What Stays With Us: Keeping Momentum Without the Hype
- Bonnie Rose
- Jul 9, 2025
- 4 min read
It has been a little while since Unlock Your Body: Full Body Reset wrapped up with 24 days of stretching and moving our body for strength, mobility and flexibility. Whether you followed along silently or dipped in and out, I want to check in:
Are you continuing to move your body daily?
Still stretching?
Do you take breaks in the day to notice your body and how it feels?
I have been thinking about what happens after a challenge ends. How that process affects us when the structure disappears, the daily check-ins quiet down and the initial excitement fades.
Feeling motivated is so easy when there is a new plan to follow, but what happens when we stand out here on our own?
This is where the real work of self-care and wellness begins. We learn to let go of judgment and step away from comparison. We notice what sticks, what slips away and how we keep going in ways that truly support us.
The Fall Off After the High
There is this quiet myth many of us have believed that I would like to dispel. This idea that we should always be performing at a certain level, constantly growing and never dipping. That progress looks like a straight, rising line.
This myth is harmful because as we slow down, or crash, it hits us harder. It feels like a personal failure. In reality, both ends of that extreme, pushing constantly or collapsing completely, can be equally unsustainable.
Here is a good visual if you think about it like caffeine. If you life your life on strong coffee all day, you get sharp peaks of energy followed by hard crashes. If you swap a few of those cups for tea, suddenly your energy smooths out. You still rise and fall, which is normal, but more gently and sustainably.
You are not “falling off” after the high of a challenge. You are learning to move differently and to take steadier steps across smaller peaks. To stop chasing the highest highs and not look for the next ‘quick fix’, westart building a rhythm we can actually live with in our day-to-day.
Challenges give us something powerful: structure, focus and a sense of shared purpose. There is a clear goal, a daily check-in, and often, a little spark of excitement that keeps us moving.
These type of challenges can carry us through moments when motivation dips and holds us up when we might otherwise pause. The end of it is your moment to learn to stand on your own feet and embrace a new rhythm as you take things you have learned through the process that can continue to help you.
You start to lose your footing when you skip a day, and then a few. The slide down happens when you stop pausing to check in with how your body feels. That is such a simple thing you can every day that takes just a moment. It is a focus on the importance of self-care and wellness.
See the dips as your time of reconnecting, listening and recalibration. Take a look at the ‘high’ you are coming off from and find a gentle step close to where you are now. To find your footing again is normal. Simply put you are learning to walk a different path. One with smaller peaks, steadier steps and fewer hard crashes.
I think about this a lot in my bodywork practice. Clients leave a massage feeling open, grounded and more at ease. People want to hold onto that feeling and often, the instinct is to go big and can follow with a wave of overwhelm before beginning. As people go back to their normal daily activities and when that proves too much, the momentum drops off completely.
Which is why I am a huge advocate to keeping it simple. I love to offer my in-person (and online clients) small, doable stretches and self-care tips that fit into real life.
This is not by any means because it is easier, but because they are stickier. A shoulder roll while the coffee brews. A five-minute reset before bed. An in-between work stand up to stretch the body.
These small acts might not look like progress in the traditional sense. They are the rhythm of wellness. They are how we stay connected to our bodies, even without a challenge guiding us.
Coming Back to What Matters
If you have ever felt yourself drifting since the challenge ended, know you are not alone. This is the part where we learn how to support ourselves. Notice what feels good and what fits into your day.
You do not need to be perfect. You just need to keep coming back.
Check in with yourself and remember it is okay to put importance on taking care of yourself.
I will be sharing more here on the substack, things I offer to my in-person clients and use in my own life to stay grounded and connected. Think of this space as a quiet little nudge to return to your body, one post at a time.
I love to hear from you. What has been sticking for you lately? What has fallen away? Are there small habits that help you feel better in your body?
Drop a comment or just take a moment to reflect.
This originally appeared on Knotsology's Substack. Subscribe to get posts like this and find out more about subscriber-only posts: https://knotsology.substack.com/p/what-stays-with-us
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