Day 1: The Start of a Wellness Evolution

 

 

Welcome to the 2K18 Sassy Wellness MIND, BODY, {Creative} SPIRIT Reset!  

If you've made it here to the blog, congrats on taking the first step towards either a.) committing to doing a few nice things for yourself and your health this year, or b.) re-dedicating yourself to the cause {raises hand}. Either way, SALUTE!  Starting today at 12 PM, PST I'll be broadcasting live tips and dishing on some resources to help you (and I) get back to basics and enjoy some of the simple pleasures of healthy living. I will be chatting with you all on Facebook Live and posting here daily to share some things I've discovered about wellness that have helped me along the way.

And this is by no means meant to be a one-way conversation. I hope that you'll take to the comments here on the blog and during the live broadcasts to share your goals and journey too. It really means a lot to me to have you take part in this reset with me. There really is strength in numbers. 

{Click to share the Tweetable Tip of the Day}

Let today be the (re)start of your wellness evolution! We're takin' it one baby step at a time, baby.

Rome wasn't built in a day and neither are habits, resolutions or any type of long term goals that you want to accomplish. Therefore, be gentle and sweet to yourself-- kinda like you'd treat a baby learning or trying something new for the first time.

A healthy life is meant to bring you joy, not hold you hostage and bully you into doing a bunch of stuff that you don't actually like. Pick out the habits and practices that feel good and use them as your foundation. In time, you'll find that focusing on the parts you find pleasurable will literally create a domino effect in your life and you'll naturally start to pick-up other good wellness habits. 

And while it's great to be disciplined and make good choices, remember-- you don't have to do everything perfectly all at once. Wellness is a process, and it's always evolving, just like you and me, my loves. Today's task is to download and fill out your free life map (available in your Day 01 email when you sign-up). On it are the different aspects of a fully balanced life that we are focusing on during this reset. The life map asks you to set intentions (or goals-- if you want to call them that) plus identify the baby steps you will take to upgrade your:

MIND-- What do you hope to learn this year? 

BODY-- How will you treat your body better? 

CREATIVE-- What inspires you to do your best work? 

SPIRIT-- Where can you carve out more time to tap into your inner power?

Talk to me! Leave a comment, tweet me or join the live chat to talk about what's on your life map and the baby step(s) you've decided to focus on taking over the course of this challenge or in the next year.  

So, go on now... and remember, baby steps! 

Also, if you haven't checked your email yet, be sure to go there to check out this week's outline and the link to our private FB group so you can access the daily wellness chat video; PLUS download this week's FREE life map. It's a great tool you'll want to fill-out and refer back to over the course of your journey. There are additional quick tips and action steps that go along with each daily post and broadcast this week in the daily journal, which you can download here.

Day 8: Calm Your Spirit Using Everyday Mindfulness

Namaste, beautiful people! Welcome to Week 2, day 8 of the 31 Day Mind, Body, Spirit Re-set. If you've been jamming with us since day one, congrats! If you're just joining... we're glad to have you! Please make sure you're signed up to receive the extra goodies that we have exclusively for subscribers here. This week we have a meditation calendar to help guide you through the exercises and concepts, so be sure to get yours! It's absolutely FREE! 

Here's a quick overview of a few things that you can do to create an atmosphere that's conducive creating a flow of good energy day to day. ALSO, keep in mind that with a regular meditation practice, you will find that the generation of light, positive energy will come quite naturally as a result of your inner work. In fact, don't be surprised if perfect strangers start to tell you that you seem to have a glow about you. Meditation tends to have that effect. And who doesn't want a shine that is evident from the inside out? Your natural spirit self is radiant. Let it show!

Set daily intentions

Setting a daily intention can be as easy as when you open your eyes in the morning have a positive conversation with yourself: by saying things like, "I'm going to have a good day," or "I am going to be productive today." Whatever it is that you need, create the intention before you even get out of the bed.
 

Practice feeling good

You know the saying, "Follow your bliss?" That's exactly what you should do from day to day by choosing to follow thoughts, actions and feelings that feel good. This concept can take some practice, but it's exceptionally helpful whenever you find yourself in a tight spot or just dealing with a difficult or stressful situation to breathe and ask yourself, 'What's the path of least resistance in this moment'? and go that direction. Decide what's the easiest thing for you to do with your words and actions in whatever situation that you find yourself in that is positive, productive and anti-dramatic. You may not be the source of drama or able to control it, but you can control how you react. Choose what feels good, true and right for you. Even if that means walking away (even temporarily) from situations (and crazy-making people) that don't align with your bliss (more on this in a later broadcast).

Tune in to positivity

Try to limit your time watching regular TV as much as possible this week. Maybe allow yourself the luxury of 1 hour per day.

Fill your extra time with content that feeds your spirit instead. Consume whatever inspirational talks, sermons, music, guided meditations, inspirational audio books, or feel good comedies (it's good to laugh) that you can get your hands on to cultivate an abundance of good energy from day to day. 

Close the day mindfully and with gratitude

Each night before you drift off to sleep think about all of the good things that happened during the day: Did the sun come out? Be thankful. Was a stranger kind to you? Send them appreciative thoughts in your mind. Notice when you felt good during the day, what was the cause, and reflect on it.

Soon you'll find that with a little dose of mindfulness everyday, you'll better be able to notice how you feel, choose your thoughts, and move through your day more joyfully. This is the foundation of what I like to call daily mindful, meditative (thoughtful) behavior in action. You will find that answers that you seek in life will come to you easily when you are in a good head and heart space to receive them. Go forth, be and spread light!

Tweetable Tip of The Day: 

Be sure to join the wellness chat on Periscope at our NEW time 9 PM, EST for more wellness. Also, please officially join the 31 Day Sassy Wellness Reset and get access to additional tips, downloadable tools, recipes and resources only available to subscribers. Click the button below to sign up now.

10 Awesome Benefits of Meditation

Why #meditation? While I’ve always enjoyed yoga, probably for many of the same reasons why I love meditation, I only recently started practicing regularly. It never occurred to me that I should until after a particularly tumultuous 2014, I made the a decision that this year was going to be the year that I proactively do something and take an active role to make sh!t happen for myself. I thought, well yoga has always served me well, why not toss in some meditation for good measure. I decided to create an environment that was conducive to tuning out the noise of the exterior world and to spend all of my spare time aligning myself with my internal guide. I ate more nutritiously, I read, I listened, I breathed, I got quiet.

After the first 30 days of doing all of my new things every day I was pretty impressed. The second month into the year I decreased my yoga and meditation practice significantly and I could really tell the difference in what I felt internally and how I moved through the day, externally. By the third month, I’d resumed my daily habit and ritual of meditating (at the very least) and doing yoga every day that I could. And now I’m totally convinced that the benefits of dedicating time to my practice and rituals are no fluke. 

What’s funny is that before I even had a loose meditation practice, I started to look around at my life and the evidence that something was off was clear to me. But for the longest time I couldn’t quite put my finger on what to do about it. At the end of last year I’d been reading about the power of gratitude and the laws of attraction, just feeling like I needed to learn and absorb more if I was going to get out of what felt like a rut. A couple of days before New Years Eve, I had an epiphany that I needed to look within myself to figure out why it seemed things in my life— relationships, finances, progress towards my goals— were in a disarray. Note that I say that it only SEEMED that way. The confusion was purely an illusion that I’d projected into the universe. So, I also knew that if I was going to “fix” what was going on, the answers were also within. 

While I don’t think meditation  benefits are one size fits all in terms of “results,” I do believe that whatever it is that you personally need to connect with in your #spirit is what you will find. There’s a saying, “What you seek is seeking you.” Based on the effect that meditation has had on my life within a short, short span of time, I have definitely found that to be true. Everytime I get still and tune in to the quiet, which is always there, I feel renewed from the inside out. It’s like mentally hitting reset everyday— it cuts through the BS of life and helps me focus on what’s important in the moment. 

Here’s my top 10 benefits describing what meditation has done for me: 

 1. Increased focus & clarity of thought 

 2. Increased productivity 

 3. Increased sense of connectivity with others 

 4. Increased compassion for others 

 5. Increased self-awareness 

 6. Better sleep 

 7. Heightened intuition and discernment 

 8. Better ability to balance emotions and re-center self as needed 

 9. Increased capacity to use my will and direct the current of the law of attraction favorably 

10. Increased sense of positivity from day to day 

This is a non exhaustive list, by far. I’m sure if you hook up my brain or body to some fancy medical devices there’s sure to be something amazing going on in there. But I think you kinda get the point, right? Meditation is awesome in more ways than one.

Talk back, what has meditation done for you? Or do you find yourself having problems with the process? Let’s talk about it. Leave a comment.