Refill Your Well
“If you must join a movement, make sure there’s dancing.” — Harry Styles; Are You Listening Yet?
Throughout May, my articles have flowed with reminders to embrace your softer energy. Your Yin, your water element, your feminine essence, call it what you will. That gentle, expansive, patient, but incredibly powerful force that we all carry in varying degrees.
I invited you to open the tap and let more of it move into the world. To explore, play, follow intuition, and wander beyond purely goal-driven focus and rigid routines.
And perhaps that’s why the lyric from Harry Styles quoted above truly sings to me:
Even causes need dancing, just as purpose needs play.
The more we are committed to growth, contribution, discipline, and meaningful work the more we must remember to refill the well we are drawing from.
Once the tap of our potential is open, how do we keep the well full?
Part of the answer is rhythm: oscillating between exertion and recovery, effort and restoration and giving and receiving.
Honoring, guilt-free, your own self-care so that you have the capacity to care for others.
Create a supportive circadian rhythm, time to wind down, sleep consistently, and allow your nervous system to soften… most of the time anyway. Just leave room to go off-script too. Life is meant to be lived, not optimized into a sterile spreadsheet.
And within your waking hours, create smaller rhythms as well. Ultradian rhythms, cycles of focused effort followed by intentional rest. Research supports roughly 90 minutes of deep focus followed by 15 to 30 minutes of recovery, ideally without phones or screens. Silence. Walking. Nature. Stretching. Breathing. Play.
Even micro-movements, like seriously tiny movements, have been shown to make a difference. Standing up. Swinging your arms. Shaking out tension for a few seconds every fifteen minutes or so. Miniature resets that remind the body it is alive and designed for movement. Thank you to esteemed NASA scientist Dr. Joan Vernikos for helping validate what our bodies probably knew all along.
And from that list above, perhaps the most important reminder is: Play.
Not productivity disguised as play.
But, actually play.
Skip. Juggle. Doodle on a napkin. Build something ridiculous out of empty boxes. Wander off the path. Climb a tree. Try something you are hilariously unskilled at and find joy in the trying instead of pressure in the outcome. Create for the sake of creation.
And finally, refill the well in larger ways too.
Not every restorative experience has to look like someone else’s version of a vacation. It simply needs to pull you out of the gravity of the everyday and remind you what it feels like to be fully alive.
Maybe that looks like a day trip into nature, exploring a new town, revisiting an old favorite place, taking time off to dive deeply into your passions, a road trip, a yoga retreat, a train ride, a weekend at the spa, or if life allows, a three-week backpacking adventure across another continent.
And yes, sometimes the perfect vacation really is spending every day joyfully training at a Muay Thai gym. Looking at you, Tigre. 😉
Not all of us have equal access to these opportunities, and full acknowledgment to the limitations many people face. But as someone who has lived much of her life with very limited resources, I can say this with confidence:
Creativity and courage often open doors that money alone cannot.
And every time I have found a way to refill my own well, whether through rest, play, adventure, stillness, or connection, it has returned to others in kind.
Because when our well runs deeply and freely, we do not simply nourish ourselves, but become a source others can drink from too.
— Ariel
Eos Coaching
About Eos Coaching
Eos Coaching is rooted in the practice of making the most of today. Through functional wellness, performance coaching, and reflective practice, I work with individuals who want to build strength, clarity, and consistency without burnout.
This Substack is an extension of that work. A place for field notes, reflections, and practical tools that support steady progress and self-trust.
You can learn more about my coaching work or subscribe to my bi-weekly newsletter, Reflections, at eoscoaching.us.