August: Giving Myself What I Haven't Earned Yet
- Aug 30
- 3 min read
As promised, I'm back with you at this new month's end to tell you how I personally lived out this exercise of resting without having earned it, and more broadly, this August 2026.
If July was the month I started (re)becoming the woman I wanted to be, August was the month I learned to give myself more time, more attention, more rest... before feeling like I'd truly earned it.
Resting Before I've Done It All
Last week, just days before the month's end, I was still pretty far from checking every box on the list I'd made for August. The old me would have simply said out loud: I don't deserve this break yet. Even so, I gave myself a weekend, somewhere new, just a few miles outside Paris.
Not so long ago, I only allowed myself to rest once everything was finished, even if it meant ending up exhausted. Now, I rest as soon as I feel the first signs of tiredness, sometimes even before, for no reason other than the pleasure of doing it.
Because I'm a human being. Not a phone battery. Not a gas tank.
Because I don't have to run myself completely empty to justify stopping to regularly refuel my energy.
And for me, that's a far bigger shift than it seems.
Noticing What Soothes Me
In August, I also practiced noticing something else: what, around me, actually soothes my body or mind, rather than what impresses or excites it.
I stopped only seeking out interesting or stimulating people. I took the time to notice the ones around whom I feel lighter, calmer. The ones I can talk freely with, laugh with, take my time with, without needing to be some other version of myself. A version that protects itself or performs.
I already knew I didn't need to be strong all the time. But I was afraid that showing vulnerability would make me lose my worth in certain people's eyes.
The right circle disproves that belief. What beautiful progress!
Of course, I still sometimes doubt what my body feels, still hesitate before fully welcoming lightness. But I notice it faster than before, and I can correct it, with the right thoughts and the right actions.
Gentleness Is a Practice, Not Just an Idea
In this eighth month of the year, gentleness has (finally) stopped being an intention and become a real, recurring habit.
There was that evening when, hit by an unexplained and uncontrollable anxiety, I had to combine listening to music at therapeutic frequencies with picking up a manual activity again (an old crochet project) just to stop... thinking.
Apparently, my body and my brain both needed to step out of "active production" mode and wanted only to be present in the moment.
I just wanted to be. To exist without proving anything.
Giving Myself Grace: What I'm Carrying into September
If I had to sum up August in one sentence, it would be: giving yourself what you haven't earned yet.
Giving myself rest. Giving myself creation. Giving myself slowness. Giving myself the right to be happy before accomplishing everything.
Without worrying anymore about whether we already deserve it because our past is already full of proof, or whether we'll deserve it eventually because our future is already building new proof.
A gentle life, it turns out, isn't built by waiting for everything to be perfect. It's built by making decisions, starting today, that reflect the person we're deliberately choosing to become.
So for my next journaling session, I'll open my notebook to answer this question, and I invite you to do the same:
What am I giving myself today, without waiting to have earned it?
The EstellyHappy Happiness Journal will go with me through this morning exercise, or the night before. It's available in the shop.
I'll meet you again in September for a new exercise.
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And to start your own evening ritual, the EstellyHappy Happiness Journal is waiting for you in the shop.
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