Follow the breadcrumbs.

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care to impact Value #2

Before getting to the exercise, I’m going to share with you the second care to impact’s value.

Connection
We create and nurture relationships with our inner world and with other people and beings. We foster our and other’s awareness and acknowledge and celebrate our interconnectedness.

Craft Your Values – Exercise #2

Step 1

Try to recall stories, anecdotes, and experiences from your life that you can relate back to the values you listed in our previous exercise. They’ll help you make your values feel more tangible and memorable.

Look for moments of frustration and anger, too. Many times, we feel that way because one of our values was crushed.

Step 2

Explore all the stories you can recall, write them down, sit with them, and notice how they make you feel. Keep them together with the list of your values, they’ll turn out helpful for next week’s exercise.

My Connection stories

Awareness has been key to my clients’ and my evolution and flourishing. It has been the starting point for me to choose a more fulfilling work path and become a coach, and it’s always been the sparkle for my clients to decide they wanted some change in their lives. Nurturing daily that awareness is as hard as essential to one’s well-being, and that’s a big part of the work I do with my clients and myself.

Speaking of well-being, having a good relationship with the self is not enough. We also need caring, supportive relationships with other beings, both human and non-human.

I’m sure we all have stories that can empirically prove that but if you are a nerd like me and need some science, here’s what neuroscientist Lisa Feldman Barrett says.

Ultimately, your family, friends, neighbors, and even strangers contribute to your brain’s structure and function and help your brain keep your body humming along. […]

Being a social species has all sorts of advantages for us Homo sapiens. One advantage is that we live longer if we have close, supportive relationships with other people. […]

but there are also disadvantages. We may be healthier and live longer if we have close relationships, but we also get sick and die earlier when we persistently feel lonely​—possibly years earlier, based on the data. Without someone else helping to regulate our body budgets, we bear an extra burden. Have you ever lost someone close to you through a breakup or a death and felt like you’d lost a part of yourself? That’s because you did. You lost a source of keeping your bodily systems in balance.

Lisa Feldman Barrett, “Your Brain Secretly Works With Others, in Seven And A Half Lessons About The Brain, Harper Collins, Kindle Edition (pp 84-86)

That’s it for today. Next week, bring a shovel, and we’ll dig deeper!

With care,
Giada

🗂️ Open Tabs

Stuff I kept thinking about or still open in my browser

I gifted myself an ebook reader. I spent the weekend reading on it and used my phone less than usual. I started a book on Saturday and almost finished it on Sunday (I have two chapters to finish it).

I love paper books but also use ebooks because they’re easier to carry around. I usually read on my smartphone, and it wasn’t the best experience for my eyes. I expected less eye strain, but I was amazed by how the e-reader improved my focus and eagerness to come back to the book during the day. Now, I’m looking forward to finishing the novel I’m reading —Poisoned Primrose by Dahlia Donovan— and starting a new one!

I’m talking about it in this Open Tabs section because I can’t stop thinking about how switching from the phone to a dedicated device made a huge difference. Have you experienced anything similar?

🗞️ News & Updates

care to impact‘s website is online! It could be more aesthetically pleasing, with better UI, UX, and copy, BUT I did it myself in just a couple of weeks, it serves its purpose, and I’m pretty proud of myself.

Also, it’s hosted green through an ethical provider, and this makes me even happier and prouder.

Go take a look! caretoimpact.com