cycle when folks tend to get antsy to reach the end. If your program has been going well, you may become a bit bored, with the initial excitement of achievement fizzling out. If your program has been challenging, you probably just want to be done with it. Either way, how can you inject fresh fuel into your tank to finish strong? We encourage you to look at your legs with new eyes. Is there a little twist you can add to them to make them feel new? Remember, you’re not locked into anything beyond your initial commitments at this point, so have fun with it! If one of your legs has to do with going to bed at a certain time, why not try to read one chapter a night of a book you’ve been meaning to get to? If you’ve been practicing healthier eating habits, try one new recipe a week. It certainly couldn’t hurt and you just may find yourself feeling reinvigorated about your program!

Whenever we are looking to make a change, it can be difficult to gauge our progress accurately. We have a tendency to magnify the deficits and minimize (or completely ignore) the gains. Those of us who suffer from perfectionism can become impatient, having unrealistic timelines for results. And the whole process can feel like a slog. We’re encouraging you to take a balanced look at the current state of your program by asking yourself the following questions: What was my intention when I created my program? Did I set myself up for success? Am I where I thought I’d be at this point in the cycle? What’s going well with my leg(s)? If I’m unhappy with my progress, what can I do to course-correct? Don’t forget to lean on your dyad partner for support and a more objective perspective. We need others to get a better view of ourselves.

Life is full of stressors. A mean boss, a defiant toddler, rising financial obligations, and the list goes on. How do we keep on track with our programs in the face of all this? Having a support group cheering us on and holding us accountable is one piece of it. Another is being honest with ourselves. We invite you to take a look at your “shadows,” or the regressive, compulsive, or addictive behaviors that crop up when you’re feeling angry, sad, lonely, or tired. Shadow behaviors can look like: Overeating Overworking Procrastination Self-isolation Take some time this week to sit with yourself, write down your shadow behaviors, and consider making yourself accountable to a current WIT participant. It can be as simple as sending a text when you feel like going to the fridge when you know you should be going to bed. We need to know what we need before we can ask for help, so we hope you’ll dig a little deeper to find those shadows and then reach out for support.

One more week to go and we are thinking about service. The old adage “It is better to give than to receive” is a time-tested truth. We grow as people whenever we put others before ourselves. Directing our attention outward helps us to forget about ourselves for a while, gain some perspective, and be more connected to our fellow humans. Here are some prompts to consider this week as we wrap up our summer cycle: What have I gained from participating in WIT? How can I use what I’ve been given to help someone else? Who in my life could use some extra support right now? Taking some time to mediate on these questions will unveil ways you can step outside of yourself to come alongside someone else, both in and outside of the WIT community. We hope you’ll come to ask yourself “How can I use what I’ve been given to help someone else?” more and more regularly until it becomes a part of who you are.