JoAnne Bass

I would tell my service members and fellow wingmen, hey, take care of you, take care of yourself, take care of all the things, and I wasn't doing it.

And I'll never forget that assignment at about the 24-year mark because it was a rough assignment.

Nobody knew the struggle that I had and the balance because what do we do, Mick?

We go on, we put on a mask.

And the only people who typically know was our families.

And so so there somehow I had a wake up call.

I've had previous conversations with my kiddos before, but there was one time where my youngest was like, Mom, you always put on your computer like like I would come home from work, get home, set up my computer again and start working.

Thinking I'm present, but I'm not really present.

And so that was my 24-year mark in the military was really an inflection point on I need to get it together.

And I've got to figure out a way to balance the different pillars in my life, the physical, the spiritual, the social, and the mental.

Because if I can't balance that and I'm not a full-up brown, then I'm not going to be great to anybody.

Right.

And so so I started to also at the same time study this thing called self-care.

Yeah.

They do self-care when I came in.

Right.

Like we didn't even know that.

I don't even know that that was terminology.

But but I started to realize that self-care is not selfish, that if I take care of myself, I can be a better mother, wife, leader, airman, community partner, whatever it might be.

And so I just started practicing that.