June marks the halfway point in my Year of Me journey, and what a meaningful six months it has been. This chapter has been filled with Growth, Grace, and Gratitude—three guiding words that continue to shape my path. As I pause to reflect on all I’ve experienced and learned, I’m especially thankful for the joy June brought, the arrival of my third beautiful granddaughter. Her birth has reminded me once again of life’s sweetest blessings and the importance of being present in each moment. I’m eager to see what the second half of this journey holds.

When I began this journey in January, I honestly didn’t know what to expect, but I did know one thing: I wanted to be honest. Honest with myself and with everyone who takes the time to visit my blog and follow along. Each month has brought its own mix of wins, challenges, and a few surprises. Through it all, I’ve learned to embrace the process, celebrate the small victories, and reflect openly on the hard days. This space has evolved beyond a blog—it’s become a mirror, a record, and a source of connection.

As I’ve reached the midpoint of this journey, it is the perfect time to recap what I’ve done to focus on each of the eight areas of self-care that I am concentrating on in 2025.  You will quickly discover that I have my favorite areas of self-care, or at least those areas I find the easiest to address, and those that I find harder to tackle.

Social

I treasure the social connections that I have with family and friends. Whether I’m sharing a home-cooked meal with family, attending a social event with local friends, listening to book club members discuss the merits of the latest book we’ve read, or just checking in with others via phone call or text, these connections mean the world to me. Semi-retirement and moving to a new state can make finding new friends more challenging as we get older.

Physical

Physical self-care is the area in which I believe I have experienced the most growth on this journey. I needed to get up and move; it was that simple, and that is what I did. I used a chair yoga app, online videos that focused on strengthening my arms and legs, the e-machines at the gym, and my favorite, the pool. It took several months, but the non-scale victories now happen every few days.  My face lights up when I realize I’ve just physically done something that I couldn’t or struggled to do before. The kid in me wants to share my successes with my husband and parents. I appreciate their support and encouragement.

I have no way of quantifying how my physical improvement has impacted my mental health, but I feel the improvements on a daily basis.

“Movement is a medicine for creating change in a person’s physical, emotional, and mental states.” – Carol Welch.

I must admit that the victories on the scale have not been as grand as I had dreamt of at the beginning of this journey, but that has not deterred me. Since January 1st, I have lost 19 pounds, which I am grateful to have accomplished. Losing weight is vital to my overall health, but it also impacts my ability to have successful knee replacement surgery on both knees.

Since knee replacement surgery is one of my top priorities, I decided to bite the bullet and take one of the weight loss medications.  On June 18th, I took my first injection of Tirzepatide, with a two-tier plan to tackle my weight loss and eating habits. The medication certainly helps me feel full most of the time and helped me lose 7 pounds through June 30th. What is just as critical to my overall health is transforming myself into a mindful eater. This means being present when I am eating, slowing down my eating, and paying attention to the cues my body is providing.

Clearly, physical self-care has been my favorite area of focus on this journey!

Mental

My mental self-care has been impacted by every step I have taken on this journey. The seven other areas of self-care lead directly to mental self-care. The single thing that has affected my mental health the most can be summed up in one word…SLEEP! I suffer from restless leg syndrome, and it had gotten progressively worse and was affecting my sleep on a nightly basis. Working with my doctor, we developed a plan that has alleviated most of my symptoms. Eight hours of sleep is the best form of mental self-care for me.

Emotional

Emotional self-care is an area where I have experienced growth on my journey and an area that I must continue to give myself grace in when I return to old patterns. Over the past six months, I have engaged in extensive self-reflection on my emotional responses to various situations and statements. I have learned that I was wasting a lot of energy and emotions that were unnecessary or did not align with the moment. I have found it liberating to simply allow the moment to pass, and more importantly, to focus on the positive side.

I want to be clear: emotions are not bad. What we consider negative emotions are not bad. I found that I was in the habit of having big negative emotions when they were rarely warranted. This is the type of response that I wanted to change.  The changes I made have lifted a weight that I did not realize I was carrying. I am grateful for this lightness I am now experiencing. Additionally, I give myself grace when past habits resurface, and they do!

Spiritual

Spiritual self-care is an area that I find connected to many other areas of self-care, so this is an area I did not always single out to focus on. I have practiced meditation when I am unable to recenter my emotions through other means. Meditation is difficult for me because I struggle to quiet my mind. That hamster still enjoys running at high speed, but I still find meditation beneficial. Meditation is just one of the many ways I’ve learned that I don’t need to do something perfectly to see benefits, and I view that as real growth.

Financial

After further reflection, I am honestly not sure if my financial challenges can truly be defined as financial self-care. Technically, I am not using them to improve my financial wellness as much as I am to understand how I emotionally feel without purchasing items that I usually buy without much, if any, thought.

In January, I went without purchasing an iced coffee, and from this experience, I realized that I really do enjoy iced coffee, but I was able to do without it. My sweet husband purchased me a coffee pitcher for making our own iced coffee at home. This saves me money, and as a bonus, I can cut way back on the calories when I purchase it at a restaurant. So, this is the only item that counts as financial self-care. The other financial areas I focused on were more mental challenges.

My month with an Amazon budget of $200 was fun, but it didn’t curb my Amazon purchases in future months.  In May, I chose to limit my grocery store spending, which was a great way to utilize all the meat stored in my freezers. I will definitely repeat this challenge in the second half of the year to clean out my freezers and pantry.

In conclusion, as an accountant’s daughter, I love these financial challenges. They actually impact my mental health more than my financial health, and I see that as a win.

Environmental

My environmental journey was divided into two areas: the physical space within my home and my time spent outside in nature.

My work on the physical space in my home has focused on cleaning out and organizing the closets in our house. I desperately want to be the type of person who can go through a closet and ruthlessly discard items that they have not used in years or have only kept for sentimental reasons. This is not me, which means I have to clean and organize a closet and then return to that same space months later for round two and sometimes round three. Is this process a good use of my time? Absolutely not. This is an area for growth in the second half of 2025.

Intellectual

This is one area of self-care that I have not fully committed to up to this point. Reading falls into intellectual self-care, and I certainly read numerous books each month. In fact, I read at least two non-fiction books every month, but this is a form of self-care that I have always practiced.

I continue to learn about creating a blog, but this is a process that I began at the end of 2023. So, in 2025, I didn’t attempt to learn anything new or take on a new hobby, but that is about to change. I have registered to take a watercolor class that begins in July. I am slightly apprehensive about the class, as I am not convinced that my drawing or painting skills have improved since elementary school. I vow now to share my creations with you.

These past six months were filled with highs and lows, just like most people experience. Through this journey of self-care, I have gained a deeper understanding of myself, improved both my physical and mental health, and become more emotionally grounded and present. I am not a new person, but I am a better version of me! I am ready for the next six months of self-care filled with Growth, Grace, and Gratitude. 

So, if you’ve been waiting for a sign, this is it. No rule says you must wait for a new year, a new month, or even a Monday to begin your journey. Start where you are, with what you have, and choose the areas of growth that speak to your heart. Whether it’s physical wellness, emotional healing, creative exploration, or something entirely your own—just start. I invite you to join me in leaping into your own beautiful, unpredictable, and empowering adventure of self-discovery.