Here we are, 1 month into ‘22. How are things shaping up for your year?They say it takes 21 days to form a new habit, and we’re at 31 days of working on new things for ‘22. How’s it feeling? What’s working, and where are you getting stuck? What’s on your heart to create more of? I’m here to support everything that you’re up to. Keep reading 😉
As you well know…80% of people will have given up on their new years resolutions by the 2nd week of Feb. And I know you’re on the other side of that stat, but perhaps you’re feeling a loss in motivation, and need a fresh perspective, mindset & some new tools to continue powering ahead towards your goals.Perhaps re-thinking how we set goals (vs building new habits) & setting up our feelings & intentions to align with those could be part of the issue…this is where a mindset coach comes in!
Mindset shifts lead to major life shifts. Thinking differently leads to acting differently, and getting different results.
One concept, if you’ve read the book Atomic Habits, is the idea that small positive changes that are relatively easy to do daily—without major resistance (which always appears when we’re trying to make positive life changes))—can then build into an upward spiral. We all know this is true. If we make a great first choice in the morning to workout before reaching for coffee, then we’re more likely to eat healthier during the day, have energy to be patient with our kids/coworkers/pets, and then make choices that lead us to go to bed early to do the whole thing over again tomm.This relates to the concept of microshifts—changing 1% of your day, or 15 minutes, to make the calls you’ve been putting off, or taking time to pray, to get in a mini workout, whatever it is, sometimes those simple shifts are what truly get us building momentum & soon we realize that we’re able to upgrade & shift alot of things in our day towards the life we envision.
Your ideal life & daily flow might be only a few microshifts away for you!
Another perspective on goals vs habits: Rather than focusing only on the stretch goal (run a marathon), we can focus in on the immediately do-able step towards the habit (get off the couch & go for a 30 min walk)…which can then, with consistency, become the habit that enables us to move daily & eventually, run that race! Perhaps along the way we realize that setting the goal of running a marathon was actually about feeling a certain level of fitness & daily satisfaction with working out…and the goal is about getting us to the habit, of the habitualized & intense fitness (which we can achieve with or without crossing the finish line).
What do you think of this? Does this help to shift the foucs on your stretch goals & focus instead on the habits, micro-shifts & processes that will get you closer to those goals?Keep scrolling down for some examples of some powerful microshifts I work with my life designers & inspired life clients on.I’m here for you. Onward & upward. Your dreams for ‘22 are real & deserve to be realized!
Want more of this (mindset work)? Consider doing the life design course or jumping into inspired life coaching with me. A fresh perspective & cheerleader—making your goals my own! Fill out this contact form below to discuss what will be best for you!
An energized, balanced and happy mom is the most important thing for a baby’s well-being in the early stages. Postpartum is meant to be a time where mom and baby thrive. At no other time (besides pregnancy) does a mother’s care for herself translate so directly into the care she provides for her baby. A mother’s body is doing so much in postpartum to provide for her baby’s health and growth.
It’s a beautiful thing to be able to provide the BEST of nutrition and holistic tools to help postpartum mothers feel their best.
As someone who’s had 5 babies, I can tell you that I’ve had a variety of experiences. All these tools mentioned below are ones I discovered after my first postpartum recovery, which was…rough, to say the least.
At the time, I couldn’t imagine how a mom could enjoy the postpartum time, but with these tools that I have now, I can honestly say that I look forward to and absolutely LOVE the early days. Ideally, there is gentle healing/recovery, adjusting to your baby’s needs, carving out quiet and rest and a safe space for the new addition to flourish and thrive.
Because it’s so foreign to our modern sensibilities to value rest, quiet, stillness, and deep nourishment, it takes intention and planning to make this kind of postpartum lifestyle your reality.
Everything in this list I personally use (some are from my favorite brand partner) and I can vouch for the difference they make–I feel it’s my responsibility to share what’s worked for me & so many of the mommas I support/coach in PP…it is possible & you deserve to thrive at every moment of this fragile & beautiful season with baby!!
Early Postpartum Recovery Tools:
*The Every Mother Early Reclaim program is my absolute favorite. It’s changed my body forever and allows me to recover faster and stronger after each baby I’ve had and return to working out more balanced and whole than before. You can start as early as 1 week postpartum, and it’s 100% safe and doctor approved.
*Postpartum stretching and body image program. This is something I put together in my 4th postpartum, when it was essential to me to regain balance and a sense of well-being and strength before doing more intense workouts. It connected me to my PP body in new levels of appreciation and love, and I’ll share that with you in a 7 video series that you can easily fit into PP days. These are short videos and stretching guides to help you in the healing process, and to feel amazing.
*Vivix is my hands-down favorite for promoting/supporting the healing process in your body.
*Bone broths, and products high in collagen are key for postpartum nutrition
*New Collagen product that I throw into my shakes (after first 40 days) or into soups/yogurt/etc before that. Incredibly important for healing/reshaping your skin
*Alfalfa (also helpful for breastfeeding)…this is one of nature’s supergreens, and you can get it in tablet form…helps with letting go of that oh-so-burdensome water weight & bloating after pregnancy, and also helps with energy levels.
*These are key during first 40 days when your body is doing the bulk of the initial healing work after birth*
*Postnatal depletion is so common and so unfortunate. You’re giving the very best of yourself to baby during pregnancy & if you choose to breastfeed, it just keeps going. You need to replenish after birth with the very best, and that’s been my experience in postpartum. After my first, I found myself dragging, exhausted, it wasn’t just the sleep-less nights. My body really was running on empty. My prenatal (at the time ) wasn’t doing anything for me, it was just expensive pee.
Fast forward to now…I have crazy amounts of energy, and don’t experience that deep fatigue so often associated with postpartum early weeks…I’m careful to rest, and balance with all of the recs here, but in particular, your baseline nutrition is KEY for how you’ll both nourish baby (my infants are off the charts for weight in early weeks ;), my favorite marker)…and yourself!
Nourishment also looks like…
*Doing things that bring you joy each day
*Taking tasks/housework/childcare off your plate & mental load–letting yourself be pampered & cared for the way you’re caring for baby
*Making choices about what you want each day to look like; clear boundaries, rituals that support you & baby, and trusting your intuition.
Here’s my 2 favorite recs. I actually mix & match, doing the meology packs and vitalizer strips alternating since I love both programs immensely & can’t choose one over the other….my meology pack has alot of omegas for example for brain health/mood balancing, and the vitalizer has those oh-so-beautiful combinations of nutrients designed to help mommas thrive and feel better than ever!!
Vitalizer Women: A best-in-class complete pre/postnatal plan with a daily strip you can throw in a diaper bag or take anywhere–it’s simple, comprehensive (80 bio-optimized nutrients from Bs, D’s and vitalea w iron, to a powerful probiotic). You’ll never go back once you start.
Me-ology: (It’s a totally personalized nutrition program where you put in your 3 main health goals and it creates a special nutrition pack just for your needs). I love this one, and it can vary alot in cost based on the goals you have and the supplements included. Play around with it, try it for 30 days, and the nice thing is that you can also adjust the pack as your health goals change, which is common in the 9 months following baby.
If you’re not sure which one to focus on, or have questions when looking at the details, email me hello@maddypidel.com….the meology will also prompt me when you’ve taken the quiz so we can discuss your results 🙂
Digestion
Any mother can tell you–digestion is one of those tricky things after birth and can be the difference between a pleasant & unpleasant first few weeks, as the body re-adjusts, organs move back into proper place, swelling & inflammation go down, and the body’s metabolism & digestion is natural sluggish right after birth when establishing the breastfeeding/milk production routine…
*Optiflora DI–a best-in-class probiotic with 4 strains that are highly studied & proven to work well together for not only gut health (which ties in with mood) but also for immunity boosting–something every new momma needs 😉
*Ez-Gest–digestive enzymes are key for maintaining a proper digestive pace, and especially in PP, these can play a key role when digestion can sometimes be sluggish. Helps break down food that can also keep baby from having tummy upsets (as does optiflora).
Garlic Complex–can be a useful aid; nature’s anti-biotic and helps kill off bad bacteria in the gut (while kombucha can help replace with new positive organisms). I take it on occasion.
Breastfeeding Support
A beautiful gift to baby & incredible for bonding/establishing strong mother-baby connections–but obviously something that isn’t the right choice for everyone, so no judgement. For me…it’s been a cornerstone of establishing my own postpartum rhythms & mood balancing, and is one of the reasons that I’ve defaulted to co-sleeping primarily during the first 3 months when milk production is getting established. Whatever you choose, we all know the whole gamut of leaking/cracked nipples/clogged ducts (ugh), and even breast infections. Here’s what I keep on hand to make breastfeeding as smooth as possible—along with a good quality pump which can help in times of engorgement/clogging when baby isn’t up to the challenge.
*Hydrate/Performance Electrolytes. Staying hydrated while breastfeeding, especially in warmer months, can be challenging. The all night feeding sessions take their toll, and we need electrolytes to replenish, not just water. This is my favorite formula, and I love the lemon lime, mixed with the energizing tea & chia seeds–the ultimate PP midday pick-me-up.
*Alfalfa–helps as a galactagogue (milk increase) but also in my experience, this blend with peppermint helps balance if there’s an oversupply issue…also amazing for baby (obviously, as a super green).
*Lecithin is key for thinning milk/unclogging ducts. This particular one works like a charm for me…take 1-3 when I feel a clogged duct issue & it resolves itself quickly with baby/pumps’ help. No time for that nonsense 😉
*Stress relief complex. Because stress can be tied to milk production, or lack thereof, always good to keep this handy. I rely on it in the early weeks to keep off my “edge” & to help both baby & I relax & enjoy the moments we have.
Sleep!
A good night’s sleep is literally magic for a new mom. And the beauty of these supplements is that they pass through (in small quantities) to baby so you can ensure you’re both getting optimal support for your rest.
PM Recovery–this, along with the epsom salt baths, will be a key piece of your early recovery & reducing soreness in the days/weeks following birth. It serves as a muscle relaxer & sleep inducer (with tart cherry) & I love how effective it is. Don’t do postpartum without it. Designed for athletes, and yes, momma, you’re a super star athlete in PP.
Sleep gummies. These have become a favorite in our household since I began using them right before Nellie–it’s always good to have toddlers & other siblings sleeping well at night too. I LOVE how fast these kick in, and how well they knock you out–without a drowsy side effect if you do end up getting some interruptions to a stretch of sleep.
Gentle Sleep complex. Another formula of various herbs to promote restful sleep. I don’t use it as often as the other 2, but it’s equally effective & can be combined with the others—1 tablet of each 😉
Enjoy those precious hours of sleep…and…for the first 3 months, whenever possible…nap!
Hormone Balancing & moods
A very real part of postpartum life. This can really add a challenging dimension to caring for self, for baby, and for basic life stuff when moods are everywhere…even the basic things can feel overwhelming and then the guilt can set in that we aren’t enjoying this time the way we want to be. Here’s a secret….rest, rest, care for momma’s nutrition & mental well-being & the rest will work itself out. These tools can help ALOT & I start taking them in larger amounts (the GLA) in late pregnancy to help begin the process.
*GLA complex (A miracle worker for postpartum moods). It’s so simple & yet so real…these crucial healthy fats help us as we transition from birth through the first 40 days, and beyond.
*Cal-Mag. Not only does it serve the purpose of providing magnesium but it also gives us that crucial calcium boost (esp if you live dairy free like me).
*Magnesium supplements (there are a bunch on the market…I’ve been happy with these calm gummies, & sometimes give them to my kids too)
*Mood lift complex (St.Johns Wort & natural herbs) can be beneficial if you’re more prone to postpartum depression (I’m more prone to PPA, hence mag & stress relief). If you don’t know, have both on hand, and experiment to see if you can get yourself balanced.
*Epsom salt baths (also serve for purposes of relaxing/better sleep)…when we have a depletion of magnesium, we can experience more mood swings, and more swings towards postpartum anxiety. Take it from me, it’s not a great way to experience life with baby…Here’s the PP bath salts I use for healing & mood & sleep.
*Please don’t construe this as medical advice or taking the place of speaking with a counselor or psychologist if you’re having extreme mood swings or having trouble getting emotional balance in PP. You have every right to seek professional help if things feel too far “off” your normal.
Healthy weight in PP
I don’t like the idea of diets in PP–it’s truly a 4 letter word. We’re focused on deep nourishment & nutrition to balance the body, and supporting digestion….naturally, weight loss will follow. Dieting can also mess with moods/balance (deprivation will trigger anxiety in many mommas with good reason…you and baby need all the healthy nutrition you can summon…) But that also doesn’t mean you can’t care for yourself & lose the “baby weight” in simple, safe & effective ways…
Here’s a few things that can aid in feeling great, providing the best healthy snacks & meals in a pinch when mom has only one hand (but can start a blender)…I have many more tips & suggestions from my many years of baby recoveries & getting back to an ideal weight/fitness level…that I’ll share in my upcoming mini course.
*Life Shake plant protein: a simple & delicious meal replacement. I don’t suggest doing them as meal replacements until after 2.5 months, or when baby is established in feeding routines & their own weight gain…you don’t want to jeopardize baby’s caloric intake 😉 It’s So nice & easy to whip up a shake at lunch time, and depending on what you add in, it can be a nice caloric punch & also a treat, that tastes amazing.
*Metabolic boost: recommended for use after 3 months PP, for similiar reasons as above….establishing milk supply, etc, firmly first.
If weight loss is a priority for momma I do have some healthy programs & tools that I can offer you after a quick consult. I have modifications for a 7 day healthy cleanse that is totally safe for mom & baby, and works great (after first 3 months)…as well as other elements of the 180 program that may be tailored to your specific needs. Email me hello@maddypidel.com, and we’ll chat about how to get you to your ideal weight, without dieting or deprivation or reducing baby’s nutrition/milk supply…
My hope for you, momma, is that postpartum is a time of deep rest, deep grounding in the blessings of this season, of this incredible baby that you’ve been gifted with caring for, and that the bonding time is front & center, along with your own care & well-being. You will need to gather a support team to help you along this journey, and you’ll welcome all forms of next-level care that appear. This list of my favorite things is meant to transform your experience of postpartum, and to share all that I’ve learned and benefitted from in my experiences…(things I wish someone had told me or given me when prepping for my first;))…we all have our own unique experiences, but there are many shared elements of postpartum that mommas can connect about, and support each other with. You’re not alone in what you’re going through.
So here we are, sharing the mom tribe wisdom, and of course, if you have questions or want additional support in your postpartum journey, I highly encourage you to check out the mini-course I’ve been working on for you…it does touch on many of these areas & goes much deeper into other areas such as fitness, postpartum productivity & life design,
All my love,
Maddy
Reach me at hello@maddypidel.com with comments, questions, or just to say hello 🙂
*Shout out of gratitude for my sister Annie who faithfully edits & improves these posts!*
Exactly a year ago, we signed the papers & grabbed the keys for our very own fixer upper home project, one that we knew would stretch & challenge us. In some ways, it’s a very good thing we didn’t know just how in over our heads we would feel last fall as we rushed to renovate most of the main spaces before moving in. We had no idea how it would all unfold, but we were excited & ready.
The good news is, here we are, a year later…so happy, so grounded and at home in this space that’s both old and new. It’s been a shelter & our true happy place during the turmoil of 2020. We’re thrilled with the progress we’ve made and always neck deep in the next project. Currently working on Phase II which is finishing the large basement & creating our ideal rec room, and finishing the mud room (garage entrance) and laundry space.
I sketched the outline for this post a year ago when I was fresh out of the late nights—staying up painting trim, welcoming crews each morning, and just generally in the thick of it. Even at that time, I could tell the experience was changing me and changing our family. But as with all things, it’s taken time for this post to go from a seed in my mind to germinated thoughts & experiences in full bloom.
Now, a full year later, I’m excited to take this anniversary as an opportunity to share some of these thoughts about our #pidelprojecthome (@pidelprojecthome).
Transformations require massive amounts of patience.
We live in a world of quick updates & slap-dash before/afters bombarding us from social media. Not everyone likes to acknowledge the slow process, the messy middle, the curveballs, the two-steps-forward-one-step-back that comes with real, beautiful, timeless transformations…of homes and of our hearts & selves.
2. It often has to look worse before it looks better.
Picture any house after the demo process of ripping everything out—piles of dust & old radiators, moldings, junk everywhere. We literally had four dumpsters for our project over the span of four months, slowly carting away old layers of the house to replace it with new.
It’s a bit like someone in the middle of a KonMari de-cluttering when all their belongings are laid out in piles on their floor. It can be hard to start these kinds of excavations of spaces and selves because we’re fearful of this element of the process. It quickly becomes larger than our control, and we have to surrender to the process itself, until with the lack of tidiness comes a true sense that big things are happening here. That’s when we have to lean in.
3. People won’t undertand the process and that’s okay.
During our intense nine-week timeframe for renovation (yes, we did it as a major sprint because we didn’t have to be living there during the time), I felt like we were in a bubble, a completely all-engrossing cloud, that others couldn’t really reach us in.
That was hard for me at first, and then I became at peace with it. Sometimes, when you’re committed to making big changes in your life, and you set out to take those actions, it will feel lonely at first. Things are shifting & the relationships in your life may change too. Not everyone will be able to relate to where you are and why you’re doing it. That’s okay. Once you move past the grief of this, it can be incredibly freeing.
And these times of intense growth can still allow for powerful relationships, it just has to be based on a new kind of communication and an acknowledgment of just how different things are. You need people who can love you where you’re at, as you evolve. Anyone who can relate to & stick with you through an intense growth phase is a keeper, a friend you will value more deeply than ever.
4. The vision is what will enable you to carry through the tough moments.
I talk a lot about vision boards. There’s something so important and powerful about creating a clear vision of where you’re headed. With design, it’s obviously an essential step to creating the new space, but it has a similar importance when we’re considering the future life that we’re creating for ourselves (and how our own personal work ties into that life vision).
It’s scary, but so powerful to put a visual up on a wall (yes, I’m a big believer in doing it old-school style for maximum daily connection) to remind yourself every day where you’re headed. Keeping eyes on that vision is your best chance to pulls through the tough moments when we wonder whether it’s all worth it.
5. The result of hard work is always beautiful, and you’re forever changed.
This one is so simple, but so powerful. When we sat up & rubbed the dust off (and took off our painting clothes), we looked at each other, my husband and I, and marveled at just how much we had changed, alongside the spaces we were working on.
Our hearts & our eyes can see when work has been poured into a space (or a personal transformation). The love and care & detail that went into it becomes its spirit. Same with our own inner work: the results show up in who we become and enter into every future interaction we have. It’s the BE-DO-HAVE model, lived out. In order to be ready to welcome our abundant beautiful life in our new home, it required us to allow ourselves to change first, before having what we had desired & envisioned. (More on this in my life design program if you’re intrigued)
6. Simplicity is always a good idea. Complicating things creates more excuses, mental clutter, & reasons for it not to work. Keep it simple.
This is just as true with personal growth as with an old home. Don’t overcomplicate things. Stay focused on the vision & the clear path that can get you there. Over-complicating things is usually a form of resistance—our brain & ego keeping us from just GOING FOR IT and going all in.
7. You will NOT do it alone.
Yes, you may experience loneliness as you realize that your former relationships aren’t carrying you in the same way on this courageous journey you’re on. But in reality, there will be key people who serve as inspiration, as mentors, as coaches, as friends, and you will be amazed by the NEW help & relationships that come into your life when you undertake this kind of journey. We absolutely learned this during our project, and we were blown away by the people that stepped up & truly saw this project out to its conclusion, even when the going got tough and the deadlines were real.
8. The effort is transformative in itself because we learn to work hard for things that matter to us.
This one was a hard one for me, and boy did our home renovation teach us this. It’s easy to focus on the glamorous side of a reno: picking out the tiles, materials, and colors. But then you hit the nitty gritty: the late nights, encouraging workers to meet their deadlines, hauling materials in every weekend, the millions of runs to Home Depot, bringing out boxes and boxes in an ice storm as part of project clean up…these are the experiences that make us love & value our home even more. The lessons learned from the hard work can be seen as their own reward…and they add to the beauty of the final product!
9. Break it into simple, doable steps, day by day, so as not to get overwhelmed.
This is very true in reno life. It’s literally, one thing at a time, one layer at a time, overlapping trades needed for certain moments, building upon each other’s work. The over-arching goal remains, but the steps & focus for each day is bite-sized. The way we kept ourselves from being overwhelmed in moments with this huge house project was to focus on what we could accomplish just in that day or week. Then the next. And soon…you realize it’s nearly complete!
It’s true in our personal work too. It’s why I coach my clients not to set too many goals or priorities…feeling overwhelmed will keep you from moving any of them forward. Same thing goes for setting stretch or unreachable goals—we need to be working on something that we can see to the end of, and then we go a bit further the next time, building momentum & confidence as we go. Set yourself up to have frequent, small wins, and soon you’ll be addicted to the stretch & growth of personal development.
We moved in 4 days before Christmas so this felt like a true Christmas miracle.
10. Stay humble and make gratitude the focus.
Loving attention to detail, bringing order & beauty, and new life & vision out of old & worn out habits/patterns/ways of life is the great gift we are all called to discover & live. Transforming an old home last year drove home all these lessons that I’ve been learning in my own work in personal development, my own journey, as well as coaching others through transformations in their health, life, and businesses.
The gift of living in a home that has been transformed through a vision made reality by daily sweat, communication, logistics, and effort, that we had the privilege to shape, design, and put intentional effort is a great reminder of a deep truth about all transformations. Namely, we must trust the process, build patience, stay open to all the ways that change, once begun, will be out of our control and will take us to places we’ve never even imagined going.
However, the initial choice is always ours—to take a chance and begin to tear down old walls, so that new ones can be built.
Maddy’s note: this is my 100th blog post! I had no idea when we started this humble project a few years back, where it would take us, and how much we would enjoy the process. Thanks to all you faithful readers, and a huge shout-out and thank you to my sister Annie, my talented editor.
This post was featured in the Theology of Home roundup on August 5, 2020.
Our humble garden has been changing the pace of our summers for four years now.
It started as a fun project that we took on when moving to the “country,” and has become something we look forward to each year. The first year was a lesson in many things, but mostly in eagerness. We enjoyed building the beds and planting a large multitude of different seeds and seedlings, only to realize we could overcrowd the plants, and that we had alot to learn about tending them into a fruitful harvest.
When I started my gardening habits four years ago, I was in a season of mild postpartum anxiety (PPA) and was generally overwhelmed. Adjusting from two to three kids was hard for me, and on top of that, we had made a big (wonderful) move to a more rural lifestyle, out of the crazy hustling pace of New York City. It was a lot of change, and I needed a full reset of the pace that I’d grown accustomed to. I knew that life could be simpler, slower, and richer in little ways, but I struggled to relinquish the cultural pressures of hustle, “more,” and “instant,” and my kids did too.
As we learned to tend our plants that first summer, I saw a shift in all of us. Of appreciation for simple daily miracles, of slowness, of wonder at the beauty of our world, and at our chance to cultivate a small corner of it.
Over these four summers, we’ve spent some beautifully memorable hours prepping, tending to it (though we’re very low-maintenance about it relative to some expert gardeners), and of course, harvesting, as we are now in July and August.
There are cherry tomatoes we eat like candy, herbs for nightly dinner enhancements (and cocktails, of course), and other things like cucumbers and zucchinis, eggplant, bell peppers, that appear almost overnight and miraculously…the growth can almost be seen if you watch closely. It reminds me of how it feels to watch my children, ages almost 10 to 18 months, growing before my eyes with the simple ingredients of summer: food, sunshine, and long hours of play.
In a culture that emphasizes and values consumption over all (think our overflowing homes, netflix subscriptions and screen consumption, constant need for new, different, the way social media fans the flames of need cycles), I know that our humble attempt to grow a garden is something that helps me pause. To lean towards other values. Of cultivation, care-taking, and a slower pace of life.
Why we garden: some thoughts
Gardening is an excellent form of the “unplugging” and resetting that we all need, especially in the midst of a year that has challenged everything about our sense of normalcy.
In the past, we, like many other families, have gone down the path of summertime crowding and the “consumption” of experiences like camps, activities at the library, and vacations away. I’m still sometimes guilty of falling prey to this, but the presence of our garden and the life flourishing right there in that patch, pulls me back to a more grounded reality, helping me relish staying home and living expansively within our spaces.
A book that I read last summer drove home this perspective from another angle. There are some nearly forgotten values that we would do well to build our lives on—sustainability, cultivation, peace, patience, and a long-term perspective. Cultivating these values leads us to make decisions that have positive ripples for years and decades to come.
I don’t know how much my kids will remember of all of this, or if they will cherish home grown foods or choose to plant a garden in their future lives, but I do know that they take so much pride in the veggies they are growing here today. They eat them willingly, proudly tasting the fruits of their labor, and I believe they have a deeper sense of wonder and appreciation for the earth and its fruits knowing the process that we go through, from seed to harvest.
Living in tune with nature’s rhythms
When we start our seeds in the frigid April air of Connecticut or buy our tiny seedlings from local farms in May, we are committing with hope and joy to the cycles of the year; the long hot days are soon to come.
And in August, when the cherry tomatoes are bursting with ripeness and we walk by and pop them in our mouths as we wander around the yard, it’s a reminder of the goodness of each season and of just how much the little things, simple and fleeting as they may seem, can truly mark and ground our lives. (Do you think we would appreciate juicy summer tomatoes the same way if every day was hot and tomato season was year round? I doubt it.)
When we get a sudden, strong, mid-afternoon summer storm, I sigh happily knowing that nature is doing its watering (even if it means we have to get creative with our rainy day plans). There’s a bigger life cycle at work that we’re tapping into. There’s something to be said for living with these seasonal rhythms that remind us, a time for everything and everything in its time.
This year, the four kids each had the chance to be responsible for designing and tending to one of the garden beds as we built. They enjoyed every aspect from moving soil, picking out seedlings from a local organic farm, and planting their selection of herbs, veggies and flowers. It was a process that kept us happily busy for long spring days, and now they burst with pride when picking veggies for dinner or showing yard guests the growth of their gardens.
Keeping it simple
All these plants really need are good soil, sun, and plentiful water—sometimes rain, sometimes overzealous hose soaks from the kids, or a gentle sprinkler mist, mid-day, that helps punctuate our routines and outdoor time.
The garden welcomes whatever attention it gets, and these plants are hard-wired to thrive. The other day my daughter was having a tough moment and I told her that plants grow and do well when we sing to them. Now I’ll see her pausing in the middle of her play to sing a short song to them (or catch the dragon fly that always linger there) before she goes back to her games.
It’s easy to over-complicate gardening, like anything in life. Or to focus on the results (I have a zucchini plant that is HUGE, but not producing fruit! Puzzling, but I’m going with it). Keeping our expectations for the garden project low has meant that we welcome and relish all the harvest we get, and we stay curious/learn from mishaps or things that don’t turn out as planned.
Creating Space
Turns out–we learned from our beginners’ eagerness the first year, you can definitely over-crowd a garden space, causing nothing to grow very well because each plant is competing for the key ingredients to a good life: sun, water, and soil nutrients.
When I’m pruning my tomato plants, cutting back the stems and growth that, while pretty, will keep the plant from flourishing and producing fruit, I’m struck by the metaphor for our lives. I’ve distilled this metaphor/life lesson into a phrase that’s become a guiding principle of my life (and of my signature life design course): “create space”. In order for the good stuff to flourish (and even before we may fully see it coming to fruit), we have to diligently prune and make room in our lives so that the good fruit can make itself known.
Cultivating patience
As anyone who knows me well can attest, patience is not my strong suit.
Sometimes my impatience leads to gardening catastrophe. Last year I had a great bunch of seeds germinating in my laundry room in trays, and I transplanted them just a wee bit too soon, before it was warm enough…they didn’t make it.
Fortunately, I also have kids who help me grow in this virtue. Tending to little ones (plants or humans) requires ample amounts of patience. Like when I’m teaching my toddler to enjoy watching (not tugging or touching) the green tomatoes, growing in size in June and July, and reminding him to wait until they are perfectly red (or purple) before we pick.
How much more we appreciate and savor the long awaited veggie when it’s finally ripe and ready for the sauce-pan or the salad bowl. And how much more our patience reminds us of the value of what we’re anticipating.
Accepting the times of hidden growth, and of times of blossoming
This year, in our new space, I’ve been marveling at watching the growth up close, and with plot twists. With late frosts and a beach trip, we planted everything pretty late, and the first few weeks it felt like we might never see growth. Between little seedlings trying to survive the elements, some pebbles lovingly thrown at them, sporadic watering, and a child’s attempt to “weed” them, our plantings just couldn’t catch a break. And since this was a new garden plot we didn’t know if it would be the winning combo of sun, shade and distance from roving animals.
But we kept doing all the steps, and trusting the process, more instinctively now, without knowing what kind of a bounty we would get.
Sure enough, after weeks of what felt like incremental growth came a week of heavy daily rains and an explosion of blooms, blossoms, fruits, and veggies just appearing, literally from day to day, before our eyes.
Nothing can prepare you for that sudden shift from nothing to something, from barrenness to fruit, from hopefulness to gratitude. But like everything in life, we have to accept that there are patient, long, dry periods, followed by the beautiful blossoms, fruits of prayer and work and living, that make it all worthwhile, and cause us to marvel: “how could all this bounty have come from such a tiny (hopeful) starting point?”
In the garden, as in life, it feels like a miracle, every time. We simply have to trust and stay present to the process as it unfolds.
Garden rhythms, a slower life
I’m someone that thrives on rituals or daily rhythms. Loose enough (room for adjustments and spontaneity), but structured nonetheless. Moms’ lives can feel a bit chaotic at times, so I look for predictable elements that I can plug into and offer as guideposts to the kids, especially on these long summer days.
Midday naps, morning work and chores, then afternoon simple outings, and predictable morning routines all work for me. Mornings are my best chance to fit in my necessary quiet, recharging moments like an early morning run or walk in nature—sneaking away to be alone with my thoughts.
The rituals of tending to a garden (water, weed, harvest), which I at first saw as yet another thing on the to-do list, has become embedded in how we do summer. When I turn on the hose for a midday garden watering, it often turns into sprinklers and water play. When I take the few minutes needed to weed a bit or harvest, I savor the long evening rays of the sun hitting the garden and their nearby swing, the kids play around me, or I help them harvest without destroying the plants in the process. The pre-dinner ritual is to plan our meal based on what’s ripe and ready to be eaten…and to grab the herbs, veggies and anything else we need to craft our meals.
We live a moment of gratitude for this gift of food growing right here, for our enjoyment.
It’s good to feel connected to the process and helpful to the growth of a garden, but not fully responsible. Like the “soul gardening” I’m doing with my littles.
I can’t imagine summer without these garden rhythms, and I pray that the slower pace of life, and the new rhythms we’ve welcomed (often reluctantly) in 2020, sink deeply into all of us, helping pull us out of our modern busyness & hustle, and reminding us of just how much goodness and beauty lies in timeless rituals of cultivation, care-taking and living in tune with nature.
I’m resurfacing and returning to blogging in this humble corner of the web, after a whirlwind fall 2019 into Jan 2020. We were doing a big renovation of an old home, and moved the family in right before Christmas. With this season of life, many things were put aside and the essentials came into clear focus. It helped to further frame some of my thoughts and experiences around healthy living, self-care, staying balanced even while being quite busy, and my mantra “radical self care for radical service” which I developed in the midst of trying to keep my sense of self, my achievements and balance in the midst of a busy season of motherhood. This phrase has resonated with many–we can sometimes struggle with feeling like self-care is actually selfish. And don’t get me wrong, it can be. Our cultural extremes of prioritizing expensive yoga weekends away in Costa Rica, massages, weekly manicures, and much more (gym memberships we hardly use) all justified by “self-care”. But in these busy seasons of life that we all experience, we can know all too well that without proper healthy habits, we can burn-out, or start being miserable, losing connection with the joy of the everyday, and our bigger purpose. I already faced that exact challenge (9 years ago, as a new mom, and pushing myself in a demanding career/work environment…it all fell apart, and took months of self-exploration to discover where things went wrong with my inability to have healthy boundaries and personal habits for effectiveness) That’s what led me to where I am now…a health & mindset coach. Sometimes our biggest challenges turn into our biggest blessings.
So for me, especially last year–when life demanded much of me, in the form of 4 small children (a brand new babe), running a business, launching new offerings, and renovating a home and moving the family–it became even more crystal clear to me–in the moments when life demands much of us; we need to work hard to BE at our best, so we can rise to the occasion.
And sometimes, those habits have to be streamlined to fit into the smallest margins of the day–not less important, just less time given to them.
In an era where we are increasingly sitting, often at desks, or hunched over a glowing screen, I believe that daily mindful/functional movement, and time outside, as well as consciously unplugged, away from our phones, is a crucial form of self-care, as well as a means to preserve our sanity and our mental and physical health. I am a big proponent (need to go back to this habit) of unplugged weekends, and mini 7 day screen detoxes…to keep ourselves free from the unhealthy patterns and behaviors related to it. We all know we need that space to be our most creative, alive, thoughtful, and focused.
I didn’t do a single gym workout btwn Sept-Dec, but I did manage to squeeze in regular walks with the boys–from our new home site, to local Church, and walking naps for them. Regular walks are so good for my mental health as well. I didn’t spend alot of time developing new recipes, or all those things my health coach self normally loves to do, but I (we) did eat well, to fuel ourselves for a busy season, and meal planned/prepped, batch cooked so that we wouldn’t get swallowed up by eating on a crazy schedule. We also learned to not sweat the small stuff as much, to give things up temporarily, knowing that things would re-balance and come into a new, better normal in our new lifestyle. Sometimes that perspective and mindset shift is all we need, and the most important thing to let go of is…expectations, and guilt!
I’ve spent 2 years resetting my own mindset to be around “intuitive eating” vs a restrictive/obsessive focus on “clean” eating. With so many ways of eating “healthy” out there, it can truly begin to take too much of our mental space. Clean eating is a means to an end, not an end in itself. During our busy project, we ate our fair share of meals grabbed on the go, take out (not Mcdonalds of course) etc while wrapped up with the home–BUT, having the baseline of self-care, resilience habits and tools built in, it meant that I didn’t go into overboard burn-out mode, like the me of a few years ago might have. I knew the demanding days required a strong balancing act, so I focused in on those few (simple, quick, affordable) self-care habits that work well for me. When you zero in on what those are, then you don’t have to worry as much about what the busy seasons of life will do. You know, that at your core, your priorities, values and habits can remain the same. And that you’ll be able to take in new things, and adjust/shift/offload (I said NO to quite a few normal commitments), and then re-evaluate and continue on as life evolves.
This was the opportunity to test all of what I’d been experimenting with, and I found that the exploration I had into mindful movement, intuitive eating and a “less is more” mentality regarding focus on exercise and health (yes, this coming from a coach!) served me VERY well in a season when absolutely every day, I needed to be functioning at my best. And don’t get me wrong, when you have a little one under 1, sleep is often the sacrificed element, and that can be hard, and wear on us, but we can also be strategic about the habits of REST that we build into each day.
Needless to say, at the start of this new decade, I’m completely in awe of the experiences of the past years, the lessons learned and where they’ve lead me. I hope to share bits of it, in case any of it is valuable. I know alll too well the familiar burn-out that is sadly quite common in our go-go-go culture. It can sneak in to our life without us realizing it, and it can steal our daily and deep joy.
I encourage you to consider–what are the daily tools and habits that are most important to you, to be at your best? What are the areas you’ve been ignoring or need to give attention to for a more balanced life? It might even be habits related to mental and emotional health, which cannot be neglected, just like our nutrition can’t be ignored without consequences…
It’s good to step out of the cliches of self-care, and do a deep personal examination. For one person–the loud cross fit gym is the perfect place to discipline themselves and build health, for another person, it’s quiet hikes in nature, alone. For one of us, it might be regular pedicures, and for another person, it might be more crucial for self-care to get time in prayer, or visiting with dear friends, or for a mom, to stroll through the grocery store alone can be the ultimate perspective/life giving habit…it’s all about being deeply AWARE of where you’re energized, where you’re drained, what habits will be a part of building you towards your larger, more long-term goals and desires. We explore all of this in my life design course, and it’s powerful, crucial stuff.
As I’m reminded by my dear husband, it isn’t good to idolize health, or to prioritize focusing on it, over other goods. BUT, it’s also true that a baseline of health–physical, mental, emotional, is crucial and needed for any service and good we hope to do in the world, in our families and communities. Otherwise we’ll end up causing more harm than good to ourselves and our endeavors, without a proper perspective and balance. Radical self-care for radical service is my choice, and how I want to live and model for my children to live.
What about YOU? How are your habits in this new decade, reflecting the sense of what you believe you’re called to accomplish in the coming months and years?!
And, just to get you started, here’s a few of my favorite weekly/daily self-care moments that help me. You’re going to create your own…just don’t be afraid to experiment and fight hard to make them part of your reality!
*Daily journaling/reading/praying in the am
*Pom Energy tea and chia seeds (I don’t drink caffeinated coffee, just tea or decaf)–this is my “secret energy drink” especially when mixed with the natural electrolytes.
*Daily vitalizer strip–my baseline of powerful nutrition that gives me fantastic energy & helps with sleep, digestion, and much more.
*Walks, several times per week, 1-3 miles, usually with kiddos. Time outdoors is soo important for our mental and physical health, even in the winter months.
*Easy salad mixes or shakes with collagen for lunch–making sure I don’t skip that meal.
*Healthy snacks in home and car, so I can reach for them quickly (trail mix, bars, etc).
*Once a week, out of the house, with no kids–time to breathe, read, think, maybe work a little, or just re-calibrate.
(If you don’t have kids, it might just be helpful, setting aside time each week to give yourself permission to explore new hobbies or interests, away from the pressures of your to-do list or job.)
*Stretching & simple yoga sequences, just reminders to reconnect with my body, breathing. Feeling where things feel stuck, releasing. Being grounded & grateful for the gift of a healthy body.
*Evening rituals: gratitude journal, epsom salt baths, cal mag supps, sometimes reading, bullet proof hot cocoa for good, restful sleep.
I can’t wait to hear what daily habits you’re creating in this new decade, to power you towards new dreams and goals!
By Claire Wilson, artist, runner, lover of nature.
We often hear about the importance of the exercise for the benefit of mental health and overwhelming data and research proves this to be true—physical activity is essential in maintaining a healthy mental outlook. There is a second component to mental health that has been steadily growing in popularity in past decade and that is mindfulness (I think it can also be considered meditation or prayer depending on your religious background). Not surprisingly in our hectic world, people are looking for ways to slow down, to take time to create space in their heads, to breathe, to just be. People are finding this in a myriad of different ways, meditation, yoga, intense physical activity, being outside etc. Mine came in the form of a marathon and a rosary.
I was diagnosed with depression and anxiety my freshman year of college and ran the gamut of antidepressants for three years. After dropping out of school and finding myself in a zombie like state working at a coffee shop I decided something had to change, the conventional way was not working for me. I was looking into a future of being a slave to a pill that at best put me in a state of no emotion and at worst actually made my symptoms worse. Growing up with a mother whose philosophy towards health and well being was using conventional medicine as a last resort helped motivated me to start looking at more natural alternatives and start my journey to finding the root cause of my depression and anxiety (I just want to put a disclaimer here, I am by no means judging anyone on antidepressants, they have their place and your treatment is between you and your doctor. I would encourage you to look into alternatives though). That is when I got the insane idea to run a marathon, insane because at the time I had just enough will power in a day to crawl from underneath my covers, work my seven hour shift, and crawl back under my blankets. That’s not exactly conducive for doing the 10 to 15 mile training runs needed for a successful race. To this day I am not exactly sure why I chose to start with exercise and particularly running something as extreme as a marathon. Part of me needed to reach for something so huge, so seemingly beyond my capability that it really was a race against myself, to prove to myself that if I can run a marathon than I can take this far more challenging and difficult race of getting well,
By the grace of God a little over a year later I ran my marathon! It truly was by the grace of God because there was a time in my training that I was going to quit, it was too hard for me. That is when I brought in the spiritual and, being a Catholic, that came in the form of the rosary (sometimes 5 or 6 of them if the run was very long!). By meditating while exercising I was able to create a space of peace in my head beyond the physical discomforts I was feeling. it was a space that i could think, something I was struggling to do because of my fears and anxieties. It was a space where I could go beyond my mental illness and start to feel human again because I was mastering discipline with my body and making it do something amazing. A space where I could offer up my current discomforts for someone going through a difficult time. It brought these two elements, the physical and the spiritual, into a relationship with each other working towards the goal of total health!
Fast forward nearly ten years later, my journey, while definitely a bit of a roller coaster, finds me in a much better place thanks to the lesson of combining the physical with the spiritual. I am able to see difficulties in my life as opportunities to grow or to sacrifice for others. I can be fully present with family and friends and enjoy quiet time alone without let depression and anxiety consume me. And for the times when things are difficult (because let’s face it even the happiest and healthiest of us have bad day or even weeks, it is part of the human condition) I turn to the lessons I learned in therapy, I review how my diet has been, I lean more into my supplements and vitamins and I turn to the moments of movement and mindfulness, of prayer and breathing.
Whatever form your mindfulness takes, do it with great intention and combine it with some form of physical activity. Go for a hike and meditate or pray at the the summit. Hit your crossfit session hard and think about someone you know who is suffering and dedicate it to that person. Do some form of stretching, strengthening and/or breathing exercises and really concentrate on calming your mind. I wish you all the best in your journey to optimal mental health!
Claire Wilson an artist, outdoor enthusiast and promoter of mental health living in the beautiful Pacific Northwest! She hopes to help others see the importance of whole body (spiritual, mental and physical) health and how it can help one live their best life! You can find her on instagram at @onefingeroutofwater
Imagine you are waking on the last day of 2019. What would you like to tell yourself about 2019? What are you proud of yourself? And why? To achieve those goals what are things that you let go of?
Those are the basic questions that I ask my client when they ask me to help them set a goal for the year.
Are you ready to commit to 2019?
When I became a life coach, I learned lots of tips and strategies related to setting up goals, overcoming hurdles, and setting the right mindset that can support them in their personal and professional life. Those are great, so life can be so much easier and fuller. But as you can imagine, I learned the hard way it’s not enough with those tips and strategies to make your better life a reality. In order to be successful in your goals, you need to have a clear goal, right mindset, consistent action and to measure your effectiveness. And making sure your daily actions are aligned with your goal is the golden key for your success.
Every new year, many people set up great goals and are full of energy. I love this sensation and it’s very hopeful. And what happens after few months? Where do the energy and desires go? When we notice that our attempts at new things are challenging, then we often default to our normal routine and wait for another new year, expecting something different is going to happen.
In this article, I’d like to share some tips that keep you focused on habit building rather than just writing goals. When you build up daily actions towards a goal then you just might change your life.
I’ve been committed to my healthy lifestyle for a long time. Such as eating locally grown food, consuming less red meat, home cooking, walking if I can, riding a bicycle, and so on. But after I had two children, my health went downhill without me noticing. Eventually I wasn’t enjoying all the great things my little ones brought into my life. Finally, I woke up and decided to have a healthy lifestyle focused on exercise. I made a goal that I would do a push-up every day at least one a day, after I read a book ‘The power of habit’. It was very easy in the beginning and one month was not a problem. I increased more exercises as time went by. At one point, I decided to run 5K, 2 – 3 times a week. For 2 to 3 months was worked well. But then my knee started hurting, it impacted my daily life and I stopped exercising. I wanted to keep my exercise up but at the same time there was roadblock that made my momentum stop. I needed to navigate my deeper beliefs around health, and look at new habits.
After consideration, I realized my beliefs around exercise were “I am healthy, I walk a lot, so I don’t need to work out”. In fact, all those stories were not serving my health anymore. I reset myself with 4 phrases: “let go,” “let be,” “let it come,” and “let God.”
I let go of my old ideas that no longer support me, let be with my willingness to try and to accept that I don’t know that much about physical training, let it come with new method such as use Classpass to try new classes, find what I can commit to for long time and tell myself playful words even when I was discouraged, to keep at it, and let God– remembering the divine wants me to be healthy and happy.
Now I am committed to exercise 5 days a week. When I decided to commit to 5 days a week exercise, I doubted whether I could keep it. But I realized it is much easier (for me) than to do exercise once or twice a week. I don’t need to negotiate anymore with myself because it’s part of my routine. I can say my action became a habit, it feels so natural.
I’d like to share my habit building process. When you want to build a habit, in order to be successful, make sure that you give enough time, be generous to yourself and do one habit at a time. Understand that some will take shorter, some will take longer, to really master.
Habit building process
Choose one habit that you want to build.
● Recognize why do you need this habit or not.
● What does life like for you have that habit in daily life? (describe with as much detail as possible)
● Envision who you become when you have that habit?
● How do you feel when you have the habit?
Now, what step will you take to build the habit?
● How? By when? How do you know when you achieve it? (write in a journal about what did you do and how do you feel about it)
● When you miss a day or two, what would you like to tell yourself in order to back on the habit?
● How do you celebrate it?
To implement goals and habits you’ll need to rely on tools such as calendars & planners, alarms, self-discipline app (Such as Goal attracter, Weekdone, 7-minute workout, Sleep Cycle, Simple Habit, Tide, Classpass) and your social network/accountability from friends.
I hope you are newly inspired to have great goals and new habits for a great 2019. Every lifestyle and stage of life are unique. Most of all, you are the one who can create your best life. Allow yourself to be you. Remember that will invite more people and achievement in your life. I think positive habits is what makes you and your family grow. Feel safe to share your challenges with your family and friends, choose your diet to make you healthy and energized all day, your commitment to work that is meaningful. There are lots of positive habits that you can build by defining what is most important in your life + reflection (collect data about your actions) + implement in your daily life. My email signature is always followed by Love & Flow. I wish your life full of love and flow. Hope you can find great value in this article and I would love to hear your experience. Sending lots of love ~~~
Recommend books to read:
Martha Lasley. Courageous Visions – How to unleash passionate energy in your life and your organization.
Damon Zahariades. The 30-Day Productivity Plan – Volume 2: 30 more bad habits that are sabotaging your time management.
Charles Duhigg. The power of habit
ABOUT SALLEY LEE CHUNG, Life coach & momma
Salley is an adventurer, motivator, and innovative thinker. As certified professional coach and member of ICF, she supports students, professionals, and executives who are interested in navigating a multicultural world. She specializes in working with bicultural clients to improve work-life balance, develop cultural sensitivity, and grow their leadership. Her holistic approach helps clients to flow and take action that reflects their power, creativity and authenticity. She coaches in both Korean and English. She resides in Brooklyn with her husband and two little boys. Linkedin: Salley Lee
Perhaps you’ve heard of this concept of vision boards and it’s sounded cheesy and weird to you—like something for a high-school sleepover party (young girls picking out their dream weddings), or more recently, just an offshoot of a pinterest driven lifestyle.
But it can be so much more than that. It’s not just a visual wish list of home decor items, or a gallery wall of photos, but rather a visual map to your best life, usually one year at a time.
I’ve had so many folks ask me about these, and I wanted to share more of an in-depth look into what I do to create mine each January, as well as some of the overarching framework for approaching goals/plans and dreams for each coming year.
I know this practice of vision boarding has literally changed my life since I put it into practice 5 years ago. For some of you, this may be the year this practice catches your interest and you run with it to your best life.
We’re also doing a module/focus on it in my Life By Design course—be sure to get on my email list (up top) if you want some of the fun content and details I’ll be sharing about that in the coming weeks (yep, it’s already been prepped, before babe). Ideally this vision board practice is part of that larger 5 week lifestyle transformation that we’re undertaking, in a fun and easy to implement program that’s for anyone, in any walk of life!
If you’re someone that doesn’t like traditional goal setting, has already forgotten what your New Year’s resolutions were, or, if you were like me, and are very driven/connected to goals but sometimes lose sight of the bigger picture of WHY they really matter (so checking them off is not as satisfying), creating a vision board is the habit you need. It’s about leaning into a bigger picture perspective of how your life is ready to expand, to transform, to be different.
We all know life will be different in 365 days, but a vision board can be the key to having a strong hand in shaping and creating that difference, and not just letting it happen to us.
I love this quote. It’s been on my vision board for the past 4 years, and it helps me frame what we’re about.
My First Time Vision Boarding I Was Afraid
The first time I did a vision board it was tough and somewhat scary to really try to fix on what I wanted. What visuals, materials or pictures represent my life? (But that exercise is exactly where the magic begins.)
And of course, there’s the objection I got (and continue to get) from folks: “well, what about what if I don’t know what GOD has planned for me, aren’t these just my selfish desires being put out there, and how can I know if I’m actually supposed to be wanting this stuff?”
Well, I have lots to say on that topic, but I’ll try to just pose this question: what if you can make the process of developing a vision board a prayerful exercise?
Vision Boarding as an Expression of Hope
You can discuss things with your life partner/spouse, make plans based on where you see your family and life going, and with prayer, put it out there in the form of a vision board. We know God is ultimately in control, but you entrust your hopes and dreams into His care with the knowledge that He wants to make good things happen for, through, and with you. If life plans do a big shift—through a job change, or an unexpected move, a child coming, or anything else planned or un-planned—then you adjust. The vision board isn’t going to be “wrong” at any moment, it might just need to be updated as life unfolds and you continue to hone the muscles of discernment along with life-design.
I find that so many folks are just not intentional enough, or don’t believe enough that their own vision, desires, needs and goals CAN and SHOULD shape their real life, so I like to encourage you to take this seriously, and then simply perfect it with your overall goal setting/discernment as you go. My family vision boards are very different than when we first started making them…they are much more specific and focused on our core values, because that’s where we can do the best work and where we’ve seen fulfillment over the years.
These boards are not just a list of things you want to purchase or a home design pinterest board, they can be a record of the way your desires and values shift and change as you get to know yourself and your God-given purpose better with every passing year.
See, the more specific we get with letting our heart and desires shape reality, the more God actually can work, and move things for us.
I love the following quote, and I think we can understand the sense of divine intervention/support for our deepest desires—they are in alignment.
“And, when you want something, all the universe conspires in helping you to achieve it.”
So, I’m going to now share a few vision boards we’ve made over the years, and some details on how I like to set ours up now-a-days, in line with our circles of focus: such as social, spiritual, success/skills, etc.But there’s really no right or wrong way to do these—as long as you have fun with them (ideally do them with good friends and a glass of wine or champagne, we’ve done vision board brunches before, so fun)…just have at it, and see what unfolds in the process!
My 2016 vision board: I had some travel, business and other goals come to pass (and we set up for a job change and prepping for our big move!)–also, I have images on here of being pregnant with a boy…baby boy shoes…and a month after making this I conceived Ambrose, he was born that October 😉My 2015 visison board: I seriously get chills when I look at this: travel to Europe, business expansion, the kind of new family car we upgraded to, the giving back focus, and upon some key themes and words that I needed to embrace (including from scripture).
Topics for our vision board this year: grouped into these 6 main categories:
Family
Travel
Business growth/focus (this could also be a hobby or passion project)
Giving back/philanthropy
Personal growth/Inspiration (spiritual, emotional, mental)
Fitness
Of course I have intentions/focus in a few other areas; Spiritual etc, but the visuals for those can be grouped within these, above, as you can see.
If you have a word for the year, or words, or themes you want to emphasize, those go well on this board as well. You can see my 3 words, with visuals surrounding them–Intention, Integration, Impact. For me, words are another powerful trigger, so I find ones that will really pull me into the feelings behind the goals/vision, in each section, and quotes are huge for me too.
I love getting the kids involved in this process and they make their own; it’s fun to help them shape their sense that they can put dreams, visions and goals onto paper, and then focus in to make them a reality. Something we’ve all had the ability to do, but often lose as “practical minded” adults. Make it a social activity! This was a vision board brunch event we did a few years back with teammates and friends.
In summary, this practice is something that I laughed at at first, finally tried with the encouragement of some wise mentors, and then got hooked on, and have gotten better at (more specific, building around a family vision and focus) over the years.
It’s incredible to me how the visions of what life could be like several years ago back when we lived in an apartment in Brooklyn, have become our reality. I had country sheds and gardens and all these things that seemed totally incongruent with that current lifestyle.
Last year, it was hard to make a vision board with anything that was a stretch beyond what I currently had, and I was cultivating/focused on contentment.
There’s always a balance to be found: some people can be tempted to live in the future and only focused on what they want that’s coming/hasn’t arrived yet. This practice isn’t meant to encourage that spirit. Rather it’s about creating space, giving sight and vision to allow MORE good to come, to allow ourselves to be pulled out of our comfort zones, and to become more of who we are meant to be (which after all, is what this is all about—not just what we have, where we travel, or any of the material stuff). It starts with a deep gratitude for where your life is at, and perhaps even some visuals/prompts around that, if you need it.
Have fun creating your 2019 vision boards! I hope you’ll share with me whether this article inspired you to give it a try, and even share with me by email a pic of your vision board when it’s finished!
This past January, the very beginning of 2018, I was encouraged by one of my wise mentors to look at 2-3 themes or intentions for the year ahead. These would be key words or phrases that tied into my vision board and that would guide my approach to the new year and to the monthly or 90 day action plans and goals that I might set. I think we both knew that an overarching theme would help make my short-term goals more meaningful.
I wanted to pause and reflect on how these themes played out for us this year and to share this concept with all of you in case it’s a valuable one for looking at 2019, which is right around the corner.
This quote has come to capture so well what I feel convicted to live, and to encourage others in.
I know for me, sometimes looking at a new year, and aiming to set goals can feel intimidating. We know life can change so much, take unexpected turns, in life, job, career, family, and we want to make sure that our goals will be in line with the big picture vision even as it may change in detail.
I hear this from many folks I work with, that it’s much easier to set monthly or 90 day goals, and harder when it comes to longer stretches of time, like a full year. But, at the same time, the power of a new year is just that—imagining how different life can be a year from now, and embracing the love for that progress and transformation that we’re ready to experience.
For me, setting up themes for 2018 that applied throughout the year helped bridge the gap between the future I imagine and the reality of my more short-term goals. It’s also allowed me to smile and sometimes even laugh out loud at God’s sense of humor.
So, without further ado, here are my three key themes for 2018 and some musings on how these themes played out in my life and in our life as a family in the last year.
Theme 1: CREATE SPACE
The first theme I focused in on this year was to CREATE SPACE. This is a phrase I use a lot, in my business, coaching and general approach to life. I find that when we declutter our spaces, schedules, lives, we allow room for the GOOD stuff. You know, the moments we want to remember for a long time.
I’ve spent years glorifying the hustle (a remnant of my Brooklyn lovin’, NYC bustlin days)… even with several kids in tow, and a few things have helped me shift away from worshiping being busy (or hiding behind my busyness as an excuse for why my bigger dreams and life goals weren’t getting tackled).
One of them reaching a point of frustration with the pace, and realizing it wasn’t allowing me to fully enjoy each day and the little moments with the kids, that can be packed with meaning. Another avenue for mindset change was a book called “Chasing Slow”—and the other one was a book called “The Best Yes,” which is about the beautiful grace of saying no, to the things in life that we can feel pressured to do or take on, so that we have the energy, mental focus and ability to say YES and be all in on the things that we truly value or feel called to do. These books, as well as our intentional family move 18 months ago to the country for a naturally slower pace of life, and embracing this with my children—and seeing how they like to live their best days—it’s all led me to the conviction that we need to work hard—in our social media driven, commercial, NOISY world, to carve out that beautiful space in which to live meaningful days, with lots of intention, connection to the small (and big) tasks. It takes real effort, and is so worthwhile.
For 2018, there were plenty of things I said no to, especially in the early parts of the year…when I was feeling called to a deeper rest, a deeper, more peaceful family life, and new rhythms, that helped us finally get the hang of the 3 kids thing, and to all thrive. It also looked like carving out time in the spring to train for a half marathon, to launch the girls to the end of an amazing first year in their new school, and then to welcome baby #4, right at a time when we were heading into a summer of slower rhythms and beautiful days with nature as a forefront focus—-lazy days at our local lake beach, long days in the backyard, the kids enjoying stretching themselves in all the ways they know how.
Creating space to welcome a new life into our family, and to continue having a flow and rhythms that work well into the fall, has been such a blessing. Yes, it’s hard to fight the pressure at times, for more extracurriculars, more volunteer things (that I love), or more errands (ok, not hard to fight those off!), but my heart was craving LESS, along with the 2nd theme, so that’s been our work.
I think that we’ll learn these lessons all over again when we welcome another babe in January 2019 and zero in on just the most simplified and beautiful rhythms to support and nourish the family during that season that’s coming up. I know I don’t want to miss the important moments, and CREATING SPACE started as an exploratory theme for the year, and is now the baseline for a full life by design course that I’m launching for all of us to work through in early 2019.
Theme 2: CONTENTMENT
The second theme for 2019, CONTENTMENT.
This one is hard for someone like me. I’m a thinker-ahead—focus on the future, often itching for the next thing…sometimes living in the future at the expense of the present. This has had it’s advantages for me, but as a mother, it too often creates a pull that disquiets me. I felt in prayer and in chats with my husband, Joel, that I needed to really embrace this theme and nurture more contentment. With a business that can always demand more, and with family life and motherhood always able to tempt me to MORE…I wanted to be able to wake up each day, and say—it’s ENOUGH. What I’m doing today, what we’ll get done, where we’ll go, how we’re living, with simplicity and focus on our family values, it’s ENOUGH.
How many of us know our hearts need this! I had a few books that were helping in this regard—and one of them has a title some of you may laugh at. It’s called “Happy Are You Poor”…and my dear husband recommended it to me as we had these conversations about being content with the present moment, and what we have, rather than staying in a striving mode. It’s a reminder that more of worldly things is not what makes our hearts either at peace, or brought to their full fulfillment. It’s a good wake up call, and reminder. Another fantastic read for me was the 8 doors of the kingdom, meditations on the beatitudes, reminding us that detachment and focus on other than earthly things are what sets our hearts at peace. The books mentioned above (“Chasing Slow”) was also helpful in this regard.
And truly, some days in the summer, as I looked around at our slow, peaceful rhythms, and as I focused on not desiring things, not shopping online, not scrambling for business goals, more followers, more extracurriculars, more, more more, I found that I was happier. And this happiness brought more clarity to me–of what I was truly seeking when making goals or plans. I think this one needs to carry through for me into this coming baby season as well. Getting away from measuring worth, accomplishment, or my treasure in the wrong places.
And I found that in my contentment, my relationships and my impact could be more real and less forced. It’s so important for gratitude to be the baseline of our lives, that they can be fully rich. I journal daily (this habit has fully clicked back in this year), and the themes of knowing what I HAVE, and how good it really is, helps balance out my approach to growth, in various areas of life or work.
Theme 3: COMMUNITY
The final theme for 2018 was COMMUNITY. We were 6 months into a new home, new school, and new area when the new year hit, and I knew we were called to dive in and both foster community where we’re landed, as well as reach out in faith and form new bonds of community across miles, where appropriate.
In Jan of this year, we launched a postpartum community that has become a beautiful group of women and friends that I value deeply. We cheer each other on, listen to challenges, and encourage in the most fragile and important stages of healing, growing, and thriving after a birth. I am so grateful for how it’s blossomed and developed–especially as I prepare for another postpartum. Additionally, we’ve formed a few other important communities around different topics—business related, beautifully growing the influencers reading group I love dearly, and some communities on healthy motherhood and kids.
Then in our day to day lives, on the ground, we were able to dive more fully into the school community we’re blessed to be a part of, and to have real, deep friendships begin to take root—both among the kids, and with the parents. Which led us to beautiful summer nights up LATE under the stars, sharing wine and laughter with amazing new friends, who we now can’t imagine life without. Or beach days lingering into dusk, with the kids playing sand soccer, and celebrating life and sunshine with good people.
These are my 3 themes for 2018—I’m still marveling at how real and relevant they continued to be for me, even as my monthly goals, task lists, and details of life shifted.
For 2019…well, I have some that I’m close to committing to, but I’ll probably save them for another new year’s post.
I’d love to hear from you—do you explore themes and intentions as you kick off a new year? Will you explore themes and intentions as part of welcoming 2019? It’s fun if they start with the same letter, but not necessary, of course 😉 If you have any experiences to share about thinking in themes for seasons of life, I’d love to hear about it!
If you’re interested in trying this for the year 2019, I recommend just spending some time journaling, talking to those you trust, and seeing what comes up for you! You might be surprised at how quickly your heart and mind land on the themes you need to embrace for peace and growth in the coming year.
A super fun word of the year generator can provide additional inspiration and hilarity (while it’s random, it seemed uncannily relevant from all the folks we did it with last year). My word of 2018 that was generated for me was BALANCE. I can’t say I have it fully figured out, but I’m worlds more balanced in many aspects of life than I felt a year ago, at the holidays.
So here’s to a fresh start, a new perspective, a new way to approach new years.
Much love and thank you for being part of this blogging journey in 2018. I had no idea where it would lead and I’m just having a blast as we continue onward and upward!
This image is very appropriate here: as I had just sustained a minor foot injury (Sept 2017) that was nagging me, and that led me to reflexology treatments, and a full re-balancing of the body, and new insights/experiences into how our body is designed to function and heal itself continually!
Brendon Burchard (you’ll hear me reference him alot, his work has had a big impact on me), in his High Performance Habits book, talks about the importance of daily mindful movement for optimal thriving and functioning at our best selves. He talks about daily walks for boosting brain function/clarity (runs work for this too—you know those aha moments and piercing insights or clarity you have when doing walks or runs? We can and should build this into our everyday, for optimal mind-body function).
And he also talks about daily stretching, and how in the high performers he studies, all of them at the top levels of performance are working out or being active 5 times a week–much more than the average population—a nice correlation to performance that I can get behind–as a health coach and athlete. I know it helps my mood, my mothering, my self-image, focus and so much more when I’m regularly exercising. It’s a no-brainer to make time for it.
I was intrigued that he brought up stretching, specifically, but it very much fits with his peak performance mind/body connection emphasis, and the idea that when energy is “stuck” or we’re tight in our bodies, we can daily bring awareness to that, release it, and move forward more effectively, rather than staying with the same patterns of behavior, thinking or “stuckness”.
This REALLY rings true with my experience with the benefits of reflexology, essentially using the body’s maps on our feet (and face) to become aware of where things are stuck/need healing, and promoting that process through our own healing work.
(More on my life-changing reflexology experiences in another post, in any case, many of these things came together for me and I wanted to share them in case it supports your overall philosophy and decision to bring more low-impact and mindful movement into your day).
“The body benefits from movement, and the mind benefits from stillness”
More on Stress Relieving practices and tips in an upcoming post on Adrenal Fatigue. It’s amazing how connected all of this is, for whole-being health which is what we’re after.
Stay tuned, and hop on my email list (at top) to be sure we can keep having these important conversations!
