Mindful Steps for Improving Life
I hit this point in my late 20s where I was unhealthy and unhappy.
What was I doing wrong?
I felt like I was trying very hard to be healthy, but I wasn’t feeling better.
The answer was, ultimately my mindset.
The more I obsessed and researched into this topic of health and happiness, the more I woke up to the idea that, nothing will change, if nothing I do and think changes.
So the first step, I told myself, was to make small changes on a consistent basis.
Here are some of the steps I took to improve my life:
1. For me during the 2020 pandemic start, that change was 12-minutes of exercise a day. If I can do that, I thought, I’d be able to feel better than not working out at all. This was preferable when compared to cramming an intense muscle blasting exercise once in a while—which was what I was doing for some time and was not adding to getting into better health shape.
Yes, I aimed for consistent small changes in my day-to-day habits. What happened? I started to feel better. I had the smallest positive change to my mindset that helped me get in better physical shape, that set up my day in a more positive way. There were many days of set backs—weeks even. I didn’t beat myself up. Instead I recognized it, asked what was holding me back, then I forged ahead. “One foot in front of the other” was what I told myself on days where motivation was scarce. That rippled into building momentum to educate myself on how to take up healthier habits.
2. I developed a near daily habit to meditate and journal (weekdays mostly but sometimes weekends too). These were key tools in helping me orient myself for the day.
I highly recommend the 10% Happier App. It has a steep fee for the annual membership, but at $100 for the year, my friend was paying the same price for a single session of therapy. It just made sense for me to invest in my mental health because it’s one of my values. I tried it out for a free week of course before I committed. It has greatly improved my life and I feel it was a solid investment. I noticed improvements in my patience and also realizations of thought patterns I needed to let go of.
I would seriously recommend even just 5 minutes a day of meditation or breath work and a minimum of 15 minutes for journaling. Do what works for your schedule. Waking up a bit early to do these things set me up for more success in my day.
3. I started weaning myself off my coffee habit and replacing my caffeine addiction with tea. I had solidified a suspicion I had towards coffee. It was causing me jittery-ness and anxiety so as much as enjoy the fragrance, it had to go. Not completely, but just to a point where I was drinking it as a treat once in a while. It was also causing some unwanted heart palpitations more frequently than I wanted. Scary stuff. I’ve written a post for a Chicory Coffee formula to follow to help you start drinking less caffeine and coffee because let’s face it, decaf coffee is a bit sad most of the time.
4. I made some small shifts to my diet & lifestyle that honors a woman’s body. A girlfriend of mine turned me on to female bio-hacking. That’s just a fancy term I’d say for being in tune with the way the woman’s natural cycle affects our body throughout the month and how to maximize our activities to honor that system. Alisa Vitti at Flo Living has dedicated her life’s work to helping women balance their bodies through awareness of our cycles and natural therapies to support that. I tried her 4-day hormone detox with a few tweaks of my own. This detox plan, by the way, was just a free PDF that basically suggests an eating plan that includes more fruits and veggies to your diet for 4 days. My friend loosely followed it for 3 days and noticed positive results.
I came away from that shedding a bit off my belly and realizing that eating lighter in the evenings as well as consuming less meat made me feel much better! Here’s the link to her article on detoxing for women. I came away from that with lots of energy after the third day.
5. I started decluttering my belongings: three-quarters of my closet to be exact. I then moved onto my papers and books. I used the infamous Marie Kondo tidying book (e-book version to save space!) as a guide. It was not an easy process, I was very emotional as I sorted through my belongings to prepare it for discarding, selling or donating. I realized I was hanging on to a lot things that weren’t serving me anymore. In addition, these items were in the background of my life taking up physical and mental space. Internally, it showed up as me hanging onto emotions that weren’t serving me anymore.
Class notes from college, cards, memorabilia: scanned and put on the cloud.
Clothing, uncomfortable shoes, and accessories I was wearing only once in a blue moon that weren’t my performance attire or special occasion clothing: sold or donated.
Jewelry I never wear or forced myself to wear: discarded or given away.
Media items I was not using regularly like CDs and DVDs: given to friends or discarded.
I should note that if you are in the process of decluttering, you should aim to declutter responsibly. Simply discarding your belongings in the trash is not the point here and is not going to be eco-friendly. The pain staking process of getting rid of of my belongings through responsible means such as selling online, taught me an important lesson that I should think twice about a lifespan of an item before I purchase something.
I was finding that the process of decluttering my belongings actually helped lighten my mind.
It’s interesting how when we declutter our minds of un-useful thoughts and emotions, that we also allow ourselves to shed physical weight. I noticed myself shedding some weight as well. I’ve heard countless stories on people shedding pounds after finally identifying and letting go of the negative mindsets or clung-to emotions of the past.
This is of course easier said than done, but if you value happiness and health, you may want to consider identifying the thought patterns holding you back from a better quality of life.
Look, I’m still working on mine. All I’m saying here is, I’ve found lightness in letting go of things not serving me anymore. So this minimalism I’m speaking about is of the mind and often, that can be helped by owning less things.
Minimalism is certainly not for everyone and neither am I saying you have to take this up yourself. I’m simply putting it out there that I’ve struggled a lot with the feeling of not having or being enough and beating myself for it. This also happens to be a pattern I notice in a lot of Asian parenting. However simply noticing this thought pattern, then practice letting it go has made more room for goodness to flow in.
Oof, heavy stuff huh? Hope you are having some tea while reading this or at least had some earlier!
Thank you for stopping by to read a little about my minimalist and tea life journey.
Did you find any of these steps to be helpful in your life? Do you have any tips that help you improve your life? I’d love to know. Please leave me a comment below or drop me a line @minimalisttea on IG.
Stay safe lovely people and drink more tea!
xOO MinTea