What makes you feel alive?

Wow, time flies when you’re having fun. I knew I hadn’t done a blog post in a while, but I didn’t realize it’s been over a month! I suppose I’ve been out enjoying life a lot more lately and also resting like a boss afterwards. Since my last blog post, I’ve traveled three weekends in a row, gone on a ski trip and thrown myself into fitness.

First, let me tell you a little about skiing. We missed skiing last winter because of my sprained ankle, which came just a few months before my sprained brain (both soccer-related injuries). With post concussion syndrome affecting every aspect of my life, we didn’t think skiing was going to happen this year. What I didn’t know is that my husband had purchased lift tickets for Mont Tremblant before I asked my physio for his opinion. But really, what could go wrong, amirite? Luckily in January, I started some new treatment modalities that I hadn’t yet tried, and I’ve been gradually getting back to my usual self. That being said, my physiotherapist was not super excited about the idea of me going skiing. Despite my confidence and experience with it, some things are just unpredictable, like the other people on the hills. We wouldn’t want all my recent progress to go to waste with a hard fall or a ski-hill collision.

I decided that in order to go, I’d need to get myself back into good shape. We started working with a personal trainer once a week in January (my Christmas gift to him), and despite the rocky start, over the first four weeks I saw my brain and body doing amazing things. My vertigo gradually reduced, eye strain became less and less, auditory sensitivity was nearly gone (hooray for not having to wear earplugs to work out!), my recovery time got shorter, and best of all, my need to push myself finally outweighed my fear of hurting myself. Have I said this before? I think so, but it’s pretty exciting and worth saying twice!

With all this new-found strength and ability, I decided that in order to make myself as safe as possible on the ski hill, I would need to work extra hard on the ground before we left. With that, in February I launched into a 12-week fitness program involving cardio 3 days per week, strength training 3 days per week and some hot yoga where it fit in. The best part was that the end-date of the program would coincide with my 35th birthday, and also, the anniversary of the concussion. My motivation was to prepare myself for the ski trip AND to also get myself into the best possible condition for my birthday, to prove to myself that the entire year has not been lost under a cloud of injury.

With my luck, I ended up really sick the week before our trip, having to miss two full days of work and leaving work early on another day. I didn’t have any gumption to do any physical activity as my head felt like it would explode. Naturally, I was feeling weak when we started to ski. I had the pre-anticipatory heart rate increase happening the minute we left our Airbnb for the hill. It wasn’t much different than what I would feel before a soccer game, but it felt like the stakes were higher since I knew I was about to take a real risk. Day 1 went by smoothly, although it was tiring, especially after the 8+ hour drive to get there the day before. We stuck to the easy and moderate level hills, and skied much slower than I usually would. I tried to pay special attention to my technique, and keep a bubble around me. What we didn’t realize is that it would be the start of March Break in Montreal, which meant that Day 2 saw double the people on the hills, including many more unpredictable and unsteady beginners. This made our easy and moderate level hills more challenging, as the volume of people was higher and the number of people to avoid increased as well. I realized that skiing on an advanced run would actually feel safer, and would certainly be more enjoyable, so that’s what we did.

We found another area of the ski hill that we hadn’t seen on Day 1, and the view was breathtaking. I could feel the cold air on my nose and cheeks. I could see the snow-covered pine trees of the boreal forest, big fluffy snowflakes, and mountain peaks as far as my eye could see. I breathed in the outdoor air. I set off down the hill, skiing faster and more confidently than I had all weekend, knowing we had the area mostly to ourselves. It was exhilarating and amazing. I was SO happy to be outside, doing one of the things I love and that has been such an important part of my life, especially having grown up in Northern Ontario, where the winters can be very unforgiving if you don’t learn to enjoy it.

We finished the ski trip with a visit to the Scandanave Spa, with saunas, steam rooms, outdoor hot and cold pools, and the best winter scenery. While completely exhausted from all the fresh air and activity, I truly felt alive and am so grateful to my husband for setting that ball in motion. I’m so happy I wasn’t held back by injury symptoms or fear itself, showing myself what I’m actually capable of.

Fast forward to yesterday, one week after our return home. I was offered the chance to do a make-up class by our trainer, since I missed my regular training class the week I was sick. I was halfway through my second circuit and had a burst of strength and energy. I increased the weights on my row and rowed the heck out of it. I moved to the stability ball plank, with the more difficult option of adding a push-up, and I chose the push-up. I was sweating all over the place, my heart was beating so fast I could feel my entire body pulsing. Mascara was running in my eyeballs. My hands were so wet they could barely grip the ball. But I took a peek at myself in the mirror through burning eyes and was immediately shocked to see the definition in my upper body that I hadn’t seen in over a year. It motivated me to work harder, and in that moment, I realized I also felt truly alive. I left that class feeling stronger, fitter and more inspired. I left that class feeling tired but alive. There’s no better high than a naturally-induced endorphin high.

I realized THIS is what I had been missing out on. Even before my concussion, before my sprained ankle, I can’t think back to the last time I actually felt this way. Thankfully I’m back at it and don’t ever want to lose this feeling again.

So, what makes you feel alive? More importantly, are you doing it?

And so it is.

If you need some help investigating or implementing something that makes you feel alive, contact me to see how we can work together.

Because together, we rise.

The Month-End Closing Ceremony for Humans

At the beginning of February, I was talking to one of my friends who told me for the first time, she did a bit of a closing ceremony for the month of January. We all know what month-end means in the business world: balancing the books, reviewing stats, business-y things. But what about for humans? Is there benefit in doing a month-end ceremony in our personal lives? I thought it was a great idea and I gave it a try.

What do I mean by a month-end closing ceremony? Firstly, it doesn’t have to be a ceremony per se; it can be a journal entry, a meditation, a mind map, or any other strategy you use to keep track of progress. For the month-end ceremony, imagine all the things we do at the end of a year, along with our plans for the upcoming year, but on a smaller scale. One of the reasons we are so ambitious at the end of the year is that a new year brings new possibilities. Well, so does a new month, a new week, or a new day. We often lose track of our goals and true desires in the mundane of day to day life, so it’s a great idea to check back in to see how things are going.

When I did my closing ceremony for the end of January, it wasn’t so much of a ceremony as it was an experience in reflecting and journaling. I reviewed a lot of things, including my 12-month oracle card spread. I reviewed my oracle card for January and how it showed up in my actions during the month. I also took a look at what went well during the month, what tasks or times were more challenging, and how I recovered from those challenges. I reminded myself that I need to be kind to myself and consistently put in effort to work towards my health and fitness goals. I gently noticed what things I had been doing that are not in line with that effort, and how I could do better. Then I made three lists: To Release, To Achieve and What went Well.

To Release: This list is a list of things that had not been serving me that I am trying to move away from. For example, I had baking and overeating sweets and overuse of cellphone as two things I’d like to release in this new month.

To Achieve: this is a list of things I’m working towards or would like to see come to fruition in the month of February. For example, I’d like to work on living in alignment with my personal philosophy and use my rest day as meaningful retreat and self-care time.

What went Well: I added this category because we often don’t give ourselves credit for a job well-done and thought it would be a way to end the month on a positive note. Luckily my list of what went well was much longer than either of the two above. Keeping my last blog post in mind, one of the things I had on this list reads literally “Walking workouts - something is better than nothing.” It’s amazing the power of re-framing something from a negative to a positive.

Finally, I ended off my reflection by reviewing the oracle card for February, what it might mean and how to work with it.

Overall, I feel this exercise helped me to track my word for the year and my intentions for the year and see that I hadn’t lost sight of those things in the first month. I planned on making adjustments in my actions to stay on track and reminded myself that there were still a lot of things going well for me.

While I’m aware it’s nearly the middle of this month, I think this would be a great exercise for folks to try, especially for anyone who might be feeling like they’re already giving up on ambitions for 2019.

And so it is.

If you need some help with achieving your goals or reflecting on your progress, please contact me to see how we can work together.

Because together, we rise.

All-or-Nothing versus Something-is-better-than-Nothing

Once upon a time (and sometimes now still), I subscribed to the all-or-nothing thought pattern. This is when either you do it all and you do it right, or you don’t do anything at all. I learned from running anxiety management groups and using cognitive behavioural therapy in my work as an occupational therapist, that all-or-nothing thinking is actually one of the common negative thinking traps that can have negative effects in behaviours and emotions. I’ve been working hard to combat this in myself, because I see how much of a negative impact it can have.

For example, in the past, if I didn’t have a full 90 minutes or more to get to the gym to do a real workout, I wouldn’t go at all. Or if I was injured or not feeling well, I would skip the gym entirely, rather than go and do a half-assed workout. Even now, when I’ve been following my dietary restrictions and eating clean, if I treat myself with one thing I’m not supposed to have, I’ll think f*** it, I’ve already messed it up, I might as well cheat some more. This always turns out to be a terrible choice because I’ll pay for it physically for several days or more, leading to a downward f***-it cycle.

I’ve met people in my coaching practice who have told me that when they’re good, they stick to their goals 100%, but when they’re not, they can’t get on top of good habits no matter how hard they try. As you can see above, I totally get it; this is all or nothing thinking at its finest. If this is something that happens to you, I challenge you to reflect upon your life. In a typical year, do you find yourself sticking to your goals more often or falling off the wagon and trying to get back on most of the time? If you are constantly trying to get back on the wagon, the majority of your life is spent doing nothing, and a small percent is spent doing all, and in the long run, you are not actually making any healthful progress.

Enter the something-is-better than nothing approach. This is more like the Plan B, where Plan A suddenly becomes unattainable, or the conditions aren’t in place to be able to follow through 100 per cent. Plan B would mean doing something, anything, towards your goal so you still feel like you’re working on it. The best part about the Plan B approach is that it allows us to stay in the habit of doing many of those healthy things we did in Plan A, when everything was perfect and we were following it along without issues. So you had a bite of cheesecake and you’re technically not allowed to eat dairy, eggs or wheat? Have some fruit instead of the rest of that piece of cheesecake. So you are sick, injured, tired and can’t do your full workout? Get to the gym and stretch or walk on the treadmill. You haven’t meditated in a month? Take two deep breaths. Something is better than nothing.

Most recently, I’ve been trying to build up my gym habit again. Due to a series of sports injuries and ongoing symptoms over the past year, I have not been able to get back regularly and really see myself progressing. I have had many opportunities to go to the gym, to yoga, or to my home gym, and work on something, but I chose not to, because I didn’t feel those workouts would be valuable enough. After months of inactivity, I set the intention to increase my activity levels and I did something I’ve never done before: I went to the gym and walked on the treadmill. It was so simple and basic, but it built the habit. I found myself feeling really great, even by just going to the gym and walking on the treadmill. Then I started adding in my physio exercises and a good stretch. Then the treadmill became the elliptical, and without even planning it, some of my old high intensity workouts crept their way back in, once the habit was there and I slowly worked on building up my own strength. Now I’m totally sold on the something-is-better-than-nothing approach.

Our lives are never in the perfect condition to meet all of our goals, so why should we expect perfection? And worst of all, why should we only do the opposite of perfection, if we can’t be perfect? It doesn’t make sense. We need to embrace the grey zone and find a way to be satisfied with Plan B.

And so it is.

If you need some accountability or assistance in generating and working towards your goals, or coming up with a Plan B, please contact me to see how I can help.

Because together, we rise.

No Spend Month: Ten Insights

I decided to take the month of January and try a no-spend month; I even convinced my husband to join in! I’ve never done it before, but thought it could be a great way to rein in needless spending, and get back on top of our finances after the busy Christmas season. Of course, it wasn’t a completely no-spend month; we still had to pay bills, buy groceries and gas, and I had multiple appointments over the month, most of which were reimbursed by extended health coverage, but some small extras were not. I also had one small business expense when meeting clients over coffee. Ultimately, it was more of a no-spend month in that we didn’t spend on extras, such as going out for coffee, eating out, entertainment, clothing, or other pleasures like kombucha (for me) and beer (for him). Over the course of the month, instead of buying things, I kept a running list of things I wanted to buy, but didn’t actually need.

My no-spend month is officially over, and I’m planning on rolling it over into at least this next pay period. Here are ten insights I gained over the past month:

1. The list of things I wanted grew dramatically over the first few days, but petered off over time. I started logging things I want or “need” and found that the list was about 6-7 lines long after the first few days, and many of the items came up urgently as if my life depended on purchasing them. Over the next 3 weeks, only 5 more items were added to that list, and many of which are things I’ve actually been thinking about for a while, but have not yet purchased.

2. I don’t actually NEED that thing. When I went back and looked at the list noted above, I realized the urgency with which I felt I needed that item has gone. I look at the list and think, I could use it, but could also live without it. I also started reflect on other things I really felt I needed in the past, and purchased in the moment: many are things I barely even use now.

3. A lot of my spending tends to be related to my emotions. As above, there is an emotional component of buying. It’s related to this perception of lack or need. The purchase fills the void momentarily, but then I go right back to needing something else. Now that I’ve taken spending out of the equation, I have to reflect on my other behaviours: I seemed to have done more baking this month than previously and I certainly was on my phone a LOT.

4. As time goes on, I feel less urge to spend senselessly. I hit a point in my no-spend month, where I felt that I really just don’t need to buy things. All the things I felt I needed, I have perfectly good substitutes for already.

5. Not spending doesn’t really feel restrictive, it actually feels oddly liberating. At first I was focusing on all the things I can’t do, like take a drop-in hip hop class or pilates at the market. I can’t top up my kombucha or buy this new device I’ve read about. After time, I started to realize that I’m feeling pretty good with what I have in my possession, and things that are already available to me (like my existing gym membership and hot yoga class pass). I started to feel pretty great about not spending, not accumulating, and not bringing more into my home.

6. Financial goal attainment is much easier when I’m deliberate about every expense. I always was a saver, but lately I’ve fallen prey to purchasing on a whim, even if I didn’t have the money to pay for it. Now that I’m working more seriously towards a few financial goals, it’s so much easier to do when I’m also not allowing myself to eat out and order coffee a few days a week. I can see my goals coming to fruition much quicker, and it makes me question whether or not that coffee I want in the moment is truly necessary.

7. Not spending is kind of like healthy eating. In working towards an end goal I need to be cognizant of it every single day. There will ALWAYS be a temptation. Even a seemingly small, harmless one - but it can snowball (see number 8). It’s important for me to stay on track every single day, and not make excuses.

8. One little slip makes me want to go all-or-nothing. I was forced into a work breakfast meeting. Everybody on our team went out and bought breakfast for themselves. I planned ahead, had a breakfast at home, and brought my usual snacks and lunch. I did plan to buy myself a cappuccino so as to not feel too ridiculous, sitting in a restaurant, sipping a free tap water. $5.50 later, and I went back to work thinking that I should order something for dinner, or buy some chocolate covered almonds, or ANYTHING, because I had already spent once so I blew my no-spend rule. It took a lot of talking myself down to remember that sometimes life doesn’t need to be all black-or-white, and because I had spent 5 bucks, it didn’t mean I failed my no-spend month.

9. I have extra money to put towards other important things - and much extra than I thought I had. I always budget for entertainment, treats, or extras and I always seem to run out of that money. As the saying goes, the more we have, the more we spend. When I don’t have to pay for entertainment, treats, or extras, I have lots of money left over, which can be rolled into my goals. That’s a big win.

10. It’s oddly rewarding to not spend. I want to keep going! I still haven’t met my goal, and I knew I wouldn’t with only one month of not spending, but I did gain such traction, that I want to keep going! I will probably be a little less restrictive by adding some exceptions like a bit of kombucha or some drop-in fitness classes as they come up, but generally, no coffee, no clothes and definitely no extras. What started as a 30-day experiment is now extending into life as a habit!

To explain the value of my little experiment on a different level, here is a quote from The Soul of Money by Lynne Twist:

Once we let go of scarcity, we discover the surprising truth of sufficiency…It is an experience, a context we generate, a declaration, a knowing that there is enough, and that we are enough.

Sufficiency resides inside each of us, and we can call it forward. It is a consciousness, an attention, an intentional choosing of the way we think about our circumstances. In our relationship with money, it is using money in a way that expresses our integrity; using it in a way that expresses value rather than determines value…Sufficiency is a context we bring forth from within that reminds us that if we look around us and within ourselves, we will find what we need. There is always enough.

…

I suggest that if you are willing to let go, let go of the chase to acquire or accumulate always more and let go of that way of perceiving the world, then you can take all that energy and attention and invest it in what you have. When you do that you will find unimagined treasures, and wealth of surprising and even stunning depth and diversity.

And so it is.

If you need some help with budgeting or setting up a no-spend month experiment, please contact me to work together.

Because together, we rise.

Is there such a thing as having “too much time on your hands?”

I have a friend who has said to me on multiple occasions that I’ve got too much time on my hands.  In those moments it came across as an insult, but I’m choosing to see it as a compliment.  Hooray for me for not feeling like I’m running out of time in the day. Hooray for me for being able to make the choice to do things I enjoy.  

In our fast-paced world, we do wear busyness like a badge of honour.  I’ve been a busyness addict myself at various points in my life.  It’s taken me lots of re-training and re-wiring to get to a point where I’m okay with idle time. 

When I did a brief year studying leisure in university, I learned that idle time was most valued in ancient Greece; contemplation was seen as a valuable way to spend one’s time, a form of re-creation. This is how the word recreation came to be; we spend time to re-create ourselves so that we can enter back into the world new and fresh. 

I did some contemplating and re-creating yesterday, on my rest day.  As many might find, January tends to be a quiet month after the hustle and bustle of the holiday season.  People stop spending money for a little while, retreat into their homes and recover from the spending and indulging.  This is the first time in a very long time, that I look at my calendar and see each weekend of the month completely white.  The minimalistic look of white space makes me happy, while the busy look of cluttered space and busy schedules makes me tense.  As I sat on the couch, sipping my morning cappuccino in front of the fire, I reflected in my journal:

Now that I’m not working multiple jobs, our wedding has come and gone, and our social commitments are much less than they’ve ever been, life feels quiet.  Is that a good thing or a bad thing?  I think it’s good.  I want it to be good.  But our world doesn’t see it that way.  Every now and again I think, “shouldn’t I be doing something?”  Is it a good thing to be so idle?  Is boredom a breeder of bad habits like overeating, too much screen time, or inactivity?  Or is it a way to learn the importance and value of white noise, white space, and going without? 

There was a time in my past when this feeling of idle time would make me feel uneasy.  Exactly in that moment is when I’d start to count my money (or my debt) and decide I needed another job.  Now I’m using this time to evaluate my physical possessions as I learn to become a curator of my home. I’m evaluating how I want to feel and what activity would lead to my own healing.  I’m evaluating where my money is going and how I can feel better financially.  These are all great things.  It’s a good time to live slowly and purposefully and to set myself up for times when life might be less simple. 

In that moment of wonder, yesterday on my couch, I realized that the person who chased busyness and more jobs in an effort to get out of debt is not who I am anymore.  Yes, sure, I’d like some more financial security, but I have enough, and isn’t enough, enough? 

I have enough time.  I have enough money.  I have enough (= too much) stuff.  Now I need to stop wishing for something more, stop busying myself with unnecessary things, and actually enjoy it. And I have no need to feel uneasy if I have some time to just re-create and be.  

So the answer to my question is no, there is no such thing as too much time. It’s a matter of what we choose to do with it that matters. 

And so it is.

If you are interested in creating more time in your life, or figuring out what to do with your time, please contact me to see how we can work together. 

Because together, we rise.

New Year's Rituals

Hello and happy new year! I hope everyone had a wonderful holiday season - and just like that, we’re one week into 2019! Now that we are back into the swing of things with work, school, and life, I thought I’d start the year off with a post about my personal rituals for the new year.

I’ve never really been one to believe in new year’s resolutions. I typically don’t see people following through with them and I have always hated going to the gym in January because it’s crowded with the well-intentioned resolutioners who end up falling off the band wagon after a few short weeks. I’ve never loved new year’s eve either - even in my prime partying years I didn’t really care for all the hoopla that goes around watching the clock strike midnight as if it’s different from any other night (sorry to my friends who had to deal with my misery this year between 10pm and midnight. 10pm is bedtime and it was painful to force myself to stay up til 12. Why did I even do that anyway? Oh well, new year, new me amirite?).

However I do love the start of a new year for all of its potential and possibility. We never know what’s to come and if we start it off with authentic and healthful habits then we might be able to make the year spectacular. I’ve realized over the years that I do appreciate some rituals around the start of the new year and I’ve slowly been adding to them to craft a set of actions that really set me up for the year to come. Of course, I don’t do them all in one shot, they’re more of a toolbox of things I start thinking of in mid-December and complete in the beginning of January.

Budget: Every year, Manuel and I sit down and revise our budget. We decide if we are putting enough away for groceries; we go through all of our variable bills over the year, add them up and average them so we can ensure we are putting aside the right amounts. In the past we have used this time to seek new service providers or negotiate contracts to have reduced rates. I always look at my savings accounts, TFSAs, RRSPs and see if there is any wiggle room to add more. We look at our debt and come up with a plan to reduce it. This year, we’ve agreed on a no-spend month for the month of January to really re-set ourselves after a bit of a care-free spending time over the holidays (I always go over my Christmas budget :( ).

Minimize & Organize: With Marie Kondo’s new Netflix series, I know this has been on many people’s minds in 2019. Every year after putting away the Christmas decorations, I’ve found an area to work on that needs to be purged and then organized. For me it’s therapeutic and symbolic. While our house does not necessarily look minimalistic, I am very drawn to the principles of minimalism and continue over time to reduce my consumerism, reduce waste and let go of things already in the home. While minimizing is always a standing item on my list of things to do, I find at the time of the new year, it’s a guarantee that I will always purge something. We are typically consuming more than we usually would, and receiving more gifts than any other time of the year. This means we tend to bring much more into our home in the month of December, so it’s good to take a look at what items are being replaced (one in, one out is a great mantra), what items are no longer serving us or in the words of Marie Kondo, what things no longer “spark joy.”

Releasing: When we look back on our past year, there are typically two themes - last year was amazing, or good riddance to the most difficult year ever. Whether good or bad, it’s important to acknowledge the experiences that occurred in the past year, find gratitude for them and release them, in order to be fully present in this moment and to move forward with the next year. This year, I ran two meditations which had a large releasing component in them. I also worked on my Year Compass workbook (link at end of post) which reviews all of 2018 week by week, acknowledges the happenings, and sets up a plan for 2019. And, during my new moon ritual, I practiced a meditation including gratitude for all of the hardships over the past year, releasing any attachment to difficult times, illness, injury, and any other thing I could think of that needed to be let go of. It’s amazing how light you feel when you wash away all that you’re carrying with you from your past. In one of my meditations, I had a 95-year old participant who told me that I took him through 90 years of his life in that one hour meditation, and he remembered things he did not even knew he was holding on to. He stated he saw them on a scale between resentment and gratitude and when he was working through them, he was able to release them and be grateful for what they taught him. How amazing is that? It’s never too late to learn something new! :)

Gratitude Jar: The gratitude jar was a new ritual we started last year. Every week, we would write down one thing we were grateful for during the past week, put it in the jar, and on new year’s day, review all of our items. Now if you’ve been following along with my blog, you’ll know I faced some challenges over the past year (which I am intending not to focus on so much in 2019) so it might come as no surprirse that the gratitude jar took a back burner and kind of fizzled out. However, we did still review the first 4 months’ worth of entries. It was a little bit surprising to me. Some items really sparked a gut-reaction, and others were kind of on the depressing side. All I can say is, in those moments of darkness, if I was still able to find something, anything to be grateful for, then I was on the right track! So we emptied the jar and started anew for 2019.

Word of the Year: This one is a new one for me, but I thought it was a great addition to my arsenal of new year’s rituals. Choosing a word of the year is a great place to start to set up our new year’s intentions. Or for those who aren’t into intentions, a word is a simple way to live authentically and better ourselves. I knew what my word was immediately although it took me a week or two to actually believe in it. Intuition is funny like that. Anyway, I ordered myself a stainless steel bangle before Christmas, which has my word on it, and I plan on wearing it everyday so I don’t forget about what I need to do to live out my year honouring my word (hence the extra spending in the month of December and need for a no-spend January).

Intention Setting: For the past 3 years I’ve set new year’s intentions. I write them in my journal, add them to my desktop background and review them every time I meditate, so I don’t forget them. This year, I linked my intention to my personal philosophy as well as my word of the year, and how I really envision seeing them play out for me. I find setting intentions really keeps me accountable for my own personal wellness. At the end of the year when I review my intentions from the previous year and reflect upon whether I’ve met them, need to continue working on them, or need to release them, I always find that I have made great progress compared to where I was one year before. I also like to really sit with my intentions in meditations and visualize what my life would look like, how I would feel and what I would do when those intentions come to fruition. Visualization is such a powerful tool. We experience exactly how we want to feel and we see ourselves doing exactly what we want to be doing, and it motivates us to actually start living that way day to day. In my new moon meditation over the weekend, I did a visualization exercise of my own intentions and it left me feeling recharged and powerful!

12-Month Spread: This is my favourite new year’s ritual. Every year around new year’s day, I bring out my tarot cards and do a 12-month reading. This year, I also chose 3 cards from 3 different decks to be my representation for the year. Now I have three cards to refer to throughout the entire year, and a new card every month. Last year, I loved going back to my notes and pictures and reading what card I had pulled for that month, then seeing how, or if it would play out. My reading this year was quite powerful, having 6 months straight of powerful major arcana cards and only two months with cards that looked challenging.

So there you have it: my rituals to get me set up in 2019. I’d love if you gave some of them a try and let me know what you think!

And so it is.

If you feel you need some help with any of the strategies above, please contact me to see how we can work together to help you get organized for 2019.

Because together, we rise.

Personal Word-of-the-Year

I follow a closed Facebook group whose focus is on minimalism. I am usually a bad Facebook group participant, but I love this group. It’s called No Sidebar. People post stories and triumphs about their journey to minimalism, ask questions of others and reflect as a community. It’s respectful and it promotes consciousness and intention in participants’ lives. It’s one of the only groups I actually participate in. I read the posts, respond, ask questions and ponder. Lately the theme of the group has been the personal word of the year. Individuals have been posting their word for 2019 and an explanation on why that’s going to be their word. It’s really been inspiring to see what the words are and read the reason these people have chosen them.

Reasons why I love a personal word-of-the year:

-it replaces resolutions

-it is meaningful

-it is one word that can be referred to and remembered easily throughout the year

-it can help us stay aligned with our personal philosophy.

You might already intuitively know what your word is. Fantastic! If not, try to write out a list of all the words that pop into your mind that are inspiring, have meaning, represent you at a spiritual level, align with your personal philosophy, or are related to the authentic life you want to live. Categorize those words to see if there are common themes. Circle the top few words that truly resonate with you, then ask yourself reflective questions to narrow it down to one. Once you’ve got your one word, make sure it aligns with your personal philosophy, goals, lifestyle, or anything else you might want to reference.

Some tips to remembering and living by your personal word for the remaining 51 weeks of the year after 2019 comes:

-put it on your desk top background or your phone background so you have a constant reminder

-write it on a post-it note and place it on your mirror or in your car

-associate it with a wearable, like a meaningful necklace

-engrave something you use regularly with your word

-include it within or around your personal philosophy

-frame the word, hang it on the wall, put it at your bedside or set it up in your meditation area

-tell a friend to seal the deal

-meditate on the word every time you meditate - focus on feeling it within your body.

I did the process above and ended up coming back to the first word that popped into my mind earlier this week: healer. I tossed around words like abundance, gratitude, rising, align, presence, and many more, but this is the one that kept showing up for me. I’ve been told by some of my spiritual mentors in 2018 that I am a healer. I never identified with this terminology, and I never looked at it this way before. But this word just feels so right on so many levels. It resonates with me on a deeper level and I feel it represents what I want to manifest in 2019.

My word for 2019: healer.

I’m going to use this year to heal myself and focus on my own physical, mental and spiritual healing.

My personal philosophy is all about healing: being outdoors, being grateful, being abundant; living authentically, intentionally and simply; thriving, being balanced, engaging in self-care; using movement and meditation as my medicine; being mindful and present; bringing forth joy and contentment; feeling love and light as my pure essence. By choosing healer as my personal word of the year, it exactly aligns with the philosophy that encourages me to heal through sacred, spiritual medicine.

I’m going to use my skills to help heal others - through my day job as an occupational therapist, and more importantly through my work and passion as a wellness coach, I help people heal themselves through self-love, self-compassion, self-care.

I’m going to keep learning more skills so I can teach more people to heal. This is what the word rising is all about in my business name Rose Quartz Rising - it’s a rising up to help others rise too. I’ve already seen the joy when folks wear my gemstone jewellery; I’d love for my card decks to allow people to heal in other ways. I see how my coaching service is allowing people to heal unhelpful habits and be more intentional, allowing them to focus on what really matters.

If I was to look back on 2018, I would say my personal word was evolution. If I think back to this time one year ago, how hopeless and burnt out I was feeling about my day job, how much physical pain I was in, how much I felt the need to push, and compare it to now, a time where I can ebb and flow with the demands of my job, I’ve accepted and feel open to receive, I’ve slowed down, I’ve built and started growing this business, it was nothing short of an evolution. And once we’ve evolved, we can heal.

What was your theme word for 2018? And what is your personal word for 2019?

I hope this sparks your interest and gets you thinking about a word that you can live by in 2019. I’d love to hear what word you chose and why! May your holidays be filled with happiness, joy, presence and maybe even a couple presents.

Love & light in 2019.

If you would like some help generating, or living by, your personal word, or any other topic in my blog, please contact me to see how we can work together.

Because together, we rise.

Writing a Personal Philosophy

A while ago, I read a blog post called Living in Alignment with your Personal Philosophy. It’s all about how we cannot become our best if we don’t know the true principles that guide our decisions in life. Those principles are our personal philosophy. The post, which I’ll link to below, explains all about how to create a personal philosophy using quotes, phrases and words that are meaningful to you and that you tend to live by.

About 10 or so months ago, I actually followed the steps, created my own personal philosophy, and saved it as a note in my phone so I wouldn’t lose it or forget it. More importantly, as my life unfolded, I tweaked it and added in extra principles that I found value in. It’s nothing anyone else has told me to think, feel or act out. It’s completely personal and unique to me. My themes are minimalism, simplicity, authenticity, mindfulness, movement, outdoors, gratitude and abundance, self-care, and love.

There are days and times when I’m not at my best. It has become much easier for me to correct thoughts, actions, or words, or at least recognize when I’ve done something that does not align with my best self. How do I know what my best self is? I refer to my personal philosophy to check in. I review it before or after a meditation. I try my best to think about it when I’m making decisions. I analyze it if I’m feeling particularly out-of-sync with how I feel I should be moving through the world. I validate the things I’ve done that are in line with my personal philosophy, and I re-adjust to make myself more aligned when I’ve wandered off course.

It’s much easier to follow through with making positive changes in life, when they are a direct result of a personal value statement, because this statement provides the reason behind all we do. For example, instead of thinking “I need to lose 10 lbs,” I might reflect on the statement movement and meditation are my medicine so I know I need to be active AND mindful because that is what lights my fire and makes me feel better. The decision now becomes more intrinsic than related to any external motivation - it answers my why.

I also know there are some areas in my life I would like to improve upon. I’ve always been a sarcastic and cynical person and I know that does not always serve me well. For example, I’ve been working hard to meditate on love, notice the love around me and send it out more freely. I understand the importance of living in, and expressing love, even though it has not always come naturally to me, and wish to do better in this regard. So I added a statement in my personal philosophy about love, and I set an intention to live in and express love so that I can work towards fulfilling that line in my personal philosophy. Because it’s a rule I want to live by, it’s easier for me to carry it out than it is for me to remember just to simply be a nicer person.

Along with personal philosophies comes personal rules. I really like this notion because it allows us to set boundaries for ourselves and our personal lives so that we can live authentically and not be afraid to say no thank you when we are asked to do something we do not want to do. For example, I have a personal rule that I do not accept invites to activities on Fridays before 7:30 pm because I have a standing commitment with my Zumba class. I have a personal rule that I don’t typically stay in the office over lunch as I’m well aware I need the fresh air and some movement to get me through the afternoon. I have another personal rule that Wednesday nights are blocked off so my husband and I can dedicate that time to a regular date night. These little rules allow me to be unapologetic when responding to requests, because I know I am prioritizing my own personal values first. In addition, they all line up nicely with my personal philosophy.

With the year coming to an end and 2019 around the corner, I’d like to challenge you to reflect on your personal philosophy and personal rules instead of new year’s resolutions. As long as you reflect on them often, and make them simple enough that you can remember, you might be surprised at how better able you are to meet your goals when they’re framed as a philosophy instead of a resolution!

And so it is.

If you’d like some help crafting, or living by your own personal philosophy, please contact me to see how we can work together.

Because together, we rise!

Thoughts on Abundance

Lately I’ve been feeling a little frazzled about finances. Between making some investments in my business, organizing flights home for Christmas and actually planning some of the festivities at this time of year, I have been feeling in lack, despite my best intentions.

Here’s the deal: I grew up in a household where the mantra was always we can’t afford that or we’re broke. My brother and I actually grew up thinking we were poor. But the reality is that our dad was working 7 days a week, mom was taking care of us, and there was always threat of shut downs, lay offs and strikes. So while we always were provided for and really did have all we needed, we were living in a fear-based mentality, leaving us stuck in the feelings of lack.

Those mantras and conditioning tend to stay with us as we get older. I was counting the dollars of my student debt from the day I signed up for university and always had the suffocating feeling that I was drowning in debt. In order to not feel that way, I got to work on my budgeting skills early in my professional career, setting up the most detailed excel spreadsheet I could think of, to plan for absolutely every expense that might come my way. I have savings accounts for the dog, for the car, for the house and for vacations. I plan for that driver’s licence renewal that takes place every 5 years. No expense is not accounted for. I paid off my brand new car in one year and got rid of a $90 000 student loan within about 6 years of graduating. What that means is I plan really well, but I don’t have a whole lot left over for fun, or for unexpected things that don’t fit into the budget, like meeting someone for lunch or investing in a business. So when these things come up, I run right back to the story I’ve always heard: I can’t afford this, I’m broke!

I’ve recognized that this fear of money, hypersensitivity to debt, and addiction to overworking in an effort to pay off student loans and other expenses has only lead to burnout. I’ve managed to do a lot with my finances, I have a decent job, a few side hustles and a serious savings and budgeting plan. But still, I get focused on what I don’t have and how I feel I need more. This is a dangerous negative thinking trap. When I get into that place, historically, I’ve panicked and just gotten another job. After three burnouts and not feeling any better about my finances, even though my finances are significantly better year after year, I realized it was not actually the conditions of my finances that were the problem, it was the condition of my mind that was the issue.

I had to learn to change my story from I’m broke to I don’t have room in my budget for that. I’ve had to change my mantra from I can’t afford that to the universe provides me with all that I need, and I learned to recognize that most of the things I wanted, I didn’t actually need. I had to learn to stop looking at my lack and start looking at my wealth. I had to teach myself to re-frame my anxiety about money to focusing on having enough and being grateful for all that I do have. In Marianne Williamson’s book The Law of Divine Compensation, she says:

“If your core belief is ‘I lack’ and you carry the belief with you, then you will subconsciously perpetuate or create the circumstances that reflect that belief. But your circumstances are completely malleable: they simply reflect the dictates of your mind. Regardless of what limits exist in your material world, your immutable truth is that you are an unlimited spiritual being. By remembering this, you summon the Law of Divine Compensation.”

If all we see is lack, all we feel is that we do not have enough, of anything. But if we start to notice that we do have enough, the universe provides us with what we need. Thus, we stop feeling the need to go out and buy things unnecessarily, just to make us feel better. We stop feeling the need to grasp at anything we can to bring in more money.

Minimalist philosophy supports this theory as well. The idea is not that we intentionally go without, but that we consciously reflect on our purchases and focus on only keeping the things that add value to our lives. While the removal of things I have accumulated over the years is an ongoing endeavour for me, I have been able to walk away from mindless online shopping, mall-browsing, and general overindulging. I try to consciously reflect before a purchase now.

I’ve learned from the book the Soul of Money by Lynne Twist about how we focus on not having enough in life: not enough time, money, sleep, health, fitness, willpower, weekends, holidays, etc. She says from the moment we wake up to the moment we go to bed we are constantly focusing on not enough. But if we adopt a minimalist philosophy, we start to see we have more than enough. By releasing items we no longer need, it allows us to feel the abundance of value in the things and experiences we actually have and love. If we focus on the positives, have gratitude, and live from a place of love, we open our heart and our minds to possibilities we might not have been open to otherwise.

Over the years, I’ve been doing a lot of work on changing my stories. However every now and again I fall back into the mindset of lack. I have to work diligently to not let myself spiral into that fear-based thinking trap. The other day I was reflecting on what it would mean if I just had a little more money. I caught myself in that thinking and I asked my higher self, “what can I do to feel like I have enough?” The answer I got was a little surprising. It was not about making more money or spending less, which would have been my first instinct. My higher self told me to focus on the abundance of other things in my life and I won’t feel as though I’m lacking so much financially. Boom. What an amazing shift.

And so I started: I realized I had an abundance of time, and I was wasting it by being too connected online. I could use that resource wisely and feel a lot better about the abundance of time, wealth and well-being all at once. I realized I had an abundance of resources, such as education, life experience and work history. I looked at my bank accounts with fresh eyes. I saw that I actually do not live in lack. When I’m focused on one number being low but I don’t see all the rest, it creates a mental filter for me to feel that I do not have enough. In reality, I have more than enough, I just happen to be saving for things to come. Huh, I never looked at it that way before! I have an abundance of friendships, an abundance of love, an abundance of travel experiences. An abundance of shoes (my shoes add value to my life!). I have an abundance of opportunities. Oh, the opportunities! I have an abundance of potential clients waiting to work with me. I have an abundance of vacation time coming my way. The abundance is everywhere, if I just open my eyes and really look.

So for those of you who might be feeling a little tight in the chest thinking about your finances, I have a few strategies that might help change your mindset:

1) Change the stories you tell yourself about money

2) Make a budget

3) Focus on having enough

4) Start looking at the abundance in your life, which is all around you

and the universe will reward you!

For the good of all, or not at all. And so it is.

If you need some help with shifting your money mantra, re-framing your thoughts of lack or generating a budget, please contact me to see how we can work together.

Because together, we rise!

In Pursuit of Fun

Have you ever watched children as they move through the world? They have so much joy and are always finding ways to maximize their fun. Whether it’s hopping all the way to the bus stop, playing their favourite games or giggling and laughing with excitement, kids really have no issues when it comes to freely having a good time. Usually if a child is emotional or having a meltdown, it’s because they’ve had too much fun (think being over-tired from a birthday party), because a parent is removing their fun (bedtime anyone?), or someone is keeping them from their fun (“but I really neeeeeeed this toy!”).

From my observations, we seem to have lost the skill of pursuing fun as adults. As we finish up high school and prepare for adulting, we might be working to save for university, studying hard to get accepted into a program, or preparing to go right into work. Once post-secondary happens, our focus becomes all about studying, passing, writing exams, and doing well, all while we are accumulating debt to pay for that education. If we are lucky we might carry over some of our childhood hobbies into our extra-curriculars in university, but most people let those hobbies go due to lack of time, finances or accessibility. Whether we go to work right out of school or after college, university or graduate school, a new career comes with new responsibilities: we budget to pay off debts, to pay for transportation, rent/mortgage, groceries, utilities, families, etc. We become stressed and worry about how we are performing at our jobs, supporting ourselves financially, and managing our relationships. We might be planning weddings, having children, or buying homes or cars. We begin to focus on all the externals to a point where we just simply forget about enjoying ourselves regularly as the rule rather than the exception. Through running this rat race, we have forgotten how to have fun!

Many of the adults I know don’t have hobbies or things they do regularly that they enjoy. I hear individuals talking about wanting to start taking care of themselves, but only once the conditions are absolutely perfect for it. What they don’t realize is that the conditions will never be perfect, and even in perfect conditions, it’s easier to talk ourselves out of something than it is to talk ourselves into something.

Many people might feel they don’t have time to do something fun. I think that sometimes we have to give up our feelings of perfection and allow someone to help us so that we can take care of ourselves. I also think that the more we go on complaining about what we don’t have, what conditions are not aligned for us to do the things we want to do, and what are friends are or are not doing, the less time we have to actually do something we enjoy. Think about all the time we waste in a day or in a week, doing things like mindless eating, unnecessary shopping, scrolling on social media, or binge watching TV shows, when we could be walking away from those things and just doing something simple and enjoyable for the pure sake of enjoying the activity. There are ways to make it work: excuses are only excuses.

Fun means different things to different people. It doesn’t have to be adventurous, but it does have to be enjoyable and meaningful. That means saying no to things that are not enjoyable and saying yes to forming new habits of doing just one thing for ourselves that we enjoy. While it’s often easier to live our lives on autopilot, worrying or complaining instead of doing anything differently, it is so worth it to make an adjustment to our lives in an intentional, authentic way. Theories in occupational therapy state that a person must feel engaged in a meaningful occupation in areas of self-care, productivity and leisure to live a meaningful life. So finding a meaningful leisure occupation is a valuable use of our time!

I have a simple challenge for you today, and the challenge is this: carve out some time in your day, every day, to do something you enjoy. If you don’t know what that is, do an experiment and try something. You might be surprised with what you learn, and more importantly, how you feel!

And so it is.

If you are having troubles with pursuing fun or maintaining hobbies, and you need a little extra help, please contact me to see how we can work together to get you back on the fun ship!

Because together, we rise.

Just go for it!

So you’ve got an idea, but you’re not sure how to make it happen. Stop overthinking and just go for it!

How will we ever know if something will be successful if we sit and plan and ruminate and ask other people’s opinions and dig ourselves deeper into a hole of immobility? The best way forward is to take a small step and make something happen. If it can be planned in relatively short time with relatively little effort and low financial burden, what have we got to lose? After all, the worst thing can happen is we fail. All a failure really is, is a chance for us to learn to do it better next time, and a chance for us to grow. So what have we got to lose? The only thing holding us back is ourselves, our fear, our ego.

I had an idea: it’s time for me to step out of my comfort zone, start facilitating groups in different venues, and getting my company’s name out there and into the world. So in a matter of 5 minutes, I looked at the calendar, picked a few dates and times, called a potential venue, and made a plan. Then I advertised and I started building momentum and waited for the event to fill. What was the worst case scenario? Nobody joins, and I go by myself to do my own manifesting ceremony in a tranquil, beautiful salt cave. Big deal. It would be a win-win whether it sold out or not. But I truly believed it would sell out. Why? I could feel it in my body. I could see it happening. I didn’t have doubts that the right people would be attracted to it. The best part is that it is a new moon meditation, which is all about intentions and manifesting. And you know what? I manifested a sold-out event in 4 days. On day four after posting my event, I sold my first ticket, and twelve hours later, I sold my last one! Talk about strong intentions!

My goal is not to only do new moon meditations. My goal is to become a well-known and widely recognized business, providing 1:1 coaching, group coaching & facilitation, workshops, motivational speaking and a list of other alternative practices such as crystals, numerology and sound/vibration therapy. But I’m not there yet, and while I am working on it, I can’t believe at this time that I am there. Instead I believe I am where I need to be in order to get there. I work on the steps to build that momentum, to get people to buy into my messaging, services and work. I believe that this and future events will work out. I sit in the vibration of the successful event. I visualize the event. I count the income. I plan the talks. In short, I act AS IF, and it will come.

So what about you? What thing have you been saying “I need to…” but you are holding yourself back from actually doing? This is your time to start acting AS IF. You’ve been meaning to lose weight? Act AS IF you’ve already done that. Feel how it feels in your body. Visualize yourself in that weight. Then, start actually doing the things you would do if you were that way - eating healthier, exercising, resting, drinking water, etc. Don’t wait for a new year’s resolution, just go for it! Do you wish you had a mindfulness practice? You can’t will it to happen unless you start acting AS IF. See yourself as a meditator, call yourself a meditator, believe you have it in you, then sit down on the mat and act AS IF - just go for it! You continue to act until you become. Simple as that.

When I became an occupational therapist (OT), I remember a co-worker telling me how great I was at my work. I very honestly replied, “I’m not great. Actually, I don’t have a clue what I’m doing. But I’m confident and I’m outgoing so people trust me,” and that was the truth. I was faking it, until one day, I wasn’t. I don’t know exactly when that was, but I realized I had crossed the threshold from fake OT to real OT by virtue of just having confidence in myself and actually going through the motions every single day until I became it.

That’s the same principle as every other thing we do. We work on it, work at it, act AS IF, until we become it. I’m acting as if I’m sought-after meditation teacher whose events are sold out because they’re so damned awesome. And sure enough, that’s what I’ll become. What part are you acting?

And so it is.

If you’re needing some help acting AS IF or making steps towards your goals, please contact me to start working together. If you’re interested in one of my meditation events in the London area, please see my events page for more info.

Because together, we rise.

Waking up with Mindfulness, Compassion & Gratitude

In today’s fast-paced world, we have everything at our fingertips: we have instant messaging and direct messaging; we send someone an email to let them know that we called them; our schedules have schedules to stay organized. We glorify busy and wear busyness as a badge of honour. We are often planning for the future or ruminating over the past, but we’re not often present right here, right now.

We have anxiety and depression and obesity and self-esteem issues. We don’t know how to feel our emotions because we have instant gratification to numb any pain, whether it be through social media, food, shopping, gambling or other poisons. Not only that, but we let our thoughts get the best of us. We identify so strongly with our thoughts that we think we are our thoughts; we can get so caught up in the stories we tell ourselves that we have no concept of our actual reality. When we live our lives in such a scattered, unintentional way, our world unfolds through a skewed perception of self-limiting beliefs, fears and doubts. We lose touch with our intuition, accessing our higher wisdom and we do not have the ability to see our own true, pure potential.

While we might not identify with all of these things, we certainly should be able to identify with some of these things. If any of the above-examples ring true to you, it might be time to start thinking about grounding yourself in the present so you can actually connect to the world around you as it is unfolding, see your potential and thrive.

I think that our key to thriving is through being conscious. What that means is, when we wake up every morning, are we actually awake? We are not awake if we’re living in the past or some imagined future, if we’re consuming goods to help us feel good, if we’re numbing our emotions instead of feeling them, or if we’re so attached to our technology that our world doesn’t make sense without it. We consciously wake up through the power of presence. Being awake to our current reality, this moment, is all we have.

I would like to suggest a 3-part exercise we can practice on a regular basis to help us be more awake, and actually thrive. This practice includes mindfulness, compassion and gratitude. According to the Virtues Project’s Virtue Cards:

“Mindfulness is living reflectively, with conscious awareness of our actions, words and thoughts. Awake to the world around us, we fully experience our senses…Living mindfully lightens our minds by helping us to detach from our emotions.”

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“Compassion is a deep empathy for another who is suffering or living with misfortune. It is understanding and caring, and a strong desire to ease their distress. Compassion flows freely from our hearts when we let go of judgments and seek to understand.”

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“Gratitude is a constant attitude of thankfulness and appreciation for life as it unfolds. Living in the moment, we are open to abundance around us and within us. We express appreciation freely.”

The first step in a mindfulness practice is knowing whether or not you are actually being present. Usually by making that connection, you can bring yourself into the present moment. I suggest knowing in advance where your rumination room is: where is the place that you tend to ruminate, disconnect from the world or zone out completely? For most people it’s during a mindless activity like driving, walking, cleaning or using technology mindlessly. Knowing where your rumination room is can help you be prepared to stay present when you’re there.

This exercise is a form of mindfulness called grounding. It’s about feeling connected to the earth from where we sit or stand. Start by asking yourself Where are my feet? or Where is my seat? Then take a moment to fully feel every part of you that is connecting with the floor, the earth or your chair. Picture that part of you connecting into the ground. See yourself taking root down into the earth and all the way into the earth’s core. Feel how rooted and strong you are below, so that it supports and nourishes all of you above. Practice deep breathing and enjoy it.

Once we are mindfully grounded, we can send any energy, negativity or thoughts and emotions into the ground to help neutralize us. We can also pull from the earth’s core energy for nurturing. When we are feeling nurtured, we can connect to our higher self by opening the channel above to access our intuition, our wisdom and knowing. This is how we wake up!

Once grounded, we can practice a loving kindness meditation. This is like a well-wishing to ourselves and others that originates in Buddhism. The lines can be changed to fit your personal preferences but they generally look like this:

May I love and be loved,

May I be happy and healthy,

May I be safe and secure,

May I live with ease.

In my practice, I say this three times to myself first. Then I send it out to my husband or another family member, and then to all beings in the world, three times each.

Once we are grounded and sending loving wishes to ourselves and to others, it sets us up perfectly to be grateful for what we have. Cultivating a feeling of gratitude within our hearts can be difficult to do, but it is much more rewarding and beneficial than simply regurgitating things that we are grateful for. Once we cultivate that feeling of gratitude we can think about or write down specific things that make us grateful.

These actions set us up to be truly in touch with ourselves, and open to other realms of universal information. When we are grounded, offering loving kindness and feeling grateful, we create an opportunity to open the channel to higher sources of wisdom, which can help guide us in our lives from a more spiritually- and consciously aligned place.

And so it is.

If you are interested in any of the above practices and looking for some guidance, please contact me for your personalized coaching package.

Together, we rise.

Celebrating successes

Have you ever wondered why it’s so easy to focus on the negative but the positive just slips through our fingers?  Here is why so many of us are chasing happiness but never quite catch it: evolution.  Our brains are hard-wired to focus on the negative as an evolutionary survival mechanism.  Our ancestors were so concerned with staying alive as that they had no choice but to focus on any potential threat so they could do what they needed to do to stay safe, and ultimately, alive.  This is the basis of the fight or flight instinct: when we sense a threat, our body goes into survival mode, preparing to either stay and fight, or turn and run.  The flight or fight response gets activated when we perceive a threat.  Our body prepares by slowing digestion, routing blood to extremities, increasing heart rate, blood pressure, muscle tension, breathing rate, dilating pupils and causing us to sweat.  Does any of this sound familiar to you?  If so, it’s because as a society, we are constantly living in a state of fight or flight, because of the constant pressures of life, finances, relationships, work, family, technology and so many other things.  Even though there is no real threat to our survival, our brain perceives any stressor as potentially life-threatening, and therefore catapults our body into survival mode. 

If we apply that logic to our discussion on successes and failures, we would see that a failure leads to a negative feeling in some way, it leads us to feel stressed.  When we are stressed, our natural fight or flight instinct pops in.  Since we are so focused on survival on a primal level, we focus more on the failures and the negatives because the primal part of our brain is hard-wired to believe that we need to protect ourselves, not realizing how far we have evolved since civilization (this realization happens in a different part of the brain).  Therefore, it would be difficult to find happiness and stay happy, or focus on the positive, or celebrate our successes.  This happens because something negative will always show up and overshadow the positive, but also because it’s harder for us to hold on to the positive than the negative, because that isn’t how our brains are wired. 

In the book called Hardwiring Happiness by Rick Hanson, he talks about how we can change the wiring in our brain if we make a conscious effort to focus on moments of happiness as they arise:

Based on what we’ve learned about experience-dependent neuroplasticity… the brain takes its shape from what the mind rests upon.  If you keep resting your mind on self-criticism, worries, grumbling about others, hurts, and stress, then your brain will be shaped into greater reactivity, vulnerability to anxiety and depressed mood, a narrow focus on threats and losses, and inclinations towards anger, sadness, and guilt.  On the other hand, if you keep resting your mind on good events and conditions…pleasant feelings, the things you do get done, physical pleasures, and your good intentions and qualities, then over time your brain will take a different shape, one with strength and resilience hardwired into it, as well as realistically optimistic outlook, a positive mood, and a sense of worth.

A very real-life example is when I was working so hard to pay off $90 000 worth of student debt I had accumulated between an undergraduate degree and a master’s degree, and thinking how free I was going to feel once it was gone.  Let me tell you, I worked my ass off.  I never had less than 2 jobs, including a full-time career, and I burned myself out for trying.  Fast forward to 7 years after graduating and I finally paid the last of the debt.  Sure, I felt relief, but I didn’t really celebrate, or even take time to reflect upon all that I had sacrificed to pay it off.  I congratulated myself for a second, and before I knew it I was off to planning a wedding, and weddings are expensive, so the $90 000 that I spent 7 years paying off suddenly became insignificant.  I’ve done this with every accomplishment I can think of.  Everything was barely acknowledged and certainly nothing was celebrated.

As someone who is actively trying to get out of that work hard, play hard mentality, I’ve had to take a step back from working so much and always being on autopilot, laser-focused on the next goal, because living in that state is never restful.  In fact, it is stressful.  I don’t want to simply survive in this life; I want to thrive in it.  In one of my consultation sessions with a spiritual guide & teacher, I was told to stop being so hard on myself.  I was kind of surprised, because thankfully, I rarely fall victim to negative self-talk, I have a pretty good self-image, and I’ve done a lot of work to slow down and be more mindful.  She went on to expand that even though I might not treat myself negatively, I certainly don’t focus on what I’m doing well.  I don’t celebrate my successes, I don’t acknowledge my hard work, and I don’t have the ability to step back, look at my life and work through an eagle eye perspective, and see ALL that I’ve accomplished.  I’m guessing most of my readers haven’t either.  We are so hard-wired for negativity that we focus on what we haven’t done, what we need to do, what we failed to do or what we need to do better.  When we get together with our friends, we very rarely lift each other up.  We are so stuck in our mindset of negativity that we can’t pull ourselves out of it and encourage each other and celebrate for others. 

In an effort to re-wire my own brain, I’ve started to meditate in positivity and love, and to take a deep, grateful breath before sending off, or after receiving, any business-related emails or payments.  I’m sharing my successes with my friends and with my readers.  I’m appreciating when I receive affirmations from the universe that I’m on the right track.

So what can we do to re-wire our brain for the positive?  What if we told our friends what they were doing well instead of commiserating in collective failures? What if we chose kindness over ego?  What if we had a small ceremony for our own accomplishments?  What if we stopped bragging but started consciously sharing our triumphs?  If we all make an intention to do just one of these things, we have the power to change the structure of our brain, live happier, more grateful lives and rise up by celebrating our successes. 

And so it is. 

If you would like some help to pull yourself out of negative habits and replace them with more positive, uplifting ones, please consider us working together.  Check out my services and contact me for more info.

Together, we rise.         

Setbacks & Resilience

Allow me to explain why I’ve been off the grid for a couple of weeks. In my last blog post, I was feeling so motivated, so inspired, so ready to rise. But then, it happened: the inevitable setback. In the matter of a few hours, I felt my energy and spirit go spiraling downwards, feeling more ready to hide than rise. What happened? It was nothing surprising, really.

As many of my readers know, I’ve been struggling with post-concussion syndrome after a sports injury on April 15th. Finally, after 5 months, I experienced a normal day, and it felt amazing. I felt the fog lifting and new-found energy propelling me into old healthful habits that I had been unable to focus on or engage in since my injury. I was back in the gym on modified workouts, making progress with my coaching business and doing well in my day job. On a routine trip to the sports physiotherapist, we saw that my symptom score had dropped dramatically. At that point, we changed the program. We worked hard. We did new and difficult exercises for my brain, eyes, neck and posture. And it figuratively killed me. Within one hour the headache started, and it persisted for another week. Symptoms that had been gone for a while returned. My energy levels plummeted, my spark dwindled and I felt myself becoming frustrated, sad and tired. I spoke with some of my supports who have been through similar experiences and I heard one common theme: the recovery process is never linear; it’s always up and down; you’ll feel like you’re taking two steps forward and one step back for a long while.

So I did what I’ve known to help in the past: I rested. I waited patiently. I complained about my frustrations. Gradually, the fog started lifting again, but not to where it had been before. I found myself feeling good enough to get back into some of those good, healthful habits like sticking to a sleep schedule, doing modified workouts, walking twice a day, reading and practicing mindfulness. But this time there was a new shift: while I physically and mentally was capable of doing those things, something inside me felt paralyzed from actually doing them.

I realized that setbacks paralyze me. The constant up-and-down process of recovery has caused the downs to feel really difficult to climb back out of. It feels like every time I start to feel better, after some time, I inevitably start going backwards. Each time I climb myself out of that low point, it feels like I’m starting over. Starting over can be really difficult; even just thinking about starting over is exhausting. Imagine your first day back to the gym after months or years of inactivity. Well that’s what it feels like for me, every time I have a setback and have to start again. It takes a lot of mental strength, physical energy and spiritual trust to get back to it. Sometimes I feel like it’s comfortable just to be, not to try and just to rest and accept. However, at my core, that’s not who I am.

Bouncing back is the art of resilience. That’s who I am; I’m an artist. I never rest and accept for too long; I always go back to the bottom of that valley and resiliently start walking the path up the mountain. In my reflection I realized that these setbacks are, in fact, inevitable. Life is in a constant flux; the one constant thing in life is change. Like the weather and the seasons, we have storms and we have sunshine; it’s to be expected. So why do we act as if the setbacks are so shocking? Why do we let them paralyze us? Why don’t we just plan for them, think Hello, my old friend, I’ve been expecting you. I trust you’re here to teach me another lesson? and move on? Onward and upwards, even if we’re at the bottom of the proverbial mountain. As a natural organizer, planning for resilience sounds so much better than being hit in the head by a setback, paralyzed by fear to move forward then painfully accepting it’s time to be resilient, stop whining and put one foot in front of the other.

Here’s a tip about resilience: we should expect the setback as the rule and not the exception. We should also have a contingency plan in place for when the setbacks happen. For example, having an emergency savings account for that emergency that’s going to happen at some point in life, or freezing extra food for the inevitable day we’re not feeling like cooking but know we really wouldn’t benefit from ordering take out.

Here’s a tip about not being paralyzed by setbacks: we should stick to a basic routine no matter how we feel. Feel terrible? Go to the gym anyway and do some basic stretching. No energy? Walk for 10 minutes, or 5 or 2. Feeling too anxious to meditate? Take one deep breath. Something is better than nothing so Just. Do. Something!

When we plan for it, starting over doesn’t really feel like starting over, and the setbacks might not feel so horrible. So this week, I’m starting over, but this time I’m planning for success as well as setbacks, and I’m planning to be resilient, because that is who I am.

And so it is.

If you’d like some help starting over, planning for setbacks or implementing healthful habits, please contact me to set up your 1:1 coaching, because together, we rise.

Reflections: Ready to Rise

With September comes the changing of seasons, fresh starts for a lot of people, a need to hunker down, get back into routine and start working on all the things that sat on the sidelines during the dog days of summer.

This September brings with it a feeling of optimism for me.  I feel like I’m finally coming out of my cocoon.  Allow me to explain: Since December of 2017 I’ve been dealing with multiple ailments, almost one after the other.  It started with a sports injury, then a burnout, resulting pain symptoms from the injury and the burnout, followed by a head injury, more pain, fatigue and a wealth of other issues, and months of recovery.  My options were to sit and wallow in the darkness or to retreat, heal and focus on the light.  While I most certainly had my moments of darkness, I think overall I was focused on the light.

At first, the light felt like a goal I had to fight for.  I pushed and pushed, I stretched, I did everything I thought was supposed to do, but continued to just feel that tightness that comes with pushing and not being well.  Looking back, I wasn’t aware that I needed to breathe into the pain (both literally and figuratively), be gentle and have compassion, and just let the universe do its work.  Now after nine whole months of cocooning, I can see that my body, my spirit and my intuition had to take the lead, no matter what my ego wanted to push for.  I can see that when I finally just let go of the push, I started to heal.  Maybe that was part of the lesson after all.

Oh, the lessons!  I’ve learned so much in my cocoon.  I’ve read, 17 books and counting, in fact. I’ve learned that coffee is not the cure to low energy.  I’ve learned that even though I’m tired, sleeping more than 8 hours a night is just not the answer for me.  I’ve learned that intuitive eating is the best approach for naturally fueling my body and I no longer crave entire batches of cookies and cakes like before.  I’ve learned that instead of 12 cups of water a day, my body needs almost double that. I’ve learned that my cellphone and social media should not be a cure to my emotions.  I’ve learned that I absolutely need to ground myself outdoors, no exceptions. I’ve learned that I cannot force my body back into a fitness routine; I’ve had to learn to embrace the grey-zone and the something-is-better-than-nothing approach to physical activity; I’ve understood that my body will let me know when it is ready to be pushed.  I’ve learned the value of meditation and mindfulness, even though I’m still working on carving this into my daily routine. I’ve learned I need to invest in myself, my health, my wellness, my business and other services in order to be my best self. I’ve learned, on a much different level, that independence is on a spectrum (I already knew this - in fact, I collaborated on my masters thesis on it, see Bonikowsky et al. for you academic-types out there).  I’ve learned that I just can’t do it alone; I need the support and love of my husband, family, friends, healthcare team, acquaintances, co-workers, fellow entrepreneurs, spiritual mentors, spirit guides, dog, barista…. I think you get the point! I’ve learned that my creativity cannot be minimized; I’ve felt the urge to create. I’ve also learned the value of rest, by truly listening to my body, to following my intuition and remembering to b-r-e-a-t-h-e.      

While I’m aware that I’m not back to 100 per cent, I’m feeling like the fog is lifting on multiple levels.  With all my learning, I feel like I’ve undergone a transformation, a metamorphosis, if you will.  This new butterfly I’ve become has better self-care, presence, connection and intuition.  I feel like I’m over the push I used to feel to get things done by a certain time, in a certain way, whether I wanted to or not.  

Instead of the push, I’m ready to RISE.  I’m ready to move, to contribute, to influence, to love, to blossom, to create.  The question is, are you ready to rise with me?

And so it is.  

If you’re ready to rise, please have a look at my programs and contact me to see how we can rise together.  As the saying goes, we rise by lifting others.

Together, we rise.

Movement & meditation are my medicine

When I tap into my higher self, or my spirit guides, or my intuition, I usually get really amazing information. It’s interesting that we always have the answers if we look in the right places. Not that long ago I was feeling a little unsettled, and I asked, “what do I need right now?” and the answer was clear as day: movement and meditation are your medicine. Not a special diet, not water, not coffee, not matcha tea or buying something or baking something; movement and meditation. Plain and simple.

This didn’t really come as a surprise for me, because I’ve always felt better when I was working out, or playing sports, or doing something active on a regular basis, and usually movement becomes my meditation. It’s the one place I can really just be, find flow, and trust in the process. It’s the one thing I can rely on to lift my spirits and improve my energy levels, every time. But I never looked at movement in general as my medicine, only my intense, heart-pumping activity felt medicinal. Since my concussion, I started to recognize that any activity is good activity for me: walking the dog, doing a few minutes of yoga at night, getting in a lunchtime stroll, doing a lower-intensity workout, taking a hip-hop dance class or going to a zumba class, in addition to playing sports, doing hot yoga or getting in a higher-intensity workout (even though the last three are not things I’ve yet done post-concussion). It’s all good stuff. And the nice thing with these options is that any of them can be called upon depending on my mood, my energy levels and levels of pain, and still give me great results - every time.

It wasn’t that long ago when I would discredit walking, a simple yoga sequence, or even a moderate-intensity workout because it wasn’t intense enough; even though I did it, I treated it as if it didn’t count. But the reality is, any movement is good movement as long as it’s safe. Physical activity allows the brain to settle away from the stresses of everyday. It also creates the opportunity for the joints to move, get lubricated and subsequently loosen the surrounding tendons and muscles. Physical activity releases endorphins in the brain, causing a natural boost in mood, reduction in pain and a general positive feeling. Longer-term physical activity also has the ability to improve cognitive abilities, and reduce the effects of cognitive decline.

I used to approach fitness in a very black-or-white mindset: if I couldn’t do an entire, intense workout, I wouldn’t work out at all; if I couldn’t do a heart-pumping HIIT session post-injury, I might as well not work out until I could actually do that and make it worthwhile. But with some effort and support from my multidisciplinary team, I realized it’s quality over quantity. Right now I need to listen to what my body needs, not push, and ease myself into activity. And that comes in the form of doing different forms of physical activity for the sake of just enjoying them and not pushing for any specific outcome. I know that my mental health is so much more balanced if I’m physically active, so I had to start embracing grey-thinking rather than black-or-white to help keep that on track.

Meditation, on the other hand, is a little different. I do not get the immediate feelings of satisfaction post-meditation session as I do post-workout. Heck, sometimes it’s so peaceful and quiet in this brain of mine, and other times it’s all over the place and I can hardly notice the space between the thoughts, emotions or sensations. This is something that takes serious dedication, practice and, at minimum, weeks to months of time to notice any difference. That’s why meditation is considered a practice after all. Although I do feel mindful during a workout, it’s not exactly the same thing as sitting down to do nothing but meditate. Even mindful activity is not quite the same, although still beneficial. There are also many benefits of any form of mindfulness or meditation technique: mindfulness allows the brain to calm, muscles to relax, pain symptoms to reduce; it can promote sleep, focus, concentration and more stable moods, in addition to an increased awareness of thoughts, emotions and behaviours, and a more conscious approach to life. In my day job as an occupational therapist, mindfulness is my number one recommendation for individuals who experience chronic pain, difficulties regulating emotions, mood disorders or difficulty sleeping. It’s like a medical prescription without the medicine. So it should be a natural extension that I would also use this as medicine for myself.

Movement and meditation are the two medicines we all have available to us in limitless supply. They cost nothing. They can be done anywhere. There are no right or wrong ways to engage in them, there are no uniforms that need to be worn, there are literally no barriers. The only thing that is stopping us from making progress and improving our lives is, well, us. Just think about the positive effects I’ve listed above, and all it takes is 20 minutes a day of activity and 20 minutes a day of mindfulness. A little bit of effort for a lot of rewards. Sounds good to me. Sounds kind of like soul medicine.

And so it is.

-If you need help staying on track with your own movement/meditation regime, please contact me to see how I can help you find your soul medicine! Please check out my September Special to save $$$ and kick-start your progress. Only a few spots are remaining!

Work-Life Balance

We live in a fast-paced, technological world.  This is a world where our family, friends, co-workers and acquaintances can reach us at any time of the day through any number of methods.  We have every means of instant communication attached to our back pockets or our purses.  So it goes without saying that we can be constantly socializing or dealing with personal matters while at work, and on the flip-side, we can be constantly working or dealing with work matters while at home.  This goes deeper than just the average working person, but imagine what it's like for a helping professional, an entrepreneur, or someone who works out of their home.  It can be so hard to separate these work from non-work that it feels like we never get a break from either, or we are constantly on call to whatever needs arise, no matter the time of day or the context.  

I don't feel that we can possibly continue this way as a society.  Enter: work-life balance.  Maybe you've heard of it before?  Maybe you think you're doing this, but the reality is, most of us are not.  Here are some suggestions I have (and use), to balance work life and home life.  

Be Selfish

This one is my favourite.  I love being selfish.  Because, how can we possibly give ourselves to another person, a relationship a business or an employer if we are not adequately taking care of ourselves first?  For me, it's a must that I set aside a short time block daily, and a bigger one on the weekend, to just rest.  It's also important that I block in time for fitness and meditation, because I recognize that if I'm not operating mentally and physically at my best, I most certainly won't be able to contribute to anything else in a meaningful way. 

Be Organized 

I love being organized.  I bullet journal, I have a big calendar on my fridge, items in my home have a home of their own, and if they don't they get minimized!  I like to visually see my schedule both during work and outside of work, so I can know where my energy can go on any given day, week or month.  Do I have time to take on that extra contract or add on that new commitment?  Do I have energy to go to that social event?  Do I have money left in my budget to go out for dinner? Do I need to cancel a commitment to rest?  Am I obligated to respond to this email or text right this minute? These questions can't properly be answered without some functioning level of organization.  Being organized with my own things, time, energy and finances helps me place an appropriate value on my home life and make good decisions. 

Wear the Hats

In other words, set good boundaries.  I love having boundaries; I'm a rigid person by nature, and I'm also pretty selfish (see above!) so boundaries are easy-peasy for me.  I recognize that isn't the way for most people though.  It might be helpful to look at life through the lens of putting on our work cap then hanging it up and putting on our home cap.  Our commute between the two can be the transition period from one hat to the next.  For me, that looks like this: having separate cellphones for work and home; not checking work emails from home; being aware if I'm thinking about work when I'm not at work, and reminding myself that I'm not paid to mentally (or physically) do any work when I'm not at work. That also includes trying my best to leave my office at lunch time to rest my brain and my energy, whether it's going for a walk or to the gym, or finding a quiet place to read.  I've also been trying really hard in the past year, to spend less time talking about work to my partner or friends when I'm at home.  This is a mindful exercise and it takes practice, but it's worth it!

All of the coaching clients I've worked with in the past year have had some form of difficulty with work, whether it was separating it from home, organizing it better, staying on track, dealing with stress or managing work and home/family life.  The thing that strikes me the most, is how little awareness people seem to have when it comes to having a good balance, and why it's so important.  Please give these strategies a try.  You might be surprised how rewarding they are, once you give yourself permission to be selfish, be organized and wear the hats! 

And so it is. 

If you or someone you know is struggling with work-life balance in any way, and you liked some of the information above, I invite you to consider coaching as a way to help get on track!  Please have a look at my events, programs and feel free contact me for more info.         

Love & light.

Turning Disappointment into Power

Sometimes, things just don't work out as planned.  And then other things don't work out, and then more things don't work out... Sometimes, it's really hard to pull ourselves out of that "WTF" mindset, when life disappoints us.  However, we always get two options, which are as follows:  Option 1 is to wallow in self-pity;  Option 2 is to move on with life. 

After a series of minor disappointments this week, I found myself excessively annoyed.  Let me just remind myself here, that the disappointments really were, in the grand scheme of things, minor.  And the excessive annoyance was, well, excessive. 

Pop Quiz:  Which of the following did I do to pull myself out of it: 

a) meditate

b) exercise

c) a mindless distraction technique

d) do my own thing anyway because I'm my own human (in other words, move on with my life)

e) cry  

f) not a damned thing.  

You guessed it, it was not a damned thing (I'm not much for crying anyway).  I just chose option 1 from above, and wallowed.  I didn't really enjoy it, but it was self-indulgent and at the moment I guess I needed to put a band-aid over my ego.  Eventually, though, I did start to reflect on how my day ended up, and I realized that I did nothing to change it.  Nope, not a damned thing.  I could have, at the very least, painted my toenails, or done a quick workout, or anything really, but I did not. 

This brings me to how disappointment can lead to power: authentic power. 

First off, what is authentic power?  Well a quick google search informed me that authentic power is when your personality and soul are in alignment.  I've heard it described as being authentic, or living in your core, or living in alignment with your purpose, but in layman's terms, it's doing what feels right to your spirit and soul.  For me, authentic power is doing what I want to do, for me.  It's going to a coffee shop, drinking a coconut cappuccino, reading a book.  It's finding flow in writing, it's being outdoors, because those are things that feel good to my soul.  It's allowing my mind to be clear and still, and focus on myself rather than what others have done to me.  It's pushing past what is comfortable and doing what I know is right, for nothing else than for myself.  It's also not worrying what others think, setting boundaries, and saying no when things don't feel right.  And moving on when I tried and things aren't working out.          

Secondly, how can disappointment lead to all this great stuff above?  Well, as I mentioned earlier, we have two choices.  If we choose the second option, we are more likely to feel good about ourselves and make better choices for us.  That means not complaining when things don't go our way, not making others feel badly for how their decisions affected us, not hiding from the emotions behind our phones or through overeating or shopping, or any other drug of choice.  The best way to do this is to sit with the initial feeling of disappointment, anger, frustration, or whatever it might be, then watch it pass.  Then, Move. On.  Simple as that! 

I realized that I had let my power be placed in another's action, I vibrated on a lower frequency and I did not manage my expectations (I was not practicing what I preached from a previous post).  That's called an external locus of control.  And if I know anything, it's that we can't change the situation, but we do have the power to change how we think about it.  That's called an internal locus of control, it brings the power back to within.  This allows us to change our mood and actions; it's classic cognitive behavioural therapy.

If you've ever felt stuck waiting for someone or something to happen, and it doesn't turn out, or like you can't pull yourself out of a rut, or like you've been feeling sorry for yourself for just too long, try this recipe:

STOP --> Recognize the emotion, sit with it, let it pass --> Re-write your story by changing your thoughts  --> Live within your authentic power

Today, I chose to write my story differently.  Instead of the poor-me or the screw-you mentality, I just did things that felt healing, grounding and meditative.  I spent the day alone, I visited my favourite places.  I thought about what was within my own power to make it a good day, and I did just that.  And you know what?  I'm feeling much more like a goddess, in her own authentic power.  And goddess beats complainer every single time.

And so it is.            

Can doing the Dishes be a Spiritual Practice?

In my last blog post, I talked about the beauty of a rest day, and how amazingly amazing it feels to have one entire day off from obligations/socializing/commitments/housework each week.  The irony of that post is that on my last three rest days, I did have to do a teeny little bit of work in the house due to an agreement I made with Hubby that I'm not doing any more house projects this summer, and since he is knee-deep in a bathroom renovation, I agreed to step up with all the day-to-day house stuff.  I learned that sometimes, no matter how well I plan, I still have to do a little something on my rest days.  And other days, when I don't plan very well at all, I definitely need to do a little something on my rest days.

My first "rest day" that required work felt terrible.  It didn't feel like a rest day at all.  All I could think about was what I had to do next and how much stuff was left.  I had a terrible time staying in the present moment.  Not only that, but I had planned to make a couple phone calls on that day, so I had my phone on, and felt like it paralyzed me into being as far from a rest day as possible.  I was resentful about the amount of housework I still had to do and overall I just made myself feel miserable.  I felt like I couldn't get into a good rest because there was always something to do, whether it was to call my mom back, switch the laundry or get dinner ready.  Even at times when I was essentially resting, I was thinking about how little rest I was getting and was ruining even that moment of potential mindfulness and relaxation for myself.  

I realized my thoughts really were getting the best of me and I needed to re-frame them into something more realistic, productive and reasonable.  I can remember a time when doing dishes and laundry were times when my brain ran wild; I would stew over the smallest things, start imaginary fights in my head or become angry because of my thoughts.  I knew that if I allowed myself to wallow in self-pity for not getting an ENTIRE rest day, the things I did have to do would turn into another chance for my brain to run wild.  So I decided to reign it in and start using those mundane tasks as moments in mindfulness. 

I started with washing something in the sink, feeling the weight of the dish I was washing, the temperature of the water on my hands, noting the citrus-smell of the dish soap, hearing the sound of water running and my dishrag wiping the cup.  I congratulated myself for not thinking about anything else, for being able to be entirely mindful in that mundane moment, and I thought to myself "Hell yes, that was peaceful.  Why haven't I ever done this before?!"  In that moment, I realized that doing the dishes, or folding the laundry, or sweeping the floor, can all be mindful and spiritual experiences.  They can calm the mind, allow us to be fully present in the moment, and focus subtly on the love we have in our hearts.  The tricky part is giving ourselves permission to find the peace in those moments.  When the brain is on autopilot, we are automatically thinking about something that happened earlier or something else to come.  Going through life like this causes us to dread things we feel like we have to do, and we wish away the present moment.  However, if we make a conscious effort to let all of those thoughts and obligations go, and just focus on what we are doing, one moment at a time, we might find a little reprieve from the mundane of the day-to-day grind.  

I took that ability to just let go, and in my next rest day, when I had to do some chores around the house, I tried to let go of any irrational thoughts, impressions about the future, perseverations over the past and just be in the moment while I did those tasks.  Now I know as well as anyone that focusing on the present is so difficult to do, especially when we've formed habits like I had before with dishes and laundry, so I'm not going to claim that it rocked my world, or changed my life, or left me completely at peace.  But I am going to say that it allowed me to change my perspective, to accept without judgement, to let go and to just be.  I most certainly felt more gratitude, more peaceful and more rested than had I just gone through the tasks automatically and begrudgingly.  

Have you been thinking that meditation or mindfulness might work for you, but you just can't carve out the time to sit down and do it?  Why not give mindful activity a try?  This might be just the mindful practice for busy people.  See how it feels to just focus on brushing your teeth, or sweeping the floor, or any of those mundane things we do every day.  Start with focusing on one stroke at a time, or washing one dish at a time, one moment at a time, and don't worry about the next until you're there.  And if you lose focus, just bring yourself back to the now, let go of those new thoughts that came in, and try again.  Imagine all those negative thoughts we can save ourselves from thinking if we learn how to just be here now.  That in an of itself, is a spiritual practice.  So the answer to the question is: yes, doing the dishes can be a spiritual practice! 

And so it is. 

The Beauty of a Rest Day

You know that feeling before your vacation is about to start - that giddy, excited, carefree feeling that comes with knowing you have a whole long weekend, or week, or however long, to relax, forget about work, read a book or do something fun you've been planning for a while? Or what about that dreaded feeling of going back to work after vacation, not knowing when your next trip will be, or planning to hunker down, put in your time and just wait until you have enough banked time and money accumulated to do it all over again?  

What if I told you, you could have the same feeling Every. Damn. Week.?! No extra vacation time or money needed.  The secret is simple: one planned rest-day every week.  It's a game changer. 

In my concussion-recovery journey, I've come to learn that I just simply cannot tackle life the same way I did four months ago, nor do I want to, actually.  I've learned that my body and brain need rest, and the more I push myself, the more fatigued, irritable and symptomatic I get.  This resulted in two additional hits to the head that really put me out of commission.  I really had to learn the hard way that muscling through a head injury was not going to do me any good.  And the only thing that was going to help me, was not only to just learn to, but to embrace, rest. After a particularly hard and tearful week following my last head impact, I realized that I had not been treating my own recovery the way that I would recommend my clients to recover, and I needed to follow my own advice for once.  I needed to be gentler and more compassionate with myself, to treat my body better, to stop pushing and to start learning new ways.   

I always liked the idea of a sabbath, even though I'm not religious.  The idea of one entire day of rest, relaxation and non-work just felt so magical - no shopping, no socializing, no housework, no social media - it felt like a quiet day at the lake, a calm day on a tropical beach, a lazy day exploring a new city, or a sacred day meditating in nature, all things that are healing for my soul.  I had heard of it done in conjunction with an unplugged day, a day of no screen time or intake of outside information, but I always thought it wasn't possible for me with my busy life, until my busy life made me stop and rest without exception.  So I thought, if I've got to do it, I might as well do it right, and try to follow those rules in order to get in a complete recharge, heal my brain, and hopefully change my life for the better.  So I did it.  I sat down with my husband and explained to him the rules: I'm going to pick one day each week for rest; I'm going to unplug my cellphone; I'm not doing any house work or shopping with the exception of making a simple meal and cleaning up afterwards; I'm not doing any socializing or entertaining; you can join me or you can do other things (like cleaning the garage), but please don't expect me to do them with you. We figured out how that would look, including picking the day based on what's planned for that week and changing our approach for housework, groceries and laundry.  I needed to do some evaluating and re-adjusting along the way to make it work for our household and my needs. 

What I learned was that a rest day is completely possible.  I've learned that if I'm well-prepared for the day, I come to look forward to it with giddy excitement, just like I would a vacation.  I've learned that it feels better if I'm outside, if I'm not wearing my watch and if my cellphone is completely put away - no exceptions!  I've realized that if it's executed according to plan, that one day feels like a miracle.  I'm recharged, happy and completely relaxed, and I didn't even need to leave town to do it!  

I've always wanted to live my life feeling like everyday was a Friday, or everyday was a vacation day.  However, with work, mortgage and other adult responsibilities, I quickly learned that would be hard for me to do.  So like most people, I settled into looking forward to Fridays and the one time a year we do a big trip, with some moderate excitement over other times when we did less significant things.  But here's the thing about that: why should we sacrifice that feeling of freedom and ease 48 or 49 weeks out of the year just for a few short weeks of adventure?  Shouldn't we try to practice loving our lives and living for the now 52 weeks out of the year? 

Yeah, but that's impossible right? Work pays the bills, the bills keep the roof over our head, our families are busy, busyness equals productivity, busyness is better than boredom, busy, busy busy ........    

I'm guilty of being over-scheduled and glorifying busy.  Heck, not that long ago I had 5 active jobs at once.  Right now I'm down to 3.  Yesterday I had a taste of that old life, and you know what?  I was exhausted and unhappy with how my day unfolded.  It was too busy.  

So back to my questions: no, we should not sacrifice feelings of freedom 49 weeks of the year; yes, we should practice loving our lives and living for the now every week.  And no, it's not impossible.  How we do these things is simple: we make an intentional plan to prioritize rest and self-care un-apologetically; we plan for it on a daily basis in small bursts, and we plan for it over big chunks on a weekly basis.  And just like that, we make it happen!  

If a rest day sounds boring to you, it doesn't have to be!  Plan doing something that feels good for your soul.  If socializing lights your fire, then make your rest day a social one.  If reading recharges you, then read a book.  If exercise is what gets you going, plan something active.  But also practice being mindful, embrace rest, deal with being bored, don't rigidly schedule your day, and allow for it to unfold just as you need it to.  Your brain, mind, body and soul will thank you.  It's like a built-in vacation Every. Damn. Week!  And that is how you rest, get refreshed and feel your best for the week ahead.

And so it is.