Last weekend I found myself on Etsy looking at leather bracelets that I could have a messaged engraved in. I was just browsing so I hadn’t given a lot of thought to what I’d want it to say, but then words started to come to me and before I knew it I had an acronym – CHILLED, which seems appropriate as I’m trying to relax and I live in Saskatchewan.
CHILLED stands for Courage Health Intention Love Live Empathy and Dream, and I think I’m on to something, a formula or at least an acronym on how to live our lives (maybe I’ll make t-shirts or something like that). Let me elaborate a bit.
Courage for me is being honest, authentic, and vulnerable while moving forward. This involves drawing clear boundaries, asking for help when I need it, and being clear with myself an others about my needs and wants. It also means speaking up not only for ourselves, but for those who need our voices as well.
Health is the foundation of everything else. I know that I need to care for my physical, mental, and spiritual health in order to show up for myself and those who need me.
Intention is about knowing what I want and consistently focusing on those things I need to do to get there. It’s also about removing or limiting the time and energy I put into those things that aren’t in line with the person I want to be.
Love is compassion, understanding, letting my feelings show (which of course takes courage) for others and myself.
I want to Live my life to make the most of it, to contribute, to, again be authentic, a role model, to laugh a lot, learn a lot, and share a lot.
Empathy is so important today. We need to support others and demand change in the world to alleviate the suffering of others, not because of something we want for ourselves out of a situation.
Dreaming is something we should never stop doing. Dream of a better world, dream of deeper love, dream of writing a bestseller, dream of really smooth gelato, but never stop dreaming. Dreams are what drive me to come up with ideas like this blog or the podcast.
That’s it. Now go be CHILLED.
Featured image courtesy of Marco Verch under a CC-BY license.
