Part 1. Welcome or Welcome Back to Saguaro Sunday

Today’s main reflection is all about the importance of being consistent.

I had a busy weekend last week. I went out to a Daft Punk dance night and had a blast. Evidently, I did not post my weekly reflection. Yes, let’s let that irony soak in.

With that out of the way…just remember that being consistent doesn’t mean being perfect either! We can always get things back on track. And here I am again!

Whether you’re a new or returning reader, 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 take a moment to reflect on your own week. You can open up your Notes app on your phone, or better yet, grab a physical notebook or 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, friends, home, health, job, and Coco.

This week, I’m especially grateful for something that might sound a little weird: the Internet.

I’m grateful that there is so much information out there! There is always something new to learn, and I love that so much of that information is right at our fingertips.

I’m especially grateful for that when I’m out and about. I can look something up, learn about something I just encountered or satisfy a random question that popped into my head.

As someone who is endlessly curious, I think having access to so much information is pretty amazing.

That is all for now!

Part 3: This Week’s Bloom: Consistency and Safety

Consistency, of course, is key to getting us closer to our goals. It’s also incredibly important at work. A consistent employee is reliable, and reliability builds trust.

Consistency also matters with our health goals. Maybe we want to get better sleep, so we start going to bed around the same time and develop a nighttime routine that helps us unwind. Maybe we want to improve our oral health, so we make flossing a daily habit. Maybe we want to live a healthier lifestyle, so we set aside time to move our bodies each day, even if it’s just for a little bit. Maybe we want to lose a little bit of weight, so we create routines that make healthy choices easier, like keeping nutritious foods available at home and planning our meals for the week. Or maybe we’re trying to learn a new skill, like a language or playing an instrument, where regular practice is essential.

Consistency is important because small actions, repeated over time, add up.

But today, I want to focus on something else that consistency has taught me. 

Consistency helps us build a sense of safety.

When we are consistent with our habits, we create a sense of internal safety. As an anxious person, I’ve found this to be incredibly important for me. Every time I consistently follow through on a habit, I am giving myself evidence that I can take care of myself.

I can trust myself to do the things I said I would do. And that creates a little bit of safety.

I’m okay.

I’m not alone.

The world isn’t falling apart.

Of course, consistency doesn’t make everything in life predictable. Life will still surprise us. Things will still go wrong. But having routines and habits that we can rely on gives us something steady to return to when everything else feels uncertain.

I think the same thing applies to our relationships.

There is so much conversation about love languages and the different ways we express and receive love, but I think that underneath all of it is something much simpler: consistency.

Do you want to show others that you care? Show up consistently, even when you have a lot on your plate too.

Are you building a healthy relationship? Be consistent. Follow through. Communicate. Let your words match your actions.

All of these things send a message to the people in our lives:

You can count on me.

Consistency tells another person that they don’t have to constantly wonder where they stand with us. They don’t have to decode our behavior or worry that we’re going to suddenly disappear. Our actions over time give them evidence that we are who we say we are.

In other words, consistency also helps create relational safety.

Please remember that consistency doesn’t mean perfection. We will all have bad days. We will forget things, make mistakes, change our minds, and sometimes fall short.

But consistency means that, over time, our actions create a pattern people can trust. And again, even with our relationship with ourselves, consistency helps us build trust in ourselves. 

If you want to learn more about consistency specifically in relationships, I recommend checking out some of the work from the Gottman Institute. Their concept of “small things often” explores how small, intentional, consistent efforts can have a profound impact on our relationships. They also write about bids for connection, the everyday moments when we reach out to another person for attention, affection, support, or connection, and how the ways we respond to those bids can help build trust.

You can read more here:

• The Positive Perspective: “Small Things Often”
• An Introduction to Emotional Bids and Trust

Consistency isn’t necessarily about doing something big. Sometimes it’s about the little things we choose to do, again and again, that tell someone, “I see you. I care about you. You can count on me.”

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

A few random things I learned these past couple of weeks. I will keep a lot of this vague, especially because I still need to dig into these topics a bit more myself. I will eventually go back to adding links to my resources library, but if something sounds interesting to you, go ahead and google it 😀

• September is National Suicide Prevention Month. Check on your loved ones. Consistently 🙂
• New words unlocked:
  • Benighted: overtaken by darkness or night
  • Probity: adherence to the highest principles and ideals (uprightness)
  • Funderelele (Spanish word): ice scream scooper
• The AI paperclip problem: basically, AI taking things too far when given a command
• The Body Electric Challenge: a public health initiative and podcast series created by NPR and TED Radio Hour host Manoush Zomorodi, in collaboration with lead researcher Keith Diaz from Columbia University Medical Center. It encourages people to participate in intentional movement breaks.
• The word “girl” might be becoming gender neutral, like “bro” or “dude”
• Mexican fashion designer, Manuel Cuevas, was the one who designed The Beatles’ outfits for Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band.
• There is such a thing as “Chicano English” and, apparently, I might speak it a bit?
• Intellectual intimacy is a thing
• The “Bedlam” email incident: a famous “reply-all storm” on October 14, 1997, that crashed Microsoft’s corporate email servers

Part 5: Next Week’s Growth 

These past couple of weeks have been busy at work. I had to work outside of my home office a lot and I had a couple of appointments, so I wasn’t very consistent with my workout routines. I only did yoga once this week, and my back is feeling the consequences. This coming week, I want to get back to my habits. I also haven’t been up making any short form videos, so again, this coming week I will try that again!

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 is one small thing you can do consistently this week to build trust with yourself or someone else?

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. 🌵