Wellness Rituals.
Wellness has been my focus for 2020. Before the year started, I wanted to be very intentional about what I was focusing on as part of my wellness journey this year. As I have explored many different facets of what wellness means, these particular daily rituals have helped me find healing, calm, and a sense of wellbeing in different areas of my life. Here are my top favorite wellness rituals that I have implemented into my regular routine. Give one a try or pick a couple that you think you may enjoy. These have helped me tremendously, I hope they help you in your journey as well.
1. Be with Nature
Nature hasn’t always been a top priority for me in the past. Over the years however, I have grown to find a sense of peace the more time I spend with nature. I have grown to love hiking, outdoor walks and workouts, and being in and around water. This year I have spent more time being more mindful about implementing hikes, going outside and walking and moving my at-home workouts outside. By far my favorite part of being with nature is water. Living in Washington for a vast majority of my life, has created a connection within me to water. When I lived there, I loved visiting Gasworks Park because it brought me so close to water and a beautiful view of the city. It brought my so much peace. I would sit at the top of the hill for hours. Find yourself a place in nature that brings you peace, a place that you can go to, to bring calm to your soul. Where has been your favorite place in nature to be in?
2. Daily Meditation
Of all the wellness rituals that I have implemented, meditation by far has been the hardest. I struggle with silencing my mind. I feel as though my mind is always on the go. I started using the Alo Moves app that provided really great guided meditations and sound baths that helped calm my mind from my speeding thoughts and the sound baths gave my mind something to focus on. I am constantly working towards daily meditation. I often miss my opportunities, but I’m always working towards embedding meditation into my routine. By calming your mind, even if your thoughts are always on the go, it allows your mind to simply slow down.
3. Regular Exercise
This year has been a whirlwind for me, as I’m sure it has been for everyone. My goal for this year was to work up to working out 5-days a week. It wasn’t until two weeks ago (1st week of September) that I consistently worked out 5-days a week for 3-weeks straight. I have been working towards that achievement from the beginning of the year. Regular exercise has been shown to not only improve your physical wellbeing but you’re mental wellbeing as well. I have tried many different workout regiments but my top 3 favorite workout apps and/or influencers are:
1. FitOn - this app is free. There are a variety of different workouts from yoga to strength training and dance! I originally gave it a try because JVN (Jonathan Van Ness from Queer Eye) mentioned he had workouts on the app that was FREE!! Well I am a big fan of free AAAAND JVN so it was a no-brainer. I fell in love with the app immediately. You can also get the premium version for $20/6-months, still super affordable and you'll get recipes as well.
2. Mariela.bravo.fit on IG - I LOVE Mariela! My favorite type of workouts is strength training and with having to workout at home, it has been a challenge getting my strength training in, until I ran into Mariela on IG. What I love about her workouts is first, they are also free (can you tell, I really LOVE FREE!!). But also, she includes every exercise move on her posts and lets you know how many reps and sets to do. This makes it easy to save the workout on IG. What I do, is I create a folder in my saved items on IG and title it “Workouts” and whenever I see her post a great workout I save it into this folder. When I’m ready to start my workout I can easily access the workout and play her workouts along side me.
3. Chloe Ting on Youtube - I did Chloe’s 2-week challenge with my besties and her workouts is what spearheaded my efforts in working out 5-days a week. Her challenges are no joke! What i love about her guided workouts is she offers modifications with ever exercise and she keeps them short making it possible for everyone to do! All of her workouts and challenges are free also!! yup all these workouts are FREE! and she has such a great personality. Her playlists are fun too!
4. Eating Healthy
Okay, so eating healthy has always, always, always been my biggest challenge. I’m super health conscious when it comes to eating but I love my snacks and I love my cheat meals, which until I decided to start regularly documenting my meals, I was having really often. I promise you, I have tried literally every single trendy diet out there and what I have found is that my issue wasn’t the knowledge of eating healthy but more so the psychology around eating. I haven’t always had the best relationship with food. When I was young, I assumed my body would just hold up the way it always has (I know wishful thinking right??) and when reality hit, I had already built so many shitty habits that it felt impossible to change. I finally ended my continuous journey of finding healthy guidance with the Noom app. If you haven’t heard of Noom, I highly recommend looking into it. It is on the pricer side, but if you are ready to make the change and have the ability to invest, it will be the best investment you ever made. It definitely was for me. They help you developing the right habits and kicking the shitty ones aside. The focus isn’t around losing a ton of weight, but more about building strong habits and thinking for long term life changing success!
5. Journaling
Journaling has been something I have done my whole life. I have done traditional journals and digital journals. Honestly, they all work the same. Everyone is different, so chose the one that works best for you. I honestly flip back and forth between the two. When my thoughts are running rapid, I always go to my digital journal. I have used the DayOne digital journal for over 7 years now and I still swear by it. When my thoughts are more fluid and flowing, I will opt for my bound journal. Journaling gives me a sense of clarity and calmness when my thoughts seem chaotic. I started journaling when I was in junior high and it has given me the ability to find clarity in my thinking. I typically like to write about my day and how I was feeling. I also do a daily gratitude journal that I do before bed. I write down 3-things I am grateful for that day. This helps me to reflect and see the positive things in my day even if it’s something super simple like being grateful for the fresh water I drank that day.
6. Rest
It is so important to give yourself the rest that you need. It is recommended that you receive at least 8-hours of sleep a day. I can honestly say that I am usually not that person. I’m really solid on 6-hours of sleep. However, I will also implement a 30+ minute nap in the middle of the day. Which is a sign that my “solid 6-hours” of sleep is actually really not enough. I know everyone’s life is different, I know for me, the reason I can only squeeze 6-hours of sleep in is because of how much I need to get done in the day. Getting good rest has been shown to improve mental clarity and physical wellness in digestion and signs of aging. For me, making time for my 30-minute nap has helped in building in more rest in my day. What ways can you add more rest to your day?
7. Positive self-talk
Of all the wellness rituals, this is by far the most important one. If the only thing you take away from this is adding positive self-talk to your day, than this blog has done it’s job. I have learned this year that I did not include a lot of positive self-talk in my day. I actually had a lot of negative self-talk. It was a very soft and dull voice in my head. It wasn’t very loud but it was there and it would say the worst shit all the time. That voice would tell me that I wasn’t working out hard enough because I would always need breaks. It would tell me that I didn’t have enough strong will because I ate that cookie with my son. Subtle but shitty. I learned how to reframe my thinking to “you worked your ass out today and you kept moving! good work!” also, “that cookie was amazing and you had quality time with Ari.” It has taken a lot of effort in changing my thoughts because it is so much easier to hold onto negative thoughts than positive ones. So the positive ones take a lot of effort. But it is so worth it because it creates worthiness in your soul.
Wellness rituals are key to building a stronger, happier you. It creates positive changes in your universe for your overall wellbeing. I call them rituals because they have become so necessary to my everyday living that when I don’t do them, I feel incomplete. They have given me a sense of wellness that I rely on them to feel well. These rituals are mine, what are rituals that you do that bring you wellness?