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
As always, I am grateful for my family, job, home, health, and Coco.
This week, I am feeling especially grateful, once again, for my friends. I had quite an eventful weekend with my friend Marisa. We ended up going dancing two nights in a row, which of course, is not the norm and I wouldn’t do every weekend, but we had such a great time. She had originally bought tickets for us to a 2000s dance night on Friday, and then I won tickets to a disco-themed dance night on Saturday. I had been wanting to go to a disco night for so long, so even though I knew it would be a long weekend, I knew I had to do it or risk waiting several months for another disco-themed night. I am so grateful that Marisa was ok with joining me for that second night!
I’ve always loved dancing, but mostly in private. Think Just Dance workouts in my living room. I never intentionally went out dancing during college or throughout most of my twenties. It wasn’t until I turned 30 that I finally started saying yes to these kinds of events. The first was a Chappell Roan-themed dance night that Marisa and I went to because of our shared love for her music. Since then, we’ve gone to two more “girly pop” dance nights, and now these two this weekend.
One thing that surprised me the first time was realizing that I could dance for three hours straight and never once worry about what anyone thought of me. I wasn’t self-conscious. I wasn’t trying to impress anyone. I was just having fun. That feeling of freedom was something I didn’t realize I’d been missing.
So this week, I’m grateful not only for Marisa for helping me reconnect with that joyful, carefree part of myself, but also for the example that she and her boyfriend set. Watching them has reminded me that healthy love isn’t about keeping tabs on each other or limiting each other’s joy. It’s about trust. It’s about encouraging one another to have rich, full lives. It’s the kind of love where the biggest concern after a night of dancing isn’t jealousy or suspicion, it’s whether you’ll be able to wake up in time for your Costco trip the next morning. Love you guys!
Part 3: This Week’s Bloom: An Analogy for Grief
As usual, I’ve been thinking about many things this week, but one thing my mind keeps coming back to is trying to wrap my head around the feeling of grief. It is a feeling that I have been getting more acquainted with since the year started. I guess you could say that I am blessed that it has not come to visit me much throughout my life.
I don’t really have a nice and neat reflection for you today. I’m still learning. I’ve really only started being able to notice and name my emotions, again, since I turned 30 a couple of years ago. But even though I have started the practice of “name it to tame it,” there have been many times when I can recognize that grief is present, but it hasn’t helped me “tame it.” My instinct is to panic and try to get rid of the feeling, so that’s why I’m trying to learn more about it and learn to let it do its thing without spiraling.
This year, I started following a creator: Nasimeh Be. She has an MA in psychology and she’s an artist and somatic coach. She shares her gentle art where she personifies emotions. Her art is an invitation to sit with our feelings and hear what they have to say. Her art has really helped me not be so scared of “negative” emotions, like fear and grief. Below you can see some of my favorite posts:
Failure, Regret, Shame, and Lesson
Fear
Grief
I also heard this saying this year, “Grief is love with nowhere to go.” That really made sense to me, and it led to me exploring this feeling a bit more…in my own way. I wrote a poem of sorts. Again, this is not going to be a perfect analogy, but this was the closest I could come to putting words to a feeling that so often refuses to be put into words:
I have heard it said that
Grief is love
With nowhere to go.
Well…
Yes.
And…
Maybe it’s also this.
Love is a game of
Hot potato
Where you and someone you love
Laugh
And toss it
Back and forth.
Neither of you notices
How hot it really is,
Because you’re carrying it
together.
Then one day…
They stop playing.
And suddenly,
You’re left holding
The potato
By yourself.
It burns.
You want to set it down.
You want someone else
To take it.
People tell you,
“You have to let it go.”
But it’s not that simple.
It’s not just
A potato.
It’s every conversation,
Every memory,
Every future
You thought you’d have.
So you hold it
Because how could you not?
Some days,
A friend comes along
And lends you
An oven mitt.
For a little while,
The heat feels bearable.
But when they go
You still wonder
If the pain will always
Be this sharp.
Sometimes
The potato seems to
Cool down
But without warning
It feels like it’s 1000 degrees
All over again.
A song.
A smell.
A place.
A date on the calendar.
You don’t always know why.
Over time…
The potato doesn’t
Stop being hot.
But your hands
Begin to heal.
You learn
How to hold it.
You discover
That you can still laugh
While carrying it.
You can still dance.
You can still love.
And maybe…
That’s what healing is.
Not letting go
Of the potato.
But learning
That your life
Can become bigger
Than the pain
Of holding it.
Part 4: This Week’s Wonder – Rapid-fire Edition!
I guess it was a busier week or maybe I just spent more time on these topics, so the list will be shorter, but here’s a list of things I’ve learned or been thinking about this week:
- I continued learning about Internal family systems (IFS) therapy. About “parts” and how we can get to understand the “Self”
- It’s possible to grow tropical fruit trees (like mango trees) in Arizona.
- In Arizona, it’s also maybe better to water trees deeply for longer so the water can reach the roots and not get hot and rot the roots on the surface
- ASU will offer a BA in Content Creation (basically, a degree for social media influencers)
Part 5: Next Week’s Growth
Work is going to start getting a bit busier, so my goal this week is just to maintain my usual habits: morning pages, yoga, exercising etc. I still want to start creating some free worksheets, but honestly, I’ll be happy if I can make at least one Reel during the week!
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 something that’s bringing you joy lately, even if life has also been difficult?
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. 🌵
Blooming Saguaro 
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