What if you took care of yourself the way you take care of everybody else?
What if you loved yourself the way you love everybody else?
It's as easy as breathing to pour into those you care about, to make sure that their needs are taken care of. While at the same time being so easy to push yourself to the back burner, so far that you forget what it even looks like to take care of you - your wants, your needs, your likes and even dislikes.
When you hear someone say, "practice self-care", you don't even know where to start or what that might even look like. I get it!
I've been there and over thought what it even means to me. If you're reading this and this is you here's what I did to answer those tough questions and how I got back to loving myself and taking care of myself in the same way, if not even more than, I was loving and taking care of everyone else.
💜 Find what makes you feel joy, things that you love and can do daily.
Self-care is not a one size fits all, doing what you need is what's right always. This was one of my favorite things I did to get a clear picture of what self-care was for me because it reminded me of all the things that I love, that makes me smile. When you're doing this, sit down with a pencil and paper (or your notes app, whatever works) and write out all the things that you can think of that bring you joy. I mean literally everything and anything that brings you joy. It can be things like having fresh flowers around the house every week, having music playing, a specific color, or a back rub. Take the time to sit in the moment, remember it's what brings you JOY.
💜 Have a plan for how you will bring those things into your daily life.
This is important to helping you make a habit of taking care of you. Start out small. Jumping in and trying to implement multiple new self-care activities/practices could become overwhelming, try adding just one at a time. You are working toward these being daily habits and you know as well as I do that if you pile too much on at one time you'll be more likely to quit. You can start by adding one bouquet to your living room or kitchen and then slowly work up to multiple rooms, asking your partner/spouse for a weekly back rub, or getting in at least one evening walk. Low and slow will make it so much easier for you to make these joyful activities/practices a daily habit you don't want to skip.
💜 Set goals for when you'll do them throughout the week.
Accountability was huge for me. Now that you've got the activities/practices down that you want to start doing more, it's time to set some easy, realistic goals for how often and when you'll do them. Like I said above, low and slow. Maybe you want to start unplugging from social media or your phone more. A good goal might look like taking 20 mins off every evening or before bed or taking 15 mins to just be with yourself after you've gotten the kids out the door to school. Once you've been consistent with these goals for a week or two, turn it up a bit and challenge yourself.
💜 Find support, Find support, Find support.
These changes are going to not only be challenging for you but they will be challenging for your family too. Make sure that you have a support system who can be there for you. Find people who are walking a similar path of getting back to loving and taking care of themselves, bonus points if they are engaging in the same activities/practices as you. If you're doing similar or the same things you can meet up and do them together to switch up.
💜 Don't be afraid to adjust and tweak as you go.
There will be set backs and bumps as you navigate through this so it's important that you know you can change things with the ebb and flow. What you decide to do this week is not set in stone for the next week or even a month from now. Your needs will change, life will change and that's ok. Figure out what it is you need in that moment, that stage of life and switch it up if you need to.
Self-care is about what you do to protect your wellness and happiness so you can operate & function at your highest level. From places of joy not obligation. It won't always be things as pretty as flowers, it may be to prioritize your dental checkups or to say "no" more. As long as it's ultimately boosting your wellness and happiness, it's taking care of you and that's self-care.
It's safe to say...kids are back in school!There's always so many emotions surrounding going back to school, for both our kids and us. But I think this year takes the cake. The emotions ran from excited to freaking the freak out. There was a whole lot of unknowns and not enough answers.
I know as a mama I want to be able to have all the information and be prepared for as much of the "back to school" things as I possibly can, but with all that is going on and constantly changing, it was obvious that, that wasn't going to be as easy to accomplish as it has been in the past. There was one thing that I knew I could be prepared for and that is keeping my boys healthy throughout the entire school year. Man, that statement takes on a whole new meaning now doesn't it!?
I know as a mama I want to be able to have all the information and be prepared for as much of the "back to school" things as I possibly can, but with all that is going on and constantly changing, it was obvious that, that wasn't going to be as easy to accomplish as it has been in the past. There was one thing that I knew I could be prepared for and that is keeping my boys healthy throughout the entire school year. Man, that statement takes on a whole new meaning now doesn't it!?
One thing is consistent and that is I can make sure that my boys, the whole family, is doing everything we can to make sure that we are feeding our bodies what it needs to be in fighting shape. The past 18 months didn't teach me that, but it did show me how very important and thankful I am that we have resources and tools available to us to keep us well.
Mamas we know when the kids head to school our wellness can take a hit. For some crazy reason kids like to over share on all the things we wish they wouldn't -- germs. School can bring a whole host of challenges that our kids have to deal with and keeping them well through it all is our priority, no question.
We all have our different ways of doing that but we all can agree that making sure they are getting 𝙧𝙚𝙨𝙩, 𝙬𝙝𝙤𝙡𝙚 𝙛𝙤𝙤𝙙𝙨, all of the 𝙫𝙞𝙩𝙖𝙢𝙞𝙣𝙨 & 𝙖𝙣𝙩𝙞𝙤𝙭𝙞𝙙𝙖𝙣𝙩𝙨, and 𝙚𝙭𝙚𝙧𝙘𝙞𝙨𝙚 is pretty much a good foundation for keeping them healthy. For us adding to that list is having good, quality supplements that actually work and essential oils.
The boys take Vitamin D, Vitamin C, Zinc, NingXia Red, Inner Defense and/or Thieves Roll-on every single morning along with a few other things throughout the day. Adding these things into their routine insures that they have all the back up and support because let's be real, our modern world has created a mess when it comes to getting everything we need from just food.
I've created a list of my must haves for back to school...
✏️ 𝘛𝘩𝘪𝘦𝘷𝘦𝘴 𝘙𝘰𝘭𝘭-𝘖𝘯
✏️ 𝘐𝘯𝘯𝘦𝘳 𝘋𝘦𝘧𝘦𝘯𝘴𝘦
✏️ 𝘕𝘪𝘯𝘨𝘟𝘪𝘢 𝘙𝘦𝘥
✏️ 𝘒𝘪𝘥𝘴𝘗𝘰𝘸𝘦𝘳 𝘖𝘪𝘭
✏️ 𝘎𝘦𝘯𝘦𝘺𝘶𝘴 𝘖𝘪𝘭
✏️ 𝘚𝘶𝘱𝘦𝘳 𝘊
✏️ 𝘚𝘶𝘱𝘦𝘳 𝘋
✏️ 𝘡𝘪𝘯𝘤
That's just the short list!
Not only do I focus on their wellness from a keeping well stand point but also giving them boosts with their emotions -- focus, confidence etc.
Y'all know I'm all about the easy button so I created a Back to School Bundle that you can shop all of the Young Living items. There's tons of my faves for the kids in the bundle.You can pick and choose what you want from the bundle. Zinc is the only thing that I don't get from Young Living, I grabbed it from Amazon. We've been using the Zinc supplement from EIDON but I also like the Mary Ruth's too.
Whatever you choose for this school year, know that you are making the right choice for you and your family!
If you don't know Turmeric you should - it's AMAZING! The benefits to your body makes it a no brainer.
But Golden Turmeric is on a whole other level.
Golden Turmeric lets turmeric and its curcuminoids (this is the good stuff in turmeric) take front stage in providing benefits like joint mobility, recovery after a workout, aiding the body’s response to inflammation, and overall immune response, but it also has prebiotics to support healthy digestion, Boswellia serrata aka Indian frankincense which has been used in Indian herbal medicine for a very long time, ginger root extract, tapioca fiber, and Lime Vitality, all in a powdered formula that disperses into water.
A simple way to take it, but a powerful way to absorb this bioavailable (24x more than standard turmeric extract) turmeric supplement and get the absolute most out of it.
My favorite thing is that this supplement actually tastes good! Mango Rose flavor is everything and I'm here for it. It's not powdery tasting or grainy.
Here's live first reactions (me, my mum, and my youngest) to tasting Golden Turmeric for the first time!
We took a day trip up to Orlando a few weeks ago to visit my sis and brother-in-law, who were flying in from Colorado, to spend some time at Universal. It was a last minute thing, perks of living in Florida.
I know technically we are still in a pandemic state so to speak but most everything, here is open, and I wanted to give anyone looking to take a family summer trip to Universal, a little bit of a heads up of what it was like while we were there.
If you've ever been to a major amusement park then you pretty much know what to expect. Lot's of people, long lines, whining, and too much money being spent. Well it's still exactly like that but add in masks and lots of sanitizer being passed around.
Masks were not required to be worn outside in the general area (this was while we were there, check before you go because things change all the time), although they were asking you to wear them while you were in line and in close proximity to other people. And you know that at amusement parks people have no concept of personal space, this is still true. Universal did a really good job at trying to keep spacing and directing traffic the best way to maintain distance. I love my personal space, I was like this before rona, and I felt like the park did a great job at trying to provide that for everyone. I mean they could've had this in place long before now, just saying.
The sanitizer I mentioned being handed out wasn't the usual mama chasing down her crew making sure they had clean hands. Before you got ready to grab your 3D glasses or even get on any of the rides, there was a ride staff member who gave you sanitizer. They were definitely giving it out like candy on Halloween so I highly recommend that you have lotion or something because my hands became super dry and they wouldn't let me use my Thieves sanitizer instead, protocol I was told.
When restaurants started to reach their max numbers they would close the doors. Lines did seem super long but it was more due to how they were having people line up and not because of service speed or wait times.
Now wait times for rides is a whole other story. You know that waiting for rides takes forever no matter what state the world is in but, there were some ride lines that normally went pretty quickly that were taking way too long because of the sanitizer and mask situations. I highly recommend getting your passes for those must ride attractions because the lines may be a little longer of a wait then their usual 45mins - 1hr.
All in all we still had a really great time, despite all of the added protocols. I felt safe and wasn't worried about the safety of my family either.
* Please be sure to check all mandates because things are constantly changing*
I never was big on routines. I always felt like the same thing day in and day out was boring. I was like shake it up do something different.
Turns out, though, that having routines actually brings me joy.....
