Bailz Has a Blog

Tag: grief and healing

  • ❄️ Wintering, Healing, and Finding my Center

    ❄️ Wintering, Healing, and Finding my Center

    Hey, hi, hello! Happy Wednesday! 🤍

    Yesterday marked four months of Bailz has a Blog, which honestly feels a little surreal. Part of me feels like I just started, and part of me feels like I’ve been doing this much longer than four months. Both parts of me are incredibly proud.

    After spending so much of my life living in fear, it feels really amazing to be sharing my life, my journey, my thoughts, my feelings, and my experiences with all of you lovely people. Creating this space has easily been one of the best things I’ve ever done for myself. I started scared… and I kept showing up. And here we are. 💜

    🐾 Remembering Chelsea

    Yesterday was also Chelsea’s Gotcha Day. We lost her in September, and while we know it was the right decision and we’re grateful she’s no longer in pain, it was still a hard day.

    I miss her smile and her sass. She was truly one of a kind. 🤍

    ❄️ Deep in Wintering

    I’m still very much in my wintering phase, and I’m honestly enjoying it more than I ever expected. I’m hibernating. I’m cocooning. I’m resting, healing, and honoring the process to the best of my ability.

    Each day, I feel a little more calm — and that realization alone has been huge. I’m starting to feel present in my body and in my life in a way I don’t think I ever have consistently before.

    For most of my life, rest came with criticism. Wanting rest came with shame. Enjoyment came with a warning not to get used to it. Quiet moments felt wasted. My mind was always racing, multitasking, performing, trying to impress — and I was never fully in any moment.

    Now I see how deeply that hurt me.

    These days, quiet moments are the goal. 🤍

    📖 Reading Slowly, On Purpose

    I’m still working my way through The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle, and I’m intentionally taking my time with it. Throughout the book, Tolle includes small pause symbols, encouraging the reader to stop, become still, and really experience what’s just been read before moving on.

    That practice has been exactly what I needed.

    Before starting this book, I had already noticed how much I rushed through everything I read. I knew it was a problem, but I didn’t really know how to fix it. These built-in pauses have been helping me learn how to slow down and absorb instead of sprinting to the next page. I’m also really enjoying the question-and-answer format — it feels approachable and grounding.

    More than anything, the book has helped me realize how much priority I’ve always given to thinking and analyzing — and how much pain, stress, and anxiety that ultimately caused me. The more I take my thoughts as absolute truth, the more power I give away.

    So now, I’m practicing being what Tolle calls “the watcher” of my thoughts and emotions, rather than letting them become my identity. It’s a slow practice, but one that’s already changing so much for me.

    🩺 Signs of Real Progress

    On Monday, I had my third set of progress scans with the chiropractor, and the results were honestly incredible. Comparing my original scans from October to my current ones, I can hardly believe how much progress I’ve made in such a short amount of time.

    Because of that improvement, I’ve been cleared to reduce my visits from three times a week to two times a week. Going forward, I’ll be going on Mondays and Thursdays, and we’ll reassess in a month.

    It’s a bittersweet feeling. I’m incredibly grateful for the healing — releasing tension and trauma from my body has been life-changing. But I’m also a little sad about the routine change. That office has become a home away from home, and even on my hardest days, I’ve looked forward to being there.

    Today is the first Wednesday I haven’t gone, and it feels… weird. Like I’m forgetting something. But I also know this change is a sign of growth — and that matters.

    (And yes, I am very excited to go tomorrow. 😅)

    🧘‍♀️ Listening to My Body

    Overall, my body feels so much better. I’m holding far less tension, my stress levels are lower than they’ve ever been, my neck and shoulders feel better, and I’m sleeping more deeply.

    The one area still holding tightness is my hips, so I’ve been using yoga to focus on hip and lower back opening. I can already feel the difference — physically and emotionally. I feel more fluid and less rigid, and that shift has been really powerful.

    🛁 A Little Extra Care

    Today, I leaned into some extra self-care, and I’m feeling deeply relaxed.

    I started with yoga — some focused on hip opening, some restorative and meditative. Then I made a DIY face mask with plain Greek yogurt and raw honey, soaked in a bath with a Flewd bath soak, scrubbed head to toe with a Dead Sea salt scrub, shaved my legs, and moisturized thoroughly.

    I feel pampered, calm, and really proud of myself for taking care of my body and my nervous system. ✨

    🌱 Simple, Not Easy

    This part of my journey may not look glamorous or exciting — but that doesn’t make it any less important. Slowing down and being present sounds simple, but it’s not easy. It’s taken weeks for it to feel less strange.

    I’m not perfect at it. It’s a practice. But I’m getting better every day — and that feels pretty amazing.

    I hope you can take a few moments to slow down today too. Check in with yourself. Be present where you are. I promise, it’s worth it.

    Thank you for being here. I’m so incredibly grateful for you. 💜

    Love always,
    Bailz 💜

  • Real Time results

    Real Time results

    This morning I kept my promise to myself that I would get myself up and moving on the walk pad within 30 minutes of waking. I had only a few minutes to spare before I hit the 30-minute mark, but I did it. After I brushed my teeth, high-fived myself in the mirror, put on my walking shoes, and pulled out the walk pad, I put on another episode of The Mel Robbins Podcast on YouTube and I got to stepping.

    I can’t say that I genuinely wanted to be walking right then, but I was so excited that I was doing it—because I had promised myself that I would. I DID IT! I kept a promise to myself, and not an easy one. I could have come up with a million excuses. I could have told myself I’d fit it in later. I could have done anything else. But I didn’t. I got my ass up and walking with intention, and it felt good.

    I walked my full 45 minutes, I learned about 7 little things I can do to improve my life from Mel, and I worked up a good sweat (gross, but yay!). When I was done, I took a few minutes to drink some water and just enjoy how my body felt. Then I switched from Mel to Yoga with Adriene and did a 20-minute practice targeting a healthy body.

    By the time I was done, I was DONE—at least physically. I felt good but also very tired. My body needed some TLC, so I decided it was time for a shower. I took my time and enjoyed the hot water. While I was amongst the suds and steam, I felt an internal jolt. I was struck with a very strong impulse to share my blog on my personal Instagram and Facebook accounts. I know it’s not polished. I know I need to work on the presentation. I know it’s a little all over the place right now. But I wanted to share it.

    My inner critic still tried her hardest to talk me out of it: “Just wait until you’re really ready! It’s not perfect yet! You still have so much work to do. It doesn’t look professional!” First of all… of course it doesn’t look professional… IT ISN’T. Second of all… the whole point of this is the process. This is part of the process.

    Once I got dressed, I went into the kitchen to get started on sharing and working on my next post. I saw a package addressed to me on the counter. When I looked at who it was from, my heart sank.

    Two weeks ago, our beloved dog, Chelsea, crossed the rainbow bridge after 9 years with us at the age of 15. The grief has been heavy, but this project has been helping me navigate it. The package on the counter was a prescription refill for Chelsea. It was a new prescription, I forgot it was on autoship. I hadn’t read the reminder emails clearly—I just assumed it was time to re-order and chose not to. And now, here it was… an opportunity for me to slip into old habits, showing up in full force.

    Let me tell you how Old Bailz would have reacted:

    • Burst into tears because she was already overwhelmed and this would’ve pushed her over the edge.
    • Beat herself up for not reading the emails carefully and letting this slip through the cracks.
    • Procrastinated doing anything about it and pretended it didn’t happen.
    • Not told her husband out of embarrassment and fear of “getting in trouble” over an expensive medication.

    (FYI: This has nothing to do with how my husband would actually react, and everything to do with my inner critic beating me to shit.)

    But today was different. Because I’ve been doing the work—and because I had already shown up for myself with momentum—I didn’t do any of those things.

    Here’s what I did instead: I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. I opened the package, checked the shipping invoice, logged into the vet pharmacy website, and canceled the autoship. Then I looked into returning the unopened medication. I didn’t stop to overthink—I just kept doing.

    Heath was working from home. When he came into the kitchen for water, I told him immediately what was going on. No hesitation. And he wasn’t upset. He wasn’t mad. He wasn’t anything but calm. Old Bailz would have worked herself into a total panic over nothing.

    I reached out to customer service and explained that our sweet girl had passed away. I didn’t even know if they accepted returns for medication, but I tried. I sent the message, and then I realized what had just happened: I was moving through life with more ease. I wasn’t stuck in my head. I was present. I tackled the task instead of avoiding it. That’s growth.

    And then I took that momentum, opened Instagram, and started crafting my announcement post about my blog. Was the inner critic still there? Absolutely. But she was quieter this time. Just a little.

    I followed through anyway. I shared my blog even though it’s a work in progress. Because like I said yesterday—it’s not about what it looks like. It’s about what it means. I promised to be open and vulnerable, so I invited people in before it was perfect. Because it will never be perfect. If not now, when?

    After posting, I felt a huge rush of energy. Old Bailz would’ve mistaken it for anxiety and gone spiraling—checking for likes, refreshing stats, looking for proof she hadn’t made a mistake. But not today. Today I sat with it and realized… this was excitement. Joy. Self-pride.

    I didn’t let fear win. I didn’t procrastinate. I didn’t hide. I moved forward—messy, honest, alive. And that? That’s worth celebrating.

    I don’t know where all of this is leading yet. But I do know this:

    • I’m showing up.
    • I’m keeping promises to myself.
    • I’m moving forward, one aligned choice at a time.

    And right now, in this moment, that is more than enough.

    I’m proud. I’m healing. I’m becoming. And I’m documenting it—messy, raw, beautiful, and true.

    Thank you for being here and witnessing more of this journey. Stay tuned for more tales from the life of Bailz! 💜