The Five R's- A Journey Back to Yourself

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Sarah sat in front of her laptop, the blinking cursor pulsing like a warning light. It was 11:47 PM on a Tuesday, and she couldn’t remember her last real meal, or the last time she felt like herself. The presentation for tomorrow’s big meeting was still half-done, buried beneath a dozen other unfinished projects scattered across her desktop, and her mind.

She was living the modern paradox: doing more than ever, yet accomplishing less.

Sound familiar?

The Breakdown Before the Breakthrough

The shift came unexpectedly, during what should’ve been a routine Monday morning meeting. Sarah opened her mouth to speak… but the words wouldn’t come. Her mind raced, her thoughts scattered like leaves in a storm.

Her body had finally said what her soul had been whispering for months: ENOUGH

That afternoon, her mentor Margaret invited her out for coffee. She listened quietly as Sarah vented, then gently said, “You know, I remember that I used to be exactly where you are. Until I discovered the Five Rs.”

Sarah asked. “The Five Rs?”

Margaret smiled. “Rest. Reset. Recharge. Recreate. Rejuvenate. Not just feel-good words, each one is a step back to yourself.”

Rest: Where It All Begins

Margaret’s first lesson was simple, but life-changing:

“Rest isn’t a reward you earn after hustling. It’s the foundation everything else is built on.”

Sarah had always treated rest like a guilty pleasure, something you snuck in when the work was done. But now, she started to see it differently.

She learned to trade passive rest (doom-scrolling, binging shows) for active rest: reading, quiet walks, intentional sleep. Eight hours of rest stopped being a luxury, and became non-negotiable fuel.

Within two weeks, she felt the shift. Her focus sharpened. Her patience returned. Even her creativity reawakened.

Reset: The Power of Starting Fresh

“Every day is a blank page,” Margaret said during their next coffee. “But most people keep scribbling on yesterday’s mess.”

Sarah made resetting a daily ritual. Five quiet minutes each morning to clear her mind, acknowledge yesterday, and consciously begin again. She decluttered her space—digital and physical—giving herself a fresh start more often than she thought she needed.

Eventually, she introduced weekly and monthly resets, pausing to realign her goals, her values, her pace.

Resetting wasn’t about erasing the past, it was about learning how to carry it forward without letting it weigh her down.

Recharge: Fill the Tank A Pit Stop

“You check your phone battery ten times a day,” Margaret said. “When’s the last time you checked your own?”

Sarah started tuning in to her personal battery signals: irritation, lack of color in the world, feeling robotic. These weren’t mood swings, they were messages.

Recharge looked different each day. Sometimes it was hiking under the open sky. Other times it was belly laughs with a friend. Or sitting still, doing nothing, letting herself breathe.

She stopped apologizing for taking breaks. Because full batteries power bold moves.

Recreate: Joy Without a Deadline

“When was the last time you made something just because you wanted to?” Margaret asked.

Sarah went blank. Her creativity had been buried beneath client revisions and KPI reports.

So, she started small, doodles on napkins, cooking something new, writing for no one but herself. It felt silly at first, even wasteful. But slowly, it started to feel like oxygen.

Recreation, she realized, wasn’t about being productive, it was about remembering she was alive.

Rejuvenate: The Becoming

“This isn’t about going back to who you were,” Margaret said. “It’s about becoming who you were meant to be.”

Sarah began integrating the first four Rs, not as to-do’s, but as a way of life. She didn’t just recover, she evolved. She stopped viewing hard days as failures and started seeing them as growth moments.

Rejuvenation became less about bouncing back and more about rising forward, wiser, lighter, stronger.

The Ripple Effect

Six months later, Sarah’s career was thriving. Her work improved, but more importantly, her relationship with work had transformed.

She no longer wore exhaustion like a badge of honor.

Her team noticed too, she was more creative, more present, more grounded. But the biggest shift wasn’t professional.

It was personal.

Sarah had rediscovered something that once felt lost: herself.

Your Turn

The Five Rs aren’t just recovery tips—they’re life principles. They remind us we’re not machines to optimize, but humans to nurture.

Rest when you need to.

Reset when you’re stuck.

Recharge when you’re empty.

Recreate when you forget who you are.

Rejuvenate when you’re ready to become someone new.

Your future self is waiting, and she’s rested, clear, energized, joyful, and beautifully renewed.

The cursor blinks.

Your story continues.

What will you choose next?

If this spoke to you, pause and ask: which of the Five Rs do I need most right now? Start there. Start small. But start today no more “I can’t “ just start.

• Miguel E Villarreal