In this video Cheryl McColgan, founder of Heal, Nourish, Grow, guides participants through Day 13 of the 30‑Day Healthy Habits challenge, focusing on a quick emotional check‑in. She explains why busy, work‑mode days often skip self‑reflection and introduces a simple one‑sentence prompt—“Right now I feel ___”—paired with noticing bodily sensations. Cheryl outlines how to label emotions (e.g., stressed, calm, anxious, excited, tired, hopeful, frustrated, happy, sad), add a brief cause (“I feel this because…”) and optionally ask “What do I need right now?” to translate awareness into action. She connects the practice to earlier habits like the movement stack and breathing exercises, showing how recognizing anxiety can cue a specific tool. The video highlights research‑backed benefits: labeling emotions reduces anxiety intensity, promotes intentional responses, and strengthens mindfulness and self‑awareness. Practical tips are offered for those who struggle to name feelings, encouraging starting with any listed emotion and using the habit tracker (healnourishgrow.com/habits) to log consistency. Cheryl ends by inviting viewers to continue the challenge and see her tomorrow.
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Hey everyone, I'm Cheryl McColgan, founder of Heal, Nourish, Grow, and welcome to day 13 of the 30 Days of Healthy Habits challenge. Today we're doing a quick emotional check-in. So this is something that I notice that when I'm just, you know, in work mode and I'm kind of moving through my day and I'm just checking things off my to-do list, you often don't take time to just kind of check in with yourself and see how you're actually doing. So it can be useful just to make sure that you know what's going on, that you can check in and see if you're, you notice you're overly stressed, overly anxious, if you're doing too much. And it's just a simple one-sentence thing that you'll do for this emotional check-in. And that is to say, right now I feel blank. And we're also noticing if there is any feeling in the body that's associated with this. So it's just taking kind of, uh, an overview of both your physiological and emotional state at the same time. It's quite often when we experience certain emotions, whether it's stress or anxiety or excitement, You know, they don't always have to be negative emotions that we're feeling, but you'll notice that you feel it somewhere in your body. And so that can just be useful to notice where you're holding extra tension. And again, it just gives you some bullet points or some things to notice that you can try to counteract then. So for example, yesterday's habit was the movement stack. And if you take an emotional check-in and you notice that you feel anxious in that moment, well, it might be useful to do one of our breathing exercises that we've checked in as a habit, or to do a little bit of movement to you know, move some of that anxiety out of your body, but to first notice it, you have to notice it if you're gonna be able to actually address it and do anything about it. So the cue is right now I feel blank and just notice where you feel it in your body. So the reason this matters is that labeling emotions can help reduce anxiety and help you respond with more intention. And then they also reduces the intensity. So especially if it's a negative emotion, this naming it and noticing it will help you calm down and actually respond instead of overreact or react in a way that is not helpful for you. It also strengthens just self-awareness and mindfulness. So this is also something that we do, you know, sometimes in a meditation practice that you are, you know, people's minds are going everywhere, but you're just observing thoughts and noticing them in a meditation and not necessarily trying to change anything, but just getting this idea of self-awareness. So if you get stuck and you're not like, can't name what you're feeling, you can use this simple list. This is, or some of the most common ones that people people might experience in the moment is stressed, calm, anxious, excited, tired, hopeful, frustrated, happy, sad. Um, all, uh, there's all kinds, but those, those are kind of the typical ones that people might feel. And then add one sentence to this and say, I feel this because— so you might, again, it's this idea of tuning in so that you can be more aware of actually what's happening to you in the moment. And an example might be, I might feel this way because I'm frustrated with my boss, or, uh, I might feel this way because I'm excited to go on my trip tomorrow or something like that. And if you wanna go even a little bit deeper, you can ask, what do I need right now? So if you are feeling stressed or anxious, again, that's what do you need? Maybe it's some of the tools that we've practiced so far that help reduce stress and anxiety. So If you can't, again, if you don't know what you feel exactly, and this is, this is really challenging for a lot of people. Start with a sentence of say something and see if it resonates with you. Say like, I feel tired. And then, you know, think about that for a second. Is that it? Or I feel overwhelmed. Just pick any one of those things that I named off earlier in the video and try it on and see if that works out for you. But if you have trouble, that's probably a sign that you need to take this on as a more, more, uh, practice that's every day and something that you might wanna keep. Because if you're having trouble naming it, then that just is kind of identifying that maybe you're not present in the moment and you're not in tune with your emotions or feelings. So of course there's the links for the studies associated with this in the challenge emails and in the, um, tracker. They're always in the tracker, which is a great tool. So you're checking off these days of habits that you're trying and kind of creating little streaks. And that's also a great way to keep your habits intact and going from day to day. Into the future. So if you're not signed up yet, the link is healnourishgrow.com/habits. And for those of you that are doing the challenge right now, I will see you tomorrow.
