Prefer to read or listen?

You can now experience the reflection in whichever format works best for you.

📖 Read the full blog post below if you’d like to take your time and reflect at your own pace.

🎥 Prefer to listen? Watch the YouTube version, where I share this week’s reflections in a more conversational format.

Whether you choose to read, watch, or both, I hope this first Saguaro Sunday encourages you to slow down, reflect, and think about your own week.

Part 1. Welcome or Welcome Back to Saguaro Sunday

Saguaro Sunday is our weekly opportunity to slow down. It’s a chance to practice gratitude, celebrate what went well, acknowledge where we can grow, and reflect on what we learned.

It’s also a time to look ahead and ask ourselves: 

What do I want to learn this week? How do I want to bloom a little more?

My hope is that as you read, you’ll also reflect on your own week. You can open up your Notes Notes app on your phone, or better yet, open up a physical notebook/journal!

If you’re comfortable, I’d also love for you to share your reflections in the comments so we can continue learning from one another!

Part 2: This Week’s Gratitude

This week, I kept thinking about the quote:

“Shared joy is a double joy, shared sorrow is half sorrow”

As always, I am grateful for my family, job, home, health, and Coco. 

This week, I am feeling extra grateful for my friends and their willingness to be vulnerable with me. I know it can take time for trust to build, but I think it’s so beautiful when someone is brave enough to open the door to a deeper relationship through vulnerability. When a friend opens up about something that is heavy in their heart, it gives the listener the opportunity to practice love. When we can show up for each other and practice friendship, these are the moments that bring us closer. 

Later, when we face hardships of our own, we may remember that our friend trusted us first. That memory makes it a little easier to be vulnerable ourselves and allow someone else to care for us in return. Reciprocity is just so beautiful and we can learn so much from each other. 

Maybe you’ll discover you’re carrying similar burdens. Maybe you’ll offer each other a perspective neither of you could have found alone. 

Either way, vulnerability has a way of reminding us that we’re far less alone than we often think we are.

Part 3: This Week’s Bloom: Shame, Ego, and Change

I grew up in a family of readers. Since I can remember, my mom has always loved reading books related to self-help and religion/spirituality. I love that she has always been interested in better understanding the self, our place in the universe, and how to be better. Growing up, I didn’t always get it, and as someone who mostly read fiction, I would tease her and ask why she was always reading these kinds of books. 

As I’ve gotten older and started learning more about psychology (and spirituality), I get it now. The reason why these books are needed is because we need the language to understand what is going on inside of us. All of this internal work is so abstract, but when you learn the words and when people explain on paper the processes that are going on inside of us, sometimes even with infographics, everything can start to click. Suddenly, when you can define these big, complex topics, they aren’t so scary anymore. And with the right language, you can better look inward and have the words to apply to what is happening in your own life. 

I bring all of this up because this week, I’ve been thinking about all the things that are required for change to happen. We always hear that “change is hard,” and you know what, it is! But have you ever stopped to wonder if there is a formula for change? Turns out, there kind of is? And now that I know about it, I feel more confident in continuing to implement change in my life.

Before I continue, please remember that I am not a mental health professional. I am just a gal with a master’s degree in English who has always been interested in understanding others and herself because she grew up reading and analyzing fictional characters. I am also so, so interested in character growth. While stories of characters who self-destruct can be entertaining and informative, they are not satisfying to me. I want to see that character arc in myself and in others! These are personal reflections based on what I’ve been learning, so take what resonates and leave what doesn’t. 

Ok, so what I’ve learned is that, first, lasting change can rarely come from shame. I am so grateful for my friend who put me onto reading Brené Brown years ago. Her work taught me the difference between shame and guilt.

Shame = I am bad.

Guilt = I did something bad.

Shame tells us that we are the problem. Guilt tells us that behavior is the problem. The former often keeps us stuck in a cycle of defensiveness and self-hatred. The latter framework makes repair possible. With the second way of viewing this, your ego remains safe.

When I say ego, I don’t mean being full of yourself. I mean your sense of self (your identity and self-worth). When your sense of self is secure (your ego is not fragile), you are able to learn from a mistake and move forward. You are better equipped to face yourself and to listen when others point out areas of growth. You are less likely to become defensive and better equipped to handle feedback, even when it’s difficult to hear.

So how does this relate to change? When you love yourself, like the love a parent has toward their child, how can you not want what is best for yourself? And like a parent with their child, you can lovingly correct yourself without condemning yourself. When you are secure in yourself, you can listen to others when you wrong them, and because you love yourself enough to want to improve and be the best version of yourself, you will be more likely to implement change.

As I’ve been thinking about these things, I finally got around to watching this video by Dr. Ana (one of my favorite creators on YouTube). I do recommend watching it in full, but you might want to come back to it after you finish reading the rest of my post to not disrupt the flow 😅:

While she focuses on how to know that it is safe to reconcile with someone, a big part of it is noticing if change as occurred, which led her to mention the stages of change:

I had never heard them explained like this before. While they are often applied to substance abuse recovery, they can really be applied to any kind of change that we want to do in life. Dr. Ana shares that it’s often not until one hits rock bottom or things get bad enough that we find that catalyst for change. Of course, that’s not necessary, but usually those wake up calls are what lead us to look for answers.

When I apply this to my own life, I see how true it is. 

• When I was miserable at an old job and could no longer bear the dread I felt from having to go into work, I finally decided to look for other options. 
• When an ex started showing signs that he could become aggressive, even after years of multiple failed attempts at leaving, I finally did. 
• When I noticed myself repeating the same pattern in relationships over and over again, it became impossible to ignore, so I began to dig deeper into what was going on within myself and learned about attachment styles. 
• When my scoliosis-related back pain continues to get worse with age, I have started implementing ways to take care of my spine as much as possible and learned ways to manage the pain when it does flare up. 
• When my mental health was in the gutter and I began spiraling toward nihilism, instead of hiding away and suffering in silence, I allowed those who were willing and able to step in, see me at my worst, and help me. Slowly, with their support, I was able to find my footing again to keep learning and growing. 

While I am currently in the maintenance stage of a lot of the changes I have implemented, and am still experiencing the occasional slip up (and trying to be kind with myself when they happen), I am also trying to shorten the time it takes me to go from the contemplation to the action stage. Again, this is why I decided to start this project that is Blooming Saguaro on a Tuesday. I am trying to act fast to keep fear and indecisiveness at bay. 

All the books, podcasts, and videos in the world can’t change your life unless something eventually changes in your behavior. You can’t really completely learn things in theory. You have to embody it. 

Wisdom comes through living.

I’m not saying you should be impulsive, I’m saying get comfortable with starting imperfectly. Yes, do a bit of research, but don’t get stuck in that stage. 

Apply and practice what you learn as quickly as you can. 

So if there’s something you’ve been thinking about changing, maybe today doesn’t have to be the day you finish it. Maybe today is simply the day you begin.

Let your actions teach you what your thoughts never could.

Part 4: This Week’s Wonder – Rapid-fire Edition! 

Here’s a list of things I’ve learned or been thinking about this week. The list is a bit shorter this week because I’ve been focused on rest and continuing to practice my video editing and web design skills:

• I started building my Resources Library! I learned how to create tags in Google Sheets to easily filter by topic.
• I learned how to schedule posts on Instagram! I know how to for TikTok as well, but I haven’t tried it yet.
• I learned how to save presets in Capcut to more quickly reuse media or…I don’t know how to explain it. Like, combinations of elements?
• Halsey used to kiss her fans on the mouth, some who were minors.

Part 5: Next Week’s Growth 

A list of things I want to focus on this week:

• I need to keep maintaining my habits with sleep, doing my morning pages actually in the morning before looking at my phone or work computer, doing yoga before I start my day, and get back to reading daily. Some of these habits I haven’t been doing super perfectly, and I feel the difference.
• I decided to practice heel with Coco. I’ve started a little bit already, but it’s really a tough command to master, so more consistent practice!
• I didn’t practice the piano this week…so I want to try again.
• I still want to figure out a way to track my progressive overload with my workouts. 
• I didn’t watch a documentary. I still do want to…but this week my priority is actually to watch Suspiria.

Now it’s your turn!

🌵What are you grateful for this week?

🌵 What did you learn?

🌵 What’s something you’ve been wondering about lately?

🌵 How do you want to bloom a little more this week?

🌵 Question of the Week: What’s one change you’ve made in your life that you’re proud of, and what helped make that change possible?

I’d genuinely love to hear your reflections. Thank you again for spending part of your Sunday (or whatever day it is when you’re reading this) with me.

I’ll see you tomorrow for Motivation Monday over on my socials!

Until then…

Learn a bit each day. Bloom a little more. 🌵