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Self Care Newsletter Vol#90 Week #2 “The tighter you squeeze, the less you have.” Thomas Merton
Published about 8 hours ago • 11 min read
Rejuvenate & Thrive
NURTURE YOUR ESSENCE
Focus:
"Why More Self-Care Practices May Be Creating More Pressure"
“Rest is not idleness, and to lie sometimes on the grass under trees on a summer’s day is by no means a waste of time.”
John Lubbock
Your Weekly
Intentional & Sustainable Self-Care Newsletter
Volume #90
"Why More Self-Care Practices May Be Creating More Pressure"
"Self-care saved my life.
What I have come to know, and hold with more wisdom now, is that the real work, the magic, and the time happen in stillness, in darkness, and in softness. Every season, transformation, and integration has its own stages. Yet we tend to leap straight to the result and skip the journey, and the journey holds the vital information. It is what will guide us the next time we enter a season like this one. The journey is the bridge between our past and our future, and its hidden knowledge reveals itself only when we are ready to embrace it with no judgment and let it flow.
I know this because I lived it. I went from a two-hour self-care routine to a five-minute one, and what I found underneath was inner conflict and a lack of self-trust. I had outsourced not only my self-care but also my self-trust and my worth. When I began to practice the sacred pause, with no judgment, no guilt, and room for the flow of whatever stage I was in, my self-care became a relationship instead of a routine. Before, I had no connection to it. Now there was room for integration, room to ask myself what I truly needed and what I was ready to let go of.
Think about it: we set out to heal ourselves, and suddenly our self-care checklist looks like a corporate spreadsheet. We have skin-care regimens, hydration trackers, supplement schedules, breathwork apps, boundary audits, and journaling prompts. Before we know it, we are not resting. We are performing rest. We have turned self-care into another source of guilt, performance, and overwhelm.
As your strategist, I am here to tell you that if your wellness routine makes you feel like you are constantly failing a test, it is not self-care anymore. It is a second job. Stillness is not another task to complete on your endless list. It is the quiet space where you drop the tools and simply be. This Great Day, we trade the burden of doing more for the peace of needing less."
Chakra Activation: Solar Plexus (Manipura) Sovereignty & Simplification
To break free from wellness-induced pressure, we must anchor back into our own sovereign power. The Solar Plexus Chakra, located at your upper abdomen, is your center of personal authority, the part of you that knows you do not need to earn your rest.
The Physical Anchor: Sit upright, drop your shoulders away from your ears, and place both palms flat on your upper stomach, right below your ribs.
The Visualization: Imagine a warm, radiant golden-yellow light expanding behind your hands, burning away the unnecessary expectations, rules, and rigid routines you have imported from the outside world.
The Breath: Inhale deeply for 4 counts, pulling that golden warmth through your center. Exhale slowly for 6 counts, whispering internally: “I am allowed to do less.”
The Affirmation: Whisper or think: “My well-being does not require a complex routine. Simplicity is my sanctuary.”
The Seal: Press your hands gently into your center, sealing your freedom from performance for this Great Day.
The Strategist’s View:
As a strategist, I look at wellness over-accumulation as Routine Inflation. Strategic shifts for this Beautiful Rising:
The Guilt Machine: When self-care becomes a rulebook, missing a practice turns into a moral failure. “I didn’t journal today, so I’m undisciplined.” That is not healing; that is self-punishment dressed up in activewear.
Decoding Physical Tension and Overwhelm: Physical tension, exhaustion, restlessness, and discomfort are vital communication deserving your attention. If your body feels tight and anxious trying to keep up with your “relaxation” routine, your nervous system is telling you that the routine itself has become a threat.
Stillness as Presence, Not Performance: Stillness is not another task to complete. You don’t need an aesthetic setup, a timer, or a guided track to be still. Stillness is simply the absence of striving. It is putting down the tools and realizing you are already home.
The “Wellness Purge” Protocol:
Let’s lighten your load. Grab your phone or a notebook.
List the Load: Write down every “wellness” or self-care practice you currently feel obligated to do each week.
The Pressure Test: Go down the list and ask yourself: “Am I doing this because it genuinely nourishes my soul, or because I’m afraid of what will happen if I stop?”
The Cut: Cross out at least half of the items on that list. Give yourself formal permission to drop them permanently.
The Commitment: Write: “I choose depth over duties. Less routine, more realness.”
The Integration Protocol:
True sustainable transformation requires a pause before we add anything new. Before you attempt to fix your routine or draft another habit, integrate this shift through three distinct phases:
Tap into Awareness: Bring your focus completely into your physical body right now. Notice where you are holding tension from trying to manage too many expectations. Acknowledge that overwhelm without judgment.
Sense It and Sit With It: Do not rush to reorganize your schedule or build a “better” routine. Sit right in the middle of the simplicity. Let your nervous system experience what it feels like to drop the to-do list and realize nothing bad happens when you do less.
Allowing and Receiving: Stop forcing productivity disguised as self-care. Open your hands, drop your shoulders, and simply allow your natural rhythm to emerge from the quiet. Receive the deep, restorative grace of simplicity before you ever try to give birth to a new action, a new habit, or a new step forward.
Food for Thought:
If you deleted every wellness app, threw out half your self-care rules, and committed to doing only one simple, nourishing thing for yourself each day, what would you finally have time to feel?
Wisdom Insight:
Most self-care is taught from the outside in, but true healing only happens when you begin listening to the wisdom that has always lived within you. When wellness routines become a source of guilt and performance, they stop being care and start becoming a cage. This Great Day, put down the heavy armor of a complex routine and choose the liberating power of simplicity.
Be Blissful,
Dr. MoJo: Self-Care Strategist
Virtual Sound BathExperience
RELAX. RESTORE.RECONNECT.
As the days grow shorter from the fall equinox through the winter solstice, we are invited to turn inward. Join us for a soothing Virtual Sound Bath Experience from the comfort and safety of your own space. Led by Dr. MoJo, these 30-minute immersive sessions use the calming resonance of crystal singing bowls to help you unwind, reset, and find your center as seasons shift.
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"Your Healthy MoJo~Self-Care Strategist: The Chakra Series."
This essential collection, created by Dr. MoJo, guides you through a profound journey of self-discovery and energetic alignment, spanning from the grounding Earth Star and Root to the divine connection of the Crown Chakra.
Each of the eight energy centers (Earth Star, Root, Sacral, Solar Plexus, Heart, Throat, Third Eye, and Crown) is addressed with its own dedicated, transformative recording paired with an in-depth eBook to solidify your understanding and practice.
Individually, each Chakra recording and eBook bundle is available for $25.00, offering a powerful, focused self-care strategy. However, when you purchase two or more Chakra bundles, the price drops to just $20.00 each. Start your personalized healing journey today and feel the difference of a balanced, vibrant self.
Can I say something that the wellness industry will never say to you? You might have too many self-care practices. Not because you are doing something wrong. Because somewhere along the way, the very thing that was supposed to free you became another list of things to get right — and another way to measure whether you are enough.
The five-AM wake-up. The green juice. The journaling. The meditation. The movement. The gratitude practice. The supplements. The digital detox. The breathwork. Each one borrowed from someone else’s transformation story, added to the stack with the best of intentions, and now sitting on your conscience like an obligation you cannot seem to fully meet.
This week, we are not adding anything. We are asking an honest question: Is your self-care practice serving you — or have you quietly started serving it?
Your well-being was never meant to be a performance.
This week, we make it personal again.
Food For Thought:
Nourishment for Your Soul:
"Why More Self-Care Practices May Be Creating More Pressure"
Here is the question worth sitting with honestly this week: When you think about your self-care routine, what is the dominant feeling that arrives? Is it nourishment — a genuine sense of being tended to, restored, and cared for? Or is it pressure — the low-grade anxiety of a checklist that is never quite complete, a standard you are perpetually falling slightly short of?
What if the most radical act of self-care available to you right now is not a new practice but an honest audit of the ones you already have? What if the question is not “What should I add?” but “What am I holding that has stopped serving me?” What if the self-care that actually sustains you is smaller, simpler, and more personal than anything you have ever seen on a wellness platform — because it was built from the inside out, from your own genuine needs, rather than assembled from other people’s answers to questions you were not asking?
The pressure you feel is information. It is your inner wisdom telling you that the load has become unsustainable. This week, we listen to that. We do not add. We discern. We simplify. We return the practice of self-care to its only legitimate purpose: tending to the specific, complex, irreplaceable woman that you actually are.
"Lessen The Pressure"
Before anything else — before the tips and the strategies and the reflections — we pause here. And in this pause, there is nothing to do, nothing to practice, and nothing to get right. That is the point. Let this section be what your self-care was always supposed to be: a moment of simply being received, as you are, without performance and without measure.
Take one slow breath. Notice what is present — not what should be present. Whatever you are carrying right now, including the exhaustion of trying to keep up, is welcome here exactly as it is.
A Reflection to Carry with You
Which of your current self-care practices genuinely nourish you — and which ones have quietly become obligations you feel guilty about not keeping? What would it feel like to release just one of the obligations this week, not because you failed it, but because you are choosing yourself over the performance?
“Almost everything will work again if you unplug it for a few minutes, including you.”
Anne Lamott
“Tension is who you think you should be.
Relaxation is who you are.”
Chinese Proverb
WISDOM FROM SPIRITUAL MOTHERS & FATHERS
Louise Hay:“I no longer choose to believe in old limitations and lack. I now choose to accept that life is simple and easy and joyful. Less effort, more love.
”Maya Angelou:“Every person needs to take one day away — a day in which one consciously separates the past from the future. Jobs, family, employers, and friends can exist one day without any one of us.
”Queen Afua:“Healing does not have to be complicated. Return to the sacred and the simple. Water, breath, stillness, and love. Everything else is extra.
”Iyanla Vanzant:“If it’s stressing you out, it’s not self-care. Self-care is supposed to fill you up, not add to your load.”
Closing: Heart-to-Heart
Dearest one, the most courageous self-care decision you can make right now might be to do less — and mean it more. To release the performance and return to the purpose. To choose the practice that genuinely fits your real life over the one that looks most impressive in the imagined highlight reel. Your wellness was never meant to be a competition, a standard, or a source of shame. It was meant to be a living, breathing, completely personal act of love. Let it be that again.
You are enough. Your care for yourself is enough. And simpler, truer, more honest self-care — the kind that actually fits the woman you are — is always, always enough.
You are exactly where you need to be, and releasing what does not genuinely serve you is one of the most powerful acts of self-care you will ever choose.
With love and deep permission to simplify,
Your Self-Care Strategist 💕
P.S. Sweet soul, if reading this volume produced relief — if some part of you exhaled at the permission to do less — please trust that exhale. It is your body’s most honest response, and it is telling you something important about what your self-care has quietly become. You do not need to dismantle everything. You just need to return the practice to its original purpose: genuinely tending to the woman you are, not performing the woman you think you should be. Start with one release. One honest simplification. One practice chosen because it truly serves you. That is not giving up. That is the most intentional self-care you have practiced in a long time.
"Nothing to prove. Nothing to perform. Just a willingness to be present with the woman you are becoming."
“Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.”
Leonardo da Vinci
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"Your Healthy MoJo~Self-Care Strategist: The Chakra Series."This essential collection, created by Dr. MoJo, guides you through a profound journey of self-discovery and energetic alignment, spanning from the grounding Earth Star and Root to the divine connection of the Crown Chakra.
Each of the eight energy centers (Earth Star, Root, Sacral, Solar Plexus, Heart, Throat, Third Eye, and Crown) is addressed with its own dedicated, transformative recording paired with an in-depth eBook to solidify your understanding and practice. Individually, each Chakra recording and eBook bundle is available for $25.00, offering a powerful, focused self-care strategy.
However, when you purchase two or more Chakra bundles, the price drops to just $20.00 each. Start your personalized healing journey today and feel the difference of a balanced, vibrant self.
Subscribe to the Intentional Self-Care newsletter and join a community of women ready to reclaim their well-being. Expect inspiring insights, actionable tips, affirmations, and transformative self-care wisdom designed to uplift, empower, and nurture your heart and soul each day.
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