Enjoy the Journey

Life is too unpredictable to focus on an end goal. We tend to focus on what we want to accomplish rather than what we are learning every day. The above picture was taken on an average day where we just needed to get out of the house. It’s just the same trail by our place that we’ve walked on many times before, but this is one of few pictures where we are both genuinely smiling instead of posing. My boyfriend was being an idiot and making me laugh as usual, which is something I make sure to appreciate every day.

We might not always feel like we have what we want or that life isn’t quite “perfect” yet, but I guarantee when I look back at this picture I will remember how good life actually was. Even looking at it while writing this post makes me calm down and realize how awesome it is that I get to be myself around someone who loves me every single day, and how the good days are actually really good! Here is what I have learned that helps me enjoy the journey.

Humans are meant to learn

I hope you don’t think that as soon as you have that job you’ve always wanted, or the big house you’ve been striving for, that you’ll suddenly stop needing to learn and grow. There will always be things to stress you out, or unpredictable situations and you will always be working towards something. If you think about where you are now, can you think of any failures or struggles that you’ve learned from? YES. Of course you can! You’ve learned from it and are now living with more knowledge than you had before and growing from it.

Think about what’s important

Ideally I would say, “look back on your life as if you were 100 years old, what do you remember?” but I’m assuming there’s not a lot of 100 year olds reading this post. So when you think back on your life as it is so far at whatever age you are, what do you remember most? It’s likely that you mostly remember memories that gave you emotions whether it’s positive or negative rather than items you bought or things you had. The positive memories bring you joy, and the negative memories gave you lessons. That’s why you need to remind yourself about what’s actually important in life – the experiences rather than what you have.

Appreciate where you are now

The best way to remember to enjoy the journey is to truly appreciate where you are right now, because you are currently living the journey. What are your current struggles? What are you learning from it? What are you working on right now to achieve your goals? What are you grateful for? Are you acknowledging every small accomplishment? I think that answering these questions helps keep you grounded and to remember that the amazing life you want depends on what you’re doing today, and not what you might have in the future.

Don’t wait to live a great life, make the life you’re living great by taking a step back and enjoying the process. We are meant to struggle, learn and grow over and over again until the day we die.

Mindfulness

Mindfulness seems to be a buzz word these days. I think that it’s easy to say and not practice. Most of us are aware that mindfulness is beneficial especially now that mental health has become a more common topic of conversation. I want to share with you different mindfulness techniques I’ve tried as I am still open to trying new methods, and am constantly learning what it means for myself.

MUSE – The Brain Sensing Headband

The MUSE headband is basically a band that goes across your forehead and behind your ears that has sensors that give real time feedback on your brain activity. You download an app on your phone that takes you through a tutorial, and once it is all set up it records your brain waves as you meditate. You start at 3 minutes of meditation, with a background sound of choice. The goal is to focus on your breath with the sound in the background guiding you along – it will get louder the more active your brain is. This tool is meant to train your brain how to calm itself when it is getting overwhelmed with activity. I know some people who go for about an hour, whereas I have only done a 10 minute meditation as my longest session.

I tried it for a couple months and I would say it gets more effective the more often you use it. It was helpful to me because just by putting on the headband, it forced me to sit still for a length of time. I am usually trying to do something at every second of the day to keep me busy. This tool showed me how important it is to give your brain a break. The way I think of it is like working out. You usually give yourself breaks in between sets, and rest days in between workout days. You could argue that sleeping gives your brain a break, but I think with the amount of stimulation it gets throughout the day, it is also important to allow it to relax a few minutes throughout the day. Not only does it have to make choices and take in information in the present moment, but it also has millions of memories to refer to and possible future situations to protect from as well.

I was just borrowing this device so I haven’t invested in one for myself yet, but I know they have come out with a new version that senses your breathe and heart rate as well which I would be interested in trying out.

Floating

Float Meditation: Elements Float Spa 280 — LIFE. CULTURE. PEOPLE. — Source: http://www.lifeculturepeople.com/culture-2/2016/6/27/float-meditation-elements-float-spa-280

My cousin introduced me to Float Space here in Kelowna as it was something I had never tried before. The whole purpose is to take away all possible sensations so you only focus on your own thoughts and your breath. You have the choice between going into a fully enclosed capsule, or laying in a bath in a room. The owner suggests to float for 60-90 minutes at a time to fully get the benefits of meditation. It is salt water so I learned it’s not worth touching your face and getting salt water in your eyes… that wasn’t so pleasant. Other than that I thought it was a cool experience, although I wish I used the foam pillow they suggested as my neck got quite sore. It was interesting that I had no sense of time after the first 10 minutes… and noticing thoughts that come and go, and which thoughts were recurring.

I can see this being difficult for people who are quite active and always on the go – I personally had a hard time being still but I also made the mistake of drinking coffee beforehand. I think it’s worth trying out at least once to see if it’s something you can invest in for the health benefits that it provides. The owner said it is meant to re-wire your nervous system to initiate calmness.

Yoga

I have only done yoga a few times a year for the past 6 years. It wasn’t until this year that I have been doing it more consistently. The difference is I was paying for drop in classes and due to my love for sports, I couldn’t find a reason to invest in a membership or monthly pass to keep up with yoga. Now, I am doing yoga videos that I find on YouTube because it’s free and I can do it in the comfort of my own home.

Every time I went to a yoga class, it was noticeably beneficial to my mind and body. Sometimes I would be so present that I would actually feel emotional and that I wanted to cry – maybe a shock to my system for how I forget about the importance of living in the “now”. My muscles and joints have always come out happy as well – nice and loose.

I can also see the spiritual aspect being addicting as well, especially being in a room full of people who are all connecting movement and breath together. I have been to some ridiculously spiritual classes that talk about your chakras, the third eye and enlightenment etc… with an open mind I kind of like to believe in all of it because it’s a cool take on life.

Now that I do yoga at home I never usually feel the emotion I do when I’m at a class, maybe because I don’t feel the vibe from other people, but I still get the benefit of staying in the present moment and stretching my muscles. To me, yoga is one of the best forms of practicing mindfulness because I am an active person and am very connected to my body. It is more effective for me personally to notice tension in a muscle and to become self-aware of letting that tension go in order to relax rather than sitting and focusing on my breath. With certain types of yoga, you focus on your breath as you flow through movement and this for me is a simple and effective connection to make.

Miscellaneous Mindfulness

Culinary Lingo — Source: https://www.eatright.org/food/planning-and-prep/cooking-tips-and-trends/culinary-lingo

Everything that allows you to be in the present moment can be considered a form of mindfulness. For me, cooking is a great way to be present as it forces me to focus on what I’m doing – especially when creating a new recipe. I also really enjoy colouring and painting, it’s an easy way to just let my thoughts come and go and get the satisfaction of making something beautiful. Also, any type of physical activity helps as well – from working out to rock climbing to skiing.

Although I have tried multiple methods and continue to learn about other possible ways of practicing mindfulness, I still struggle to work on it every single day. There are so many leaders and genuinely happy people out there who swear that meditation is what keeps them going in a positive direction. I think it’s important to stay grounded when things seem overwhelming and chaotic and that’s why I am constantly looking for mindfulness methods to find what works best for me.

I would love to hear what you have tried to implement mindfulness in your lives in the comments below.

Take Advantage of Quarantine

If you are laid off like me, or at least have reduced hours due to COVID-19, take advantage of this time you have to yourself. Yes, it’s easy to get stuck in the rut of fearing what the future might look like, but it’s likely to get back to normal, or at least a “new” normal. I have been surprised to hear from quite a few friends that they secretly are loving this time. I think right now everyone is feeling obligated to be stressed out and hoping things will get back to normal, but it’s totally okay to actually enjoy the “break” from your normally fast-paced life. If anything, I think what we learn from being in quarantine will actually help us in the long run. Let me tell you why.

1. Spending less money

For us, we are saving a ton of money just by cooking at home. We usually go to a restaurant to eat at least once a week, especially when our sports leagues are up and running. Yes, it’s still possible to order in right now, but our problem was we went just to get a different environment, be around people, and to get out of the house. Now that we can’t do that, we are forced to cook at home. This is something that will teach us that it is easier than we thought to make things homemade and prepare meals ahead of time.

We are also not driving as much since we can’t go and visit friends and family and thus saving money on gas. Obviously we miss being able to do this but the upside is saving the money. Again, on road trips we would usually stop and get food along the way as well.

We are unable to go to the movies, go bowling, or any recreational center so we need to depend on other things for entertainment. I think this will really benefit us in the future for when we are bored and need something else for entertainment. We have tried a bit harder for watching movies at home, making “nests” and homemade snacks instead of going to the theatre. We have also been filming YouTube videos as a source of entertainment which we are having a lot of fun with, and it’s something that we would have never done before. I think in the future we will try harder to work with what we have and think twice about spending our money on food and entertainment.

2. Planning ahead

This mostly has to do with getting groceries. Normally, we would have to go a few times a week because we would be craving something, or forgot things for the meals we want to make, or ran out of something that we didn’t expect to. Now that we are trying to only get groceries once or twice a month, it takes a bit more planning ahead. It turns out that it’s not that time consuming and it’s pretty easy. We look at everything that we have already, and think of meals around that.

We are getting much better at using what we have instead of loading up our pantry and forgetting about half of what is already in there. We are also more cognizant about how long fresh food can last and how we can make the most out of it. I hate to admit it, but an example I have is with spinach, we would use it a lot at first, forget about it for a few days, then it would get all wilted and we would throw it out. Now, if it’s starting to get a bit old, we have just been freezing it so we can use it later for spaghetti sauce or casseroles. I’m sure this sounds like a no-brainer to most people, but we honestly just didn’t pay enough attention to what was in our fridge.

There are also a few things we have figured out how to make last longer, such as growing store-bought green onions in water, or storing asparagus or celery in water will make them last longer too. We have learned how to make your own kombucha and sauerkraut, and have pre-made snacks that can be stored in the freezer.

3. Relaxing

Sometimes without trying, I’m sure that everyone ends up with a busy schedule. With work, recreational activities, meeting up with friends, baby shower invites, birthdays, meetings, phone calls, along with household tasks and trying to squeeze in your own hobbies – it’s easy to forget to slow down.

At first it was a bit shocking to go from 100 to 0 in a matter of a few days, but now that I’m settling in, I have found ways to take “me” time that I never gave myself before. Whether it’s cooking or baking something I never have before, colouring or painting, looking back at my old travel pictures, or doing yoga, I am realizing that I have been neglecting both my mind and body from what it needs. Of course, this is from the perspective of someone with no kids and no pets to worry about – that would be a different story.

Usually on my days off while I’m working, I am constantly thinking of what I should be doing to be productive. I am used to completely exhausting my mind by the end of the day to the point that all it can handle is watching TV. My boyfriend would quite often say, “you’ve done a lot, you don’t need to do everything in one day, just relax for the rest of the day.” This is something that I just couldn’t listen to. You could argue that it’s good to be busy to get ahead in life… but this also leads to spreading yourself too thin to the point of burnout.

I have found enough to keep me busy that I feel productive, but I have also allowed myself the time to breath especially now that I have so much more free time in my day. It actually feels wonderful giving that time to myself, and I feel like a better, happier version of myself instead of a stressed out stress ball that’s anxious all the time. I will definitely be more mindful of how I’m treating myself in the future.

4. Time to reflect on life

This sounds deep, I know. I think it’s important to notice what you take for granted every day, what isn’t working in your life, and what you’d like to work on for the future. Like I said before, I have learned that it is much more fun to not stress about everything and to dive into self-care. I also wrote a blog on being a creator and not a consumer, which I have been taking very seriously now. I didn’t realize how much I was consuming – on my phone particularly – outside of work. In the first couple days of quarantine I didn’t really know what to do with myself so I would just go between watching videos and scrolling through memes. I made the decision to delete some apps and took up some hobbies that I could do instead. I think this made a world of difference on keeping my mind busy in a more positive way.

I hope that despite the circumstances, you are able to take this time for yourself and make minor improvements for your day to day life. Now is the time to reflect on your values, make some positive changes, and exercise your creativity in the process.

The Joy of the Morning – Where Did it Go?

Source: https://www.poynter.org/tech-tools/2019/in-praise-of-the-morning-newsletter/

When I was young, my favourite time of day was the morning. I would immediately spring out of bed as soon as I opened my eyes, full of energy and excitement. I loved waking up to the sun shining in my room and knowing that my parents were already awake and starting their coffee. I loved all breakfast foods – breakfast used to be something I needed to have as soon as I woke up. I got to start a new day and choose what I feel like wearing, how I want to do my hair and I would think of all the things I can play all day. The smell of the fresh air in the morning especially in the spring and summer brings back so many memories and can be considered a part of my “happy place”. I definitely didn’t need coffee as a child because I had all the energy I needed. Even when I was at sleepovers, I would always be the first one awake and would have to sit and wait for everyone else to wake up. Going on trips with my family I was definitely way too excited most of the time and would easily wake up early and keep everyone on track.

Now, as an adult, I’ve experienced far too many sleep deprived, stressed out, anxious mornings where I absolutely dread waking up and starting my day. I feel tired, ugly, unmotivated and would rather just lay in bed all day. I don’t want to think about what to wear, my hair sucks and I couldn’t be bothered to wear make up. I skip breakfast a lot of the time now, partially to shorten the amount of hours I am eating, but also to save money. Most of the time when I am on my way to my car to drive to work, I just walk directly in a straight line and I don’t notice anything around me. Not the smells, the flowers, nothing – just dreading about how I have to show up to work and do the same old thing. On the weekends all I want to do is sleep in and go to bed early. The only thing that seems to remain from childhood is the fact that I get excited to travel and will still happily wake up early – the only difference is now I have room to stress out about my flights and everything that could go wrong.

If it’s not obvious at this point, the morning seemed a lot happier as a child. So what happened? You could say as you get older, your energy levels change among other things that happen in adulthood. I think that it’s a result of all of the baggage that starts to weigh you down. Anything and everything that has contributed to fear, anger, embarrassment, guilt, shame, or any negative memory definitely makes it difficult to want to jump out of bed and take on the world.

Now that I’m laid off and in quarantine, I have had a lot of time to think about things. I refuse to accept that my life will look the way it does in adulthood so I’ve been brainstorming how to bring back my love for the morning. I have really started to break down my habits to see how I can improve upon them. This is what I would like to share with you.

1. Phones are for Alarms Only

Yes, it feels good to wake up and see all of your new notifications and to check all of your favourite apps. It’s extra good when you are nice and warm in your bed and know that you have 15 minutes before you absolutely NEED to get out of bed. However, this also runs the risk of all the negative things you might accidentally see on your phone whether it’s news, someone’s highlight reel, or even just the temperature outside. So perhaps if we just don’t look at our phones at all, other than to turn off our alarm, nothing bad can happen to our precious mornings.

2. Gratitude Actually Works

Now that we have gotten rid of any chance of getting negative thoughts in our heads, begin the morning with thinking about what you are grateful for. You can even say it out loud. If you have a partner/spouse you can take this time to tell them what you appreciate about them. Usually, we would both go on our phones and/or complain about how we hate working. It makes a world of difference to just wake up, look each other in the eyes and say why we love one another. But gratitude can be anything really. Maybe you’re happy to have functional hands, or that you have food in the fridge, or that you are alive and breathing! This can be a very humbling experience and leaves no room for negativity.

3. Routine is Everything

I’m sure most of you know that your body functions much better when you stick to a routine. Going to bed at the same time and waking up at the same time helps regulate your circadian rhythm. Even doing this throughout the weekend is important. When I am working this is definitely something I find to be quite difficult. I honestly think it comes down to my routine at night which is also something that I’ve been working on – I might have to make a separate post about this. The more overwhelmed with work I get throughout the week, the more I want to stay up drowning myself in memes or TV shows until late at night when I should really be taking more drastic measures for relaxation – baths, yoga, dim lights etc. More on this later, but for this post, waking up at the same time every day will eventually lead to not even needing an alarm. When I am going solid on a routine and going to bed at an appropriate time, I find myself waking up a few minutes before my alarm every day. This is definitely more ideal than hearing the sound of an annoying wake up call.

4. The Perfect Morning

Instead of thinking about how the mornings used to go and how much they suck now, I’ve had time to realize that I can make my mornings go the way I want to and to figure out what my perfect morning would look like. This is as easy as writing out the problems and coming up with solutions.

Problem #1 – Feeling exhausted
Solution – Stick to a routine, make sure to get enough hours of sleep

Problem #2 – Feeling unmotivated
Solution – Insert gratitude here and everything else will follow. You don’t have to be motivated for something specific every day, as long as you keep moving forward.

Problem #3 – Feeling “ugly”
Solution – Take the time to wash your face or shower, brush your hair, wear something nice, anything that might make you feel better.

Problem #4 – Nothing to look forward to
Solution – What’s something that you would look forward to on a beautiful morning on the weekend? For me, it’s a nice cup of coffee or tea. For some reason, it’s a guarantee that I will have a better morning if I can to sit and enjoy the flavour of a nice warm beverage. Most mornings I am driving or at work while I’m drinking my coffee… both not ideal to truly enjoy it. I also love food… giving myself enough time to make a meal and find time to enjoy it makes a world of difference.

Problem #5 – Tunnel vision
Solution – Stop and smell the flowers. You don’t literally have to do this exact thing, but make a habit of noticing something around you. Stay in the present moment to get out of your head. For me, I need to remember to smell the fresh air and enjoy it the way I did as a child. It’s a quick reminder about all the good things that life has to offer.

I hope that you can find ways to appreciate every day, and enjoy each and every morning among the chaos that can be overwhelming in every day life. We all deserve to live a happy fulfilled life, so why not start to give your mind and body what you deserve. I truly think changing some habits and having a different mindset each morning will only provide positive benefits. If you have other ideas on how to make each and every morning the best one yet, please leave your ideas in the comments below.