A Celebratory End: The Power 9 Challenge
Blog 4 of 4
By Stella Drepin
I have come to the end of this challenge feeling mostly victorious, and have gained new tools in my lifelong pursuit of living a healthy, whole, and well life. A few weeks ago, I was challenged to make three lifestyle changes: to move naturally, downshift daily, and engage in my community. I am happy to announce that I now know what it takes to put these habits into practice, and have begun to do so. I am feeling really good about moving naturally, especially since it is now much warmer outside and it is easier to be motivated to move and take walks and ride bikes and dig in the garden. But even in the winter time, I think I will find myself using the Stand Up! app to keep myself moving when it’s cold and dreary. This habit will be a solid habit because I feel that I have the tools that I need to implement it. Furthermore, these four weeks have made me aware of how much I do sit, and I want to change that.
As far as downshifting goes, I still have room for improvement, but I do love the way I feel when I have taken the necessary time to be still and focus. I am much more optimistic and peaceful. And this result makes me very happy. Engaging in community has been more successful for me than I thought it would be too. This week, I had the opportunity to play volleyball with a group of young people in my community. It was a great time, and I look forward to other such opportunities in the future.
The three habits that I chose to incorporate into my life have been mostly personal and not dramatic enough to where my family would really notice that I have been making changes. The most reaction that I have had was to moving naturally. I told them about the app and that it was for a challenge at school, but they didn’t seem to have many comments or reactions. My family is very health-minded and it probably didn’t seem like too much of an adjustment to them. However, I haven’t really experienced any support for my new changes either. I feel like I have accomplished something by making these changes, but those around me don’t seem to think it’s all that big of a deal.
Also, the downshifting has mostly been on my own time, alone, so there hasn’t been support or reactions to that either. I think that I will have more of a reaction in the future from them concerning engaging in community since my family knows me to be more of an introvert. What is inspiring me to move forward with these changes is not the way others are reacting to them, but the way they make me feel about myself and my surroundings. That is why I will keep these new habits, and possibly move on to other power nine challenges and try those as well.
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