Re-starting Your Wellness Journey: Re-Renewing Your Mind, Body & Spirit.
In March 2020, our world was irreparably changed it seems, and I’m sure I’m not the only one who feels blown off course from my health and wellness goals. So I wanted to share some tips, that have helped me get back on the healing path to wellness. I have been using these myself and really feeling the difference in my mindset and experience of consciousness.
It’s so much more useful over time to focus on learning how to get yourself back up onto the spiritual path, than focusing on never falling off. There are always going to be external events beyond our control that will challenge us and knock us off course. Resilience and adaptability are the greatest attributes we can have going through life. Change is the only constant in life, so rather than rigidly try and force the world around us to stay the same, we can remain flexible and nimble, and remain in the flow.
For most people who are into spiritual renewal and transformation, in whatever context they come to it from, there is a consistent belief that everyone starts out in an unconscious state, and for some people eventually they wake up and become conscious. People call that a spiritual awakening, a transformational breakthrough, raising their consciousness, or ascending above the spiritual veil, etc. I definitely agree with this, and I feel like I have undergone that process, not necessarily all at once, but to the point where I can review the past and see a significant before and after.
When I was suffering from severe depression, anxiety, and sick with an unexplained illness and injuries, it seemed like I was living in darkness. What I learned after undergoing my spiritual awakening, was to become observant of the self, and that is really the meaning of raising your consciousness, or having a higher consciousness. In the low state of consciousness like depression, anger, self-destructive or malicious intentions, we are operating from a level of emotion rather than rationality, lack of awareness, and low mental cognition. Higher states of consciousness, and the dispassionate observer mindset, allow us to create awareness and rationally analyze our thoughts, emotions, and actions, and self-correct what we see as problematic.
So when I felt like I was slipping back into depression, anxiety, and food addiction over the last two and a half years, it was in a way fascinating fascinating experience going through that old process, but with a level of awareness and self-observation. The biggest difference was that I had all of the tools at my disposal that I had learned over several years of spiritual renewal and self-improvement. This helped me at least keep myself from really going to the dark place and bottoming out. Like many of my friends I just settled into a daily routine of numbness and lack of interest. It wasn’t the pandemic, the lockdowns, or break with normal life that made me so upset, it was the realization that such a large subset of people in the world, and in my own community, deep down just didn’t care about other people, were unsanitary, and had horrible hygiene because they had no regard for others. In a way, as painful as it is, I feel better off knowing who people really are, under those smiling masks.
When I decided that I was tired of being in this numb, depressed, and anxious state I was able to get back into a better mindset, back into healthier routines, and feeling better so much more quickly having already done it. So just because I did fall off the wellness path and backslide, I was so much stronger, and had such better resources at hand to pull myself up and out of the dark place. A positive mindset does not mean mindless optimism, so you don’t need to be an ostrich and put your head in the sand to be optimistic and see the good in the world, and the good people in it. The bad people, (and yes in my subjective opinion there are bad people in the world) are very loud, and the good people are quiet. So it’s harder to notice them, but they are there, and I absolutely believe they are the true silent majority.
Life is harder now, and it’s probably going to get harder, so being adaptable and resilient are the two most important skills to have going forward. Just like any other skill or strength it’s something you can acquire, and grow, but it takes learning, practice, and application so that you can use trial and error to hone them. Apply that to the big picture of life, but also to the small mundane areas. Just because you had a bad diet during the week, doesn’t mean you can’t eat healthy clean food during the weekend. Or just because you didn’t make it to the gym for a full workout doesn’t mean you can’t walk for 10-15 minutes, or do some stretching at home. Something is so much better than nothing, and incremental progress is what makes the biggest difference. You always have look for the improvement you can make at the margin, abandon all or nothing thinking and perfectionism. So for someone who is a perfectionist, I want you to set out and endeavor to do imperfect and incomplete wellness activities, because that’s so much better than doing nothing, and that specific action breaks through the walls of perfectionism.
I decided to really dedicate myself to getting back on track, mind, body, and spirit, this last spring. So I have been at it for about 6 months, and I wanted to share what I learned from the process for other people who are unsure of where and how to start the process. This is also very pertinent for people who have a desire to start the process of spiritual renewal and a wellness journey, but aren’t sure how to fit it in their existing lives. There’s so often this imaginary lifestyle that goes along with wellness and mindfulness, and it’s really jammed down our throats by social media and advertising, that it’s completely understandable. I think it’s so important for people to realize they can live healthy lives, within the existing framework of their current lives. You don’t need to burn down the barn, and start a whole new life just doing yoga poses on the side of a mountain, in order to make a huge positive improvement in your health, wellness, and mindset. That ends up being hugely frustrating and demotivating because that’s just completely unrealistic, the people in those images probably don’t even live that lifestyle all day every day. So here is my advice for what to keep in mind when you are considering positive changes to your lifestyle:
1: Start small:
A small change can be an inflection point, and you can build on one small change or improvement with more. It helps to get a sense of momentum back, and breaks through all or nothing though paradigms that make us focus on the mountain we need to climb, not the individual steps we need to take. Taking 5 deep breaths, as slowly as possible has been proven to lower heart rate and blood pressure, best of all it’s something that you can do anywhere at any time. When I feel the need to reset my mindset and thought paradigm, this is the first tool I reach for.
Dehydration in particular makes us feel tired, grouchy, and irritable, and sadly many people spend the majority of their adult life that way. If I start to feel my energy start to flag, and my mood go south, I always reach for a glass of cold filtered water or 2.
Even just taking a brief nap, doing a 5 or 10 minute guided meditation, or stepping outside for a short walk, will make you feel better in the moment. That slight improvement in the way you feel is a thread you can pull to feel better and better. We get used to feeling bad, it’s one of many cases where our own strength is used against us. Instead of using our strength to exercise or reinforce our positive habits, we sap our strength by using it to endure feeling bad.
2: Log Out!: (Nature Image)
Take a break from, or exit Social Media entirely. Except for professional marketing and networking, Social media is entirely bad, and has already ruined our lives and our entire civilization.
Is it just me or has social media just gotten even worse? There are some platforms that I have just had to step completely away from and I don’t regret those decisions at all. Some social networks are just so profoundly toxic, addicting, and shockingly irresponsible that I find it puzzling that so many otherwise moral and just people still shrug their shoulders and stay on. The effect that social media has on people’s mental state has me extremely concerned. It’s been proven beyond a shadow of a doubt that social media negatively affects people’s mental health, and yet people can’t break away. A clear sign of addiction if you ask me.
You will never know how you feel without social media unless you log off and take a break. It doesn’t have to be permanent, you don’t need to delete your accounts, nor do you need to announce your departure. Better yet, stay logged off of your social media accounts for a week and then make note of who in your life checks in with you. In an emergency or a serious situation, those randoms that you interact with online won’t be there, but the people that checked in on you during that week you spent offline will.
3: Get outside:
We are hardwired to be positively affected by going outside and getting fresh air and sunlight, and if you don’t have sunlight where you are, just getting fresh air makes a huge difference. Getting outside at least once a day, especially first thing in the morning, supercharges your mood and energy level for the day. It’s so worth it to watch that one less episode of tv at night and go to bed early so that you can wake up and take even a 10 or 20 minute walk in the morning. Take your cup of coffee in a travel mug, and you will start to fall in love with your favorite morning wellness habit. For people suffering from insomnia, natural sunlight first thing in the morning helps your pineal gland regulate your circadian rhythm of wakefulness and sleep.
4: Exercise: The Depression & Anxiety will lift!
I went through periods during the last 2 years where I stopped working out, and just like clockwork my mood and energy levels plummeted. Throughout my adult life, I’ve always been a faithful and enthusiastic exerciser. Like many people, despite initially working out to improve my appearance, I quickly realized I had stumbled upon the best tool I had found so far to combat my chronic depression and anxiety. For me, working out for my mental health is just like a shower, it only lasts a day. That’s why I exercise 5 days a week and stay active on the weekends hiking and swimming.
It certainly takes time to exercise, and certainly so many people are excruciatingly time starved nowadays, but I do my best to be as efficient as possible in other areas that take up my time in order to compensate. I feel that the effort is so worth it, emotional regulation is key, and the sensation of your depression and anxiety lifting is just such a relief on some days.
For people that are out of shape, or have never exercised, I recommend walking as the very best first step. Walking is by far the most underrated exercise, and yet it’s both effective at improving mental health, and aiding in weight loss. Not only does walking aid your digestion after eating, burn some calories (negligible), but walking after dinner actually increases your metabolism and helps you store less fat from your food than compared to being sedentary after dinner.
5: Sleep:
Focus on getting quality sleep and maintaining a healthy sleep schedule of waking up and going to bed early. With all of the demands of contemporary life many if not most people are not getting enough sleep, and if they are, they probably aren’t getting quality, restful sleep. We all have a different number of hours of deep sleep that we need to feel rested, but we need to be honest and realistic about how much that is. I’m sure we have all felt jealous of friends or coworkers who can legitimately thrive at 3-4 hours of sleep at night, and manage to pull a productive 3rd shift out of every day. But if you are a 8-9 hour a night of sleep kind of person, imitating that person, will just leave you a groggy, foggy, sleep deprived zombie.
Sleeping too much is also bad for your health because your breathing is more shallow when you are sleeping so you aren’t getting enough oxygen. For people who are sleeping over 8 or 9 hours every night, you need to ask yourself if you are suffering from depression or another illness that is causing them to have such low energy. Drinking too much caffeine (I type as I pour myself another iced coffee), is one of the main culprits for insomnia, and it’s a very hard feedback loop to break. You’re tired all day because you couldn’t sleep so you load up on caffeine just to get through, then you stay up all night because you overly caffeinated yourself all day. Try to learn your limit to how much caffeine you can have each day, and drink water when you want a coffee or a soda. Often times your body is just dehydrated and thirsty, but our thirst craving is very weak compared to other biofeedback sensations.
A huge factor in insomnia is too much screen use (I type as I stare at a screen), and particularly before bed. Curb your screen time at least one hour before bed, it’s so relaxing to read an actual book before bed. In that hour there are so many evening wind-down bed time activities you can do like stretch, meditate, take a shower or bath, tidy the house, get ready for the next day, do a natural skincare facial treatment, deep condition your hair, do your grooming, or maybe even work on a soothing hand-crafting project.
If there’s one area where you can improve your wellbeing and your experience of consciousness, it’s getting enough deep, restful, restorative sleep every night. It’s often not straightforward at first what is standing in your way, but I suggest anyone struggling with this look into the subject of sleep hygeine. Funnily enough, it’s very similar to setting up a baby’s nursery and getting it to sleep. So tonight go to bed early, tuck yourself into your crib, and doze off into dreamland.
6: Improve your diet:
Stuck in a takeout every night rut, at least order a salad instead of junk food. Some meals you order, some meals you cook, and some meals you gather. With everything you need to accomplish every day, there probably isn’t much time you can spend cooking a meal from scratch in the evening. Grocery store prices are out of this world, and the quality of even tried and true premium stores have gone way down, so naturally people turn to restaurant, takeout, and fast food for meal times. So all I’m suggesting is to make a marginal improvement from where you already are. If you are ordering takeout every night, at least order a salad or something healthy. If you are eating freezer food and prepared food, try gathering healthier options within the same price range. And if you are a home cook, strive to incorporate more fruits and vegetables, and less simple carbohydrates, processed foods, and meat into your meals.
Diet and nutrition is so key to how we feel, our energy level, our mood, it’s foundational to our wellbeing, but if you are off the wagon, start small to get back on track. One thing going through the last two and a half years, is that I realized I really don’t want to have such a strict diet. I successfully broke my sugar addiction, and learned to live without sweets except for a once a month treat. On the balance, it just wasn’t worth it to me. Yes, eating refined sugar is very bad for your health. Historically sugar has been called the white death, and it truly is deadly, but my desire to eat 2-3 grams of chocolate every night after dinner far, far outweigh my desire to lose my love handles entirely or have 6-pack abs. God forbid! I love to eat, and I always say I don’t have 6 pack abs I have burritos, pizza, smoked barbecue, pastries, pasta, donuts, chocolate, and bread and I wouldn’t have it any other way.
So as you are endeavoring to eat healthier if you have gone way off course, try and find a more realistic balance this time. Make the improvement incremental, and just try and level up rather than go all in. All or nothing thinking is a tried and true setup for failure. Food is so emotional, and it’s one of the strongest memory triggers, along with fragrance, which also accompanies food and beverages. So when we think of giving up our favorite unhealthy foods, many times we’re also severing some of our strongest memory connections. Our bodies when in good health, and at a healthy weight, can handle a bit of junk food, but not exclusively junk food, and certainly not in massive gorging quantities.
The key to maintaining the positive associations and memory triggers we have with food and drink without having a negative effect on our health, is portion control when we do indulge, and coming up with a frequency that is realistic. For example I try and follow the 80/20 rule where 1/5th of my food intake is what I consider junk food, or otherwise unhealthy food. 2 examples of healthy meals would be a salad, or grilled protein with vegetables and a non-wheat starch. 2 examples of cheat meals would be pizza or burritos. So more or less 5 days a week I eat healthy for the most part and I also use intermittent fasting to burn off my excess calories. But 2 days, and they don’t have to be continuous or consecutive, I go absolutely hog wild, but within a reasonable portion control. Also keep in mind, when you have been eating a healthy diet in the correction portions, your stomach shrinks back and overeating makes you sick, as it did before you stretched your stomach and your feeling of fullness out beyond recognition.
At another portion of my life when my food addiction was out of control, I was straight up binge eating, and eating well beyond my sensation of fullness. I read a study that had concluded that fast food, and binge eating had a neurotransmitter reaction in the brain that was stronger than the most potent street drugs. I can believe it. When I was younger, I used to stop eating when I was stressed or upset, it used to make me sick when I tried to eat, so I stopped bothering. As much as people thought it was, it was never about how I looked or how thin I was. I actually hated being that thing and weak, it’s my worst nightmare to go back to that. After I had a serious injury, surgery, and a deep depression, I started gaining weight very quickly. Worse still, turning 30 my metabolism slowed way down, and I became a stress-eater. My weight ballooned, and I stretched out my “skin-suit”, which is really one of the worst things you can do.
It’s really a testament to the miraculous capability to the human body to heal and regenerate that I can’t binge eat food now if I want to. My feeling of fullness has returned to its natural state, as has my body’s correct reaction to overeating which is digestive distress. There really is hope out there even for people who consider themselves so far gone. Our bodies and our cells are regenerating all the time and the respond to our environment and what we’re putting on and in them. Give them better inputs and as they regenerate and heal, you will be getting a better and better outcome.
Batch cooking makes eating healthy, home-cooked food so much easier and more affordable. The basic premise is you cook meals in multiple batches, and then freeze portions to eat in the future. This makes it much more time-efficient and cost-efficient to cook at home. When you are just making one meal, it is often more rational comparatively to go to a restaurant or order take-out since you are grocery shopping, preparing, cooking, serving, and cleaning, all for one meal. Sadly, in the United States, few people have the kind of time required for that seemingly simple sequence of events, but in a country where many people work 60-80 hour weeks that’s just the reality. One of the only weapons you have against time starvation, is to be as efficient as humanly possible in tasks like food preparation. Also if you live alone, this solves the issue of how inefficient it is to cook for one person. But when you have a freezer full of healthy, perfection portioned meals in the freezer, it makes eating healthy at dinner-time seamless and automatic.
Farmer’s Market: The quality of the produce at my local grocery stores just keeps getting worse and worse the last year. So besides supporting local farmers, and having a chance to interact with my amazing community here in my village, I have even more incentive to make time to go during the season. Even though it’s more expensive, good quality, fresh fruits and vegetables are one of the best investments in your health you can make. I don’t take any vitamins or supplements, and I endeavor to get the most nutrition possible from my food by only choosing the highest quality available.
Meal Kits: If you don’t know how to cook, there’s no shame in that, and it’s understandable you don’t want to do something you aren’t good at, and unlikely to have a good outcome for your time and money spent. So meal kits do an amazing job of having clear, concise instructions, often with videos available online, perfectly portioned ingredients eliminating the need to go grocery shopping, and buying larger portions of food than you will use in an ingredient and then wasting and throwing away. The ones I have used have different skill levels you can choose from, so you can start off with basic recipes and build your skill level up from there. Even if cooking and just food in general just isn’t your thing, and I get that, everyone has their own things that they enjoy, it’s a very useful and important life skill, for me just as important as knowing how to swim or how to drive a car.
Salad for Dinner: The summer is drawing to a close, but there is no relief in sight from the hot weather, so do yourself a favor and just have a salad for dinner at night. You won’t have to heat up the house by using the oven and stove, and you don’t feel as hot as when your body is digesting calorically dense and fatty heavy foods. Many people don’t think that salad can be a main dinner course, but here in the land of California salad-eaters, we definitely do eat salad for dinner every night. Branch out and try different healthy dressings, add lean protein, and as many different colors as you can, and you’ll be surprised how much you enjoy eating a salad for dinner, and how much you also enjoy not having indigestion and acid reflux at night.
7: Stay off of Dating Apps:
I’m not saying by any means that dating apps and websites don’t work, they do, and twice as many couples met online than at a bar or nightclub. However, they fundamentally changed what was already an unpleasant and draining experience, that being dating. My biggest criticism of dating apps and websites is that they condition people to treat others as disposable, replaceable, and anonymous, while at the same time subjecting themselves to the same treatment.
To my way of thinking, it’s so much better to meet people in the real world, or through friends. You get so much information even just in a few minutes interaction with someone. But online people can misrepresent themselves and waste your time over a shockingly long period. Worse still, I have seen otherwise highly intelligent people taken in by romance scammers simply because they had their biggest vulnerability preyed upon: their loneliness. So if you are looking to meet someone, what I would suggest would be to join a few activity groups doing the things you love doing and are passionate about. Don’t go with the intention of meeting someone for dating, just being around people who share your interests will boost your self esteem, and that’s what strong relationships are based around: mutual long-term passions and interests.
Another great way to meet good-hearted people is to join a charity for a cause you care deeply about. I think we’ve all been in relationships with uncaring people, and I don’t want that for you, so this is a great way to self-select a group of people to meet who are caring, passionate people of action.
Logging off of the dating apps and websites is worth doing because just like social media, you’ll never know how much they are negatively effecting you until you take a break from them. They are dehumanizing and will make you feel disposable, replaceable, and miserable over time.
8: Have Self-Compassion:
When we’re looking back over the last 2 and a half years, I doubt there are many among us who have not lost something or someone in that time. There was just such a wide variety of outcomes for people, some people did amazingly well, their jobs or services were skyrocketing in demand, and others like bar, restaurant, and spa owners really suffered, many of whom unable to make it to the other side of the situation intact. For most of us, our outcomes landed somewhere in between. It’s only natural to feel guilty or feel unworthy of your feeling of loss when compared to what others endured. But having self-compassion is very important for validating your own feelings. The most important person that you need to validate your feelings is yourself.
If you have lost something that you know could clearly never compare to the loss of a loved one, a home, or a business, just know that you are still justified to feel sadness and to grieve that loss. So many friendships and relationships have been irreparably severed over the last few years, but unfortunately I think it’s the only way when you come to the sad conclusion that someone you once loved and looked up to has either been brainwashed or revealed themselves to just fundamentally not even caring about other people. Worse still, many otherwise normal seeming people have been unmasked as truly vile people who not only don’t care about other people, they actively wish harm and death upon them. So even though I mourn those lost relationships, I now realize that permanently parting ways is the best option. Any relationship is based on respect and trust, and I just simply can’t respect or trust someone who isn’t kind and good-hearted at their core. Far too many people went beyond a point of no return, and they don’t deserve to return to polite society again.
Recognize what you have lost in the last 2.5 years and allow yourself to feel the sense of loss and sadness without self-judgment or repression of emotions.
9: Thought Paradigm Recalibration:
Calibrate your thought paradigm to today’s situation, not Fall 2019 or Winter 2020. I often think of the fool’s paradise that fall 2019 and winter 2020 were. I think about all of the endless cocktail parties, cheers at the pub, dancing at the nightclub across the street, trips to the spa, and the 8 plus hours a week spent at my beloved fitness center. Even though I can still do all of those same things now, it just doesn’t feel the same. With monkeypox thriving in Riverside county and the Coachella Valley in particular, I’m not in any hurry to go back to the spa and fitness center. I have overcome my obstacles to working out at home, and I don’t feel like I ever need to go back to a gym. Even though I’m not getting as good of a workout as I used to with full gym equipment, not having to be tied to the opening hours of a gym, or much more importantly not having to socialize when I work out, I love working out at home and having the ultimate freedom and flexibility to work out when and how I want to.
Living in a small town in the California desert used to be so cozy and harmonious. With the desert experiencing an unprecedented land rush and influx of new people from the big cities, it has permanently changed the small-town, friendly, and sociable character of the Coachella Valley resort cities. It’s unfortunately becoming another generic, see-and-be-seen place, and less and less of a community. Not to mention the air quality has become shockingly similar to Riverside and San Bernardino, with the addition of at least 3 shipping fulfillment centers, it’s going to get much worse. Seeing the valley lose its crystal clear views it’s famous for just breaks my heart, but it breaks my lungs more to breathe it in every day.
One major thing that doesn’t seem the same is New York City. As the initial epicenter of the pandemic, it changed for the worse more than perhaps any other metropolitan area in the United States. After the brief period of civil unrest against police brutality, it seemed like the law enforcement strategy had fundamentally changed. The so called cream of society departed to lower density and leafy havens like the east end of Long Island, upstate New York, Colorado, Montana, Florida, and worked remotely in front of expansive panoramic views. Many others moved to less scenic and social media envy worthy destinations like back in with their parents, simply because there was no way they could pay their New York City rent amidst the shutdowns.
By 2021 I really noticed the atmosphere change. I’m not old enough to have remembered the really bad days of New York City pre-gentrification, but I was certainly around for mid-gentrification when the entire city hadn’t been sanitized and turned over. So when crime started to spike, violent crime in particular, it still didn’t surpass what I had recognized as a dangerous and unpredictable city that required vigilance at all times and in all places. There was a brief honeymoon period when the vaccines were still rolled out to the general public in the spring where the mood on the streets was upbeat and hopeful, but that was short lived. On the street and particularly on the subway there’s this sense of unpredictability and vulnerability that used to be reserved for literal dark alleys and after midnight subway rides in the outer boroughs. Now that feeling seems to be just as prevalent there as in the middle of the busiest and most central locations in the city. It’s especially nerve-wracking on the subway where you are literally trapped with people in the same car as you, and they often stop between stations. I spend a good amount of time in New York throughout the year and it just gives me such a sense of anxiety and dread when I plan each trip.
All of those things I just have to accept, so let your own mind and spirit recalibrate to your present conditions, and not unfairly compare your situation to the past. Acceptance is subjective, and it’s just requires the wisdom of experience to know what is so far out of your realm of control that you need to accept, and what is within it that you can never accept, or choose not to accept and have the power to change.
10: Pick up a project you set aside:
When you accumulate many unfinished projects it’s almost like a drain getting clogged for our mind. But we probably don’t have time to do all of them, and being objective and discerning which ones we really want to continue and which ones we have just moved on from. Set a timer for 20 minutes and work on that project. When the timer is finished notice your sense of how the time had passed. Were you in a flow state, engrossed by your project and surprised when the timer went off, or were you watching the timer the entire time, and the 20 minutes felt endless? Its OK to change your mind and not continue a project, but at least you’ll know and you can make room for something new, or just get one guilt-ridden unfinished task off of your to-do list.
Here’s what I’m doing to get back on track/ How to get the most out of restarting your wellness journey:
Establish/ Re-establish a routine – a routine is key. It’s nothing new Benjamin franklin wrote about it in the 1700s, a tried and true daily routine, where certain activities over time automatically happen at certain times of the day for specific durations, is truly the best way to improve your mind, body, spirit over time. It’s because it removes decision making fatigue, and also harnesses the power of incremental but relentless progress.
Be more regimented – Once you have decided that sticking to a wellness routine is your bet way forward, be defensive about the structure of time you are creating. Make sure to say no to invitations and activities that are not mandatory, or do not bring you joy and inspiration.
Wake Up Early & Exercise Outdoors: Our bodies and minds are hard-wired to get huge boots to our moods, energy levels, and wellbeing by exercising outdoors. When you get sunlight very early in the day, it helps to reset and regulate your circadian rhythm, so this can be a powerful tool if you are battling insomnia.
Make a Visual List - that you check off every day/ or digitally you see what you’ve checked off. Seeing visually what you have done, is just as important as seeing what needs to be done because it motivates you to see what you have already accomplished.
Better Input - Intake better, inspirational, positive information. In the so called age of information, it’s more crucial than ever to choose what to tune into and what to tune out. Everything is out there, it’s just a matter of what you tune into you, and what is good for you, takes more effort to find, than what’s out there for your consumption that doesn’t serve you.
Cut off negative information sources – Be objective and take a break from any tv series, social media feed, podcast, website, or person, who is feeding you a steady diet of negative, and distressing information. You can’t know how something is negative affecting you unless you take it away, and then you can make an informed decision.
Captain’s Log - Keep a written daily journal to evaluate feedback and progress. You can’t make informed decisions without data over time, so taking even just a few minutes here and there to document our ups and downs is so transformative over time. Bullet journals are great for this, your only goal is record how you feel, why you think that is, and if you can quantify that on a scale from 1 – 10 that’s even better.
Conclusion:
I wrote this piece because I know millions of people have gone through the same experience as me, or much worse, and if I can help one person believe it’s possible to pull themselves out of the darkness, and give them a few tools to help make it easier, then it’s worth it to me. If there is only one thought that I hope you take from this it’s that you are enough. When you feel like you are enough, it’s easy to make healthy changes, and they actually feel great, and you want to make even more. It feels frictionless, it makes your actual experience of consciousness so much more enjoyable, and you are worth it. You are worth living a healthier lifestyle, you are worth feeling better, you are worth thinking better thoughts, having a happier life, being at peace with yourself, and having better relationships with people and most importantly yourself. You are worth it and I believe in you!
Start where you are, whether you were far along the spiritual pathway and got knocked off, or you are just seeking a better way of living and feeling, don’t get caught up on the past, just focus on what you can do in the here and now, today to make your experience of consciousness better. The first step is believing it’s possible, and I know you can do it.
Until next time & with lots of love,
William Z. Brennan & Desert Mountain Apothecary
