Wellness Waypoints #3: I'd rather be respected than liked
Frozen ginger, evening gratification loops, and the mantra I keep coming back to
Welcome to Wellness Waypoints — a mini 3-2-1 series where I share 3 actionable wellness tips, 2 small discoveries and 1 mantra that supports my journey to living well. Each edition highlights simple micro-practices, recent discoveries and easy-to-digest mantra’s that’s bringing more ease and intention to my daily routine. I share them in hopes of them inspiring you too!
3 actionable wellness tips
1. Warm lemon water + grated ginger every morning
I used to reach for coffee the second my feet hit the floor. Now, I boil the kettle and squeeze half a lemon into a mug with freshly grated ginger — and I notice a real difference when I skip it.
Ginger contains gingerol, a bioactive compound with anti-inflammatory and antioxidant properties. NIH research has shown that regular ginger consumption can lower C-reactive protein (a key inflammation marker) by 15–20% after just four weeks. The vitamin C and polyphenols in lemons add their own anti-inflammatory layer.
Together, it’s a simple, warm way to support your gut and immune system before you’ve even checked your phone.
Pro tip: Freeze your ginger. It grates like a dream straight from the freezer, lasts weeks longer, and I mash it all together with the lemon using my cocktail muddler. It’s weirdly satisfying!
Takeaway: What would it feel like to swap your first coffee for a warm lemon-ginger water — even just for a week?
2. Self study on the continuous pursuit of gratification
I noticed something about myself recently. My evening wind-down: get comfortable on the couch. Nice. Then... maybe a face mask. Then a cup of tea. Then a chocolate or two. Then the red light mask. Layer after layer of small comforts, each one promising to make the moment just a little better.
It had become so instinctual I stopped questioning it.
What I was doing — without realizing it — was outsourcing contentment. Reaching outward, again and again, for something to make the moment feel more complete. The problem isn’t the tea or the chocolate. It’s the reflexive habit of adding — the quiet belief that the present moment, on its own, isn’t quite enough.
In yoga philosophy, there’s a concept for the antidote to this: Pratyahara. It’s the fifth limb of Patanjali’s eight-limbed path, and it translates to the withdrawal of the senses. Not numbing out. Not white-knuckling through discomfort. But gently drawing awareness inward — away from the next stimulus, and toward what’s already present. It’s the practice of noticing what the moment actually contains, rather than what we could add to it.
Paired with this is Santosha, one of the Niyamas, meaning contentment. Not forced positivity or “to be grateful and shut up.” It’s the quieter practice of meeting the moment as it is — not as it could be with one more layer of comfort on top.
When I started practicing both, the practical benefits arrived quickly: less tea meant fewer bathroom trips at night. No chocolate before bed meant a lower resting heart rate, better sleep. But the subtler shift was more interesting: I started noticing how much of my day was quietly driven by a pull toward more — not out of genuine need, but because the habit of reaching had become invisible.
Pratyahara off the mat can look like: sitting without your phone for ten minutes after dinner. Finishing a meal without immediately reaching for something sweet. Pausing before the next scroll. Not to deprive yourself — but to notice what’s actually there when you stop layering.
Santosha is what happens when the pause settles. You realize the couch, the quiet, the ordinary evening — it was already something. It didn’t need improving.
Takeaway: For the next seven days, try finishing one moment before reaching for the next one. Not forever. Just one moment at a time. Notice what’s already there before you add to it.
3. A mental reframe if you’re afraid of uncertainty
How we spend our time defines who we are, the memories we cherish, and how we will be remembered by those we leave behind.
I keep coming back to this when I feel stuck. Uncertainty has this strange way of keeping us frozen. We can’t see the path clearly, so we stay put. Weeks pass. Months. And the uncertainty doesn’t resolve itself; it just becomes the backdrop of a life on pause.
If you’re in the middle of it right now — a career transition, a relationship question, a move you keep putting of… what’s the actual price of staying exactly where you are? Not the short-term discomfort of changing. The long-term cost of not changing.
Uncertainty isn’t the enemy. Stagnation disguised as caution is.
Takeaway: Ask yourself — what’s the one thing you’ve been putting off because the path isn’t perfectly clear?
2 small discoveries
1. Three different loves can exist in entrepreneurship
This one shifted something for me. I remember an early call with a friend who was a 2x founder, before I’d even quit my 9-to-5. They asked me: “Are you looking for a small creative business, or one that’s poised for hyper-growth? You need to know that early, because the direction you choose should dictate every step that follows.”
There are three distinct types of love in entrepreneurship — and most people don’t realize which one they’re operating from:
💡 Love for the idea — from afar, like a fairy tale. Beautiful and untouched... and unbuilt. It’s like watching Dragon’s Den from the comfort of your own home, in your cozy robe and eyeballing at the idea and thrill of it all.
🖌️ Love for the craft — being in it. The mastery, the learning, the slow improvement. Think of a craftsman fine-detailing handmade leather goods.
💸 Love for building a successful business — revenue, profit, scale. Equally valid, completely different energy.
Especially at the beginning, you need to know which one you’re in it for.
That question from my friend still lives in my head rent-free.
2. Nami Project in Ucluelet, BC
I recently went to Nami Project in Ucluelet for the second time and came home feeling renewed — mentally and creatively as an individual, and more connected and replenished in my relationship with my partner and now recently... fiancé!
Nami Project is an adults-only oceanfront landscape hotel nestled into the rocky bluff of Ucluelet, on the west coast of Vancouver Island, just steps from the Wild Pacific Trail, within the Pacific Rim National Park Reserve. It consists of four oceanside cabins, each with a private sauna and hot tub overlooking the Pacific.
We booked the same cabin as last time — Akua — and used it to host our half-day, casual “relationship offsite.” This was the first time we ran one and it was the best thing we’ve done in our relationship recently. We got to talk through forward facing and at times more serious questions that we don’t get a chance to in a safe, supportive environment, along with wedding planning! Highly recommend.
Something about that setting strips away the noise — no doom scrolling, no dishes to argue over. Just two people and a big question: where are we headed?
📍 Ucluelet, BC · namiproject.ca
1 Mantra
🕉️ “I’d rather be respected than liked.”
A reminder to all of us — and especially the people pleasers. (👋 Hi, yes! I’m one)
I spent years choosing likability. Softening my opinions. Saying yes when I meant no. It worked — people liked me. But I didn’t respect myself as much as I do now during those years. The shift happened somewhere between quitting my 9-to-5 and realizing that the people whose opinions I valued most were the ones who respected honesty over agreeableness.
Most people aren’t actually thinking about you — they’re too busy thinking about themselves. So you might as well do whatever feels right to you. Respect compounds. Likability fades the moment you stop performing.
I hope this edition gives you something small to sit with this week.
More next time,
— Terri x