You stayed.
Now we're going to build.
Because your life is still your life.
The children are still there.
The job is still there.
The bills are still there.
The responsibilities are still there.
The appointments, relationships, deadlines,
laundry, homework, caregiving, errands, and whatever else has your name on it did not disappear because you decided your health mattered.
Life did not receive a memo announcing:
ATTENTION EVERYONE: SHE IS WORKING ON HERSELF NOW. PLEASE CLEAR THE CALENDAR.
No.
Life kept life-ing.
And that's exactly why this part matters.
You don't need a health plan that only works when life gets out of the way.
You need to begin building your health into the life you're actually living.
My Body Changed. My Life Didn't Automatically Change With It.
For me, one of the biggest shifts in my body began with weight-loss surgery.
That's my story.
It doesn't have to be yours.
Your journey may include medication such as a GLP-1 or GIP-based treatment under medical care.
It may involve changes in nutrition, movement,
medical treatment, or another approach altogether.
The method you use to pursue weight change is not the point of this chapter.
The point is this:
When your body and its needs change, the life surrounding that body doesn't automatically reorganize itself.
As I began losing what would eventually become more than 115 pounds, there were things I needed to do differently.
How I ate was changing.
Movement was becoming more important in my routine.
My body had different needs.
And all of those changes were happening while I was still raising four children.
Four.
Children.
They had not signed up for weight-loss surgery.
They did not care about my new eating routine.
They were kids.
Meanwhile, we already had an established way of living.
There had been plenty of fast food.
There were eating habits I would later begin changing.
There were things I had taught my children simply because that was what I knew and what worked within the life I was managing at the time.
I wasn't intentionally teaching them something harmful.
I was doing the best I knew to do with what I knew then.
We've already adjourned that courtroom,
remember?
I'm not going back in there to prosecute an earlier version of myself for information she didn't have yet.
But now I had new information.
My body was changing.
My needs were changing.
And the structure of my life had to begin changing too.
I Was Trying to Live Two Lives For a while, it felt like there were two separate systems happening.
There was the way my family had been living.
And then there was this new way I needed to care for myself.
They ate one way.
I needed something different.
They had activities.
I needed movement too.
They had schedules.
I had work.
There was homework.
There were meals.
There was sleep.
There was LIFE.
And somewhere inside all of that, I was trying to figure out where my health was supposed to go.
I knew I needed to do things differently.
But knowing that didn't magically create more hours.
And I was not about to stand in the kitchen fixing five different doggone meals every night.
If we were going somewhere to eat, I wasn't stopping at five different restaurants either.
Something had to change.
Eventually, I began to understand:
I couldn't keep living my health beside my life.
I had to build my health into it.
That distinction changed everything.
I Matter Too Long before I knew how to build myself into my life, somebody had been telling me that I belonged there.
My grandmother.
Throughout my life, she reminded me that I mattered.
Even during seasons when insecurity made that difficult for me to believe.
Even when I felt like the world around me was communicating something different.
She reminded me:
You matter.
And after I became a mother, she kept driving that truth home.
My children mattered.
My responsibilities mattered.
The people I loved mattered.
And I mattered too.
My life mattered too.
My health mattered too.
She gave me that truth long before I understood what it would require of me.
And then my grandmother died.
The woman who had spent years telling me that I mattered was gone.
What she had planted in me wasn't.
Somewhere along the way, I matter too began becoming more than something my grandmother had told me.
I began learning how to practice it.
Because there is a difference between believing you matter and building a life that reflects that belief.
Knowing you matter is a belief.
Building like you matter is a practice.
The Structure Had to Catch Up So I started looking at my actual life.
Not the life I wished I had.
Not some imaginary version where I had unlimited time, unlimited money, no children to raise, no job,
no responsibilities, and apparently somebody else doing all the laundry.
My life.
And little by little, I began looking for ways to include myself in it.
Food was one of the first places.
Instead of maintaining one way of eating for everybody else and another completely separate
system for me, I started cooking more.
And as I learned, I began talking with my children and family about why some of our habits were changing.
Our bodies mattered.
Our health mattered.
I was trying to solve a very practical problem:
How do I give myself what I need without creating a completely separate life to do it?
That question kept showing up.
They Needed a Place. So Did I.
My children had busy schedules.
And I was proud of that.
I didn't want them to simply go to school and come home.
They had football.
Show choir.
Activities.
Opportunities to socialize, develop skills, discover things about themselves, and enjoy being kids.
I wanted that for them.
But there was still this other question:
Where am I?
Because after their schedules and my work schedule, there wasn't a whole lot left.
And movement wasn't going to magically happen because I sincerely wanted it to.
So I began looking for environments where both things could be true.
My children could have a place.
And I could have a place too.
One of the places that worked beautifully for our family was the YMCA.
There were programs and spaces for them.
And there were programs and spaces for me.
Sometimes they could be involved in an activity while I was somewhere else in the building getting movement in.
I didn't have to choose between being present for them and having a place for myself.
I began finding ways for both to exist.
And here's something I love about that part of my story:
Years later, I'm still there.
I now work inside the YMCA as a cycling instructor and personal trainer.
Something I originally found because I needed a structure that could hold my children and me eventually became part of the life I continued building.
I couldn't have known all of that then.
I was just trying to figure out where I fit.
Build Doesn't Always Happen All at Once Food continued evolving too.
Cooking more helped.
Until cooking every single night became another problem.
Because life was still life-ing.
School.
Work.
Homework.
Activities.
Sleep.
Everything still needed a place.
So eventually I began experimenting with preparing more food ahead of time—cooking meals that could be refrigerated or frozen so we weren't dependent on either cooking from scratch every evening or falling back on fast food because we were exhausted.
That eventually became part of how meal preparation worked for me.
But I don't want you copying my solutions just because they were mine.
That's not the lesson.
You may not need my food system.
You may not need my gym.
You may not have children.
Your work schedule may look nothing like mine.
Your body may need something completely different from mine.
Your medical team may have given you guidance specific to your health.
Build Yourself In™ is not about building my life.
It's about learning how to examine yours.
The lesson underneath all of my examples is this:
Little by little, I found ways to stop being an afterthought and become a main character in our story.
Not the only character.
Not the person whose needs suddenly mattered more than everybody else's.
I mattered too.
Build Yourself In™ We're going to keep this simple.
I am not asking you to redesign your entire life before you finish this chapter.
And I'm definitely not asking you to create the world's most beautiful color-coded calendar.
We'll deal with the actual week soon enough.
1. REMEMBER THAT YOU MATTER Start here.
You matter too.
Not more than everybody.
Not instead of everybody.
Too.
Before we talk about calendars, meals, movement,
appointments, or routines, I want you to notice whether you've actually included yourself in the life you're building.
REFLECTION
Where have you been treating your wellbeing like it only gets whatever is left?
2. SEE YOUR ACTUAL LIFE Now look at the life you actually live.
Not your ideal week.
Not the week you think you should have.
Your real one.
What responsibilities are already there?
Who depends on you?
What does work require?
What does home require?
What does your body require?
What medical or health-related needs are already real?
What time, money, transportation, childcare,
energy, or other resources affect what's possible?
What does your actual life currently require from you?
3. FIND THE LEFTOVERS Now look at what remains after all of those responsibilities have taken their place.
Where do you currently fit?
Do you get intentional time?
Or whatever happens to remain?
Does your wellbeing have a place?
Or does it depend on whether everybody else is finished needing you?
Be honest.
Not cruel.
Not dramatic.
Just honest.
Where have you been depending on leftovers?
And I need to say something here.
Sometimes the barriers you're seeing are real.
Money can be real.
Time can be real.
Childcare can be real.
Transportation can be real.
Work schedules can be real.
Your body can have real limitations.
Medical needs can be real.
Caregiving responsibilities can be real.
We're not going to insult real barriers with motivational quotes.
The Searchlight isn't here to shame you for circumstances that actually exist.
It's here to help you see them clearly enough to build with the truth.
What real barriers or limitations need to be considered?
4. NAME WHAT NEEDS A PLACE Now choose one area.
Not seventeen.
One.
What part of your wellbeing currently needs more intentional consideration?
Maybe it's nourishment.
Maybe movement.
Maybe rest.
Maybe medical care.
Maybe something else that matters in your particular health journey.
You determine that based on your needs and,
where appropriate, the guidance of the professionals involved in your care.
The question isn't:
How am I going to fix my entire life?
It's:
What needs a place?
5. BUILD YOURSELF IN Now ask:
Where could this need have a place inside the life I actually live?
Not your fantasy life.
Not somebody else's routine.
Not the version of your life where every obstacle disappears.
Yours.
Maybe you don't have the complete answer yet.
That's okay.
You're not building the entire system in this moment.
You're identifying possibility.
For me, that eventually looked like finding a place where my children could have their activities and I could move too.
It looked like changing how food worked inside our household instead of trying to maintain two completely separate worlds.
Your answer may look nothing like mine.
It shouldn't have to.
Where could you begin building yourself in?
You Are Not the Scraps I wasn't chopped liver.
I wasn't the scraps.
I wasn't the person who only got whatever remained after everybody else had eaten from my time, energy, attention, and care.
I mattered too.
And here's the distinction I don't want you to miss:
I didn't become worthy of care because taking care of myself made me more useful to everybody else.
I already mattered.
That was true before the fruit.
Before the improvement.
Before anybody else benefited from it.
I mattered.
And so do you.
Now We Build the Week You've identified one part of your wellbeing that needs a place.
That's enough for now.
Because knowing what needs a place is one thing.
Making room for it inside an actual Monday,
Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday,
and Sunday?
That's another conversation.
And we're ready for it.
Bring your real life.
Bring your responsibilities.
Bring the thing you just identified.
And yes...
Bring the Searchlight.
We're about to look at the week before the week starts making all the decisions for us.
Ready to put this chapter to work?