5 Ways to Stay Positive & Thrive During Times of Chaos

I can't remember a time in my life more stressful than the way things are feeling right now, and I think a majority of the people on this planet would agree. I don't care who you are, where you live, and what your values are, I believe collectively we are all feeling the intense energy that is everywhere. I also believe that most humans in this world right now want the same things. We want to be safe, have affordable shelter, adequate and healthy food, we want to be able to thrive while giving back to our communities in a beneficial and purposeful way (Our Work). We want to explore and have fun with our friends and families. We want to feel good and be able to maintain our health without a struggle. These are really just the basics and we all should have all of these things. Every person on the planet.

I started this year spiraling into a deep sadness, stress, anxiety, anger, and hopelessness. But I've had enough of that, I'm now ready to move through this shit and move forward in a positive way and be a part of the solution. I know nothing will change if I don't change, and I also know that this is true for us all as a collective.

Today, I want to share with you after taking into consideration and experiencing and spiraling through all of the said emotions above. I want to share how I plan to move forward in a positive way and make the changes that I know will not only help me but will also help all of us as a collective.

I recently heard someone say that positive change will happen from the bottom up not from the top down, so here I am getting started. I am one small but powerful person who is focused on changing things for the better. Even though I'm just a drop in the bucket I know if I do nothing, nothing changes. If we all focus on the positive things we can change and affect, then think about the positive infectious momentum we can create as a whole. We the people have the power to create the narrative, so why would we not do this.

I feel like this will look differently for everyone. We all have different strengths and talents to share with the world. Grab onto yours, embrace it, master it, and share it with the world.

Here are some of the things I will be doing that I think we all should consider. Take what works for you and leave the rest behind.

Support & Build Your Mental Health

This is one of my main focuses with myself and my clients so for me, a naturally anxious person, I need to be really intentional with this. Begin to check in with yourself a few times a day. Take 5 minutes to close your eyes, take a few deep breaths and scan your body. What are you feeling, where is there tension, how can you support yourself.

When I noticed that my right eye was continuously twitching and my upper back was tight, I knew it was bad. This is how I know I need to take action and quick. You see, this happens to me only when I'm really stressed, and stress takes a toll on your health.

From this point forward I'm checking in in the morning, afternoon, and before bed. Then, I will do one of the many self-care practices that I know work well for me.

Very specifically, breathwork, meditation, yoga, Yoga Nidra, and any type of movement. I decided because of the state of the energy in the world right now. I'm going to do some or all of these practices daily even when I feel okay. I'm not just looking to heal and care for myself; I'm looking to build resilience so I can face whatever might be headed my way with power and grace.

Action step: Check in with your body and know the signs when you need that extra TLC and decide what daily self-care you can add and build resilience.

Support & Build Your Physical Health

Something that has also been at the top of my mind lately is physical health. While I believe myself to be very healthy while still having fun with junk food and alcohol, I also believe I need to be a little more vigilant about my health as I am getting older. I want to always feel good, strong, and able to do everything I've always done in my youth. I've noticed that you need to work a little bit harder to maintain this and so now, I'm getting down to business. As a perpetually immature person, in a good fun way, I will never do this perfectly and I don't think anyone should ever be too serious or obsessed. With the state of our healthcare circling the toilet not at the fault of our healthcare workers, and healthcare being somewhat non-existent for a majority of the people here in the US. I do believe we should take responsibility for our health by doing the most basic, but not always easy actions.

Eat Real Food, I know this sounds funny but if you can, as much as you can, eat food that is not processed. Now I'm aware that food is expensive and it's about to get more expensive so it might be a lot of rice and beans for me and a lot of other people. Take advantage of what you have in your community. If you're lucky enough to have farms, CSA's (Community Supported Agriculture), neighbors that garden or have chickens and sell eggs, support and use them as much as possible, connect with neighbors and share/barter resources. If you have the space, grow your own food, even if it's just a few things. Start reading labels and learn about what you're eating and putting in your body. There are ways to eat better without spending a ton of money even if you live in a food dessert. If you want to learn more about this, start following my Patreon Channel. You can follow for free and I'm going to start creating videos on these topics in February.

This is one of my goals. While I've been doing this for a long time, I don't do it enough and my goal is to eat this way 80% of the time. The way we fuel our bodies effects everything. The way we feel, our energy, our strength, and our mental health. In order to build resilience and strength we need to be putting good things into our body.

Strength is the next thing that I want to focus on. I want to feel good and feel strong. I want to be able to handle anything that comes my way. I want to have the energy to handle everything that is presented to me. I order to build this type of resilience I know I need to be doing something every day to build my strength and my cardiovascular health. Everyone is different and is at a different life stage, so you need to look at what will work for you. As a middle-aged woman I know I need to maintain my muscles, keep up with my walking/running, more the walking and keep practicing yoga for the balance and peace it adds to my life. I want to stress how important it is to listen and pay attention to your body, rest when needed. The building of the muscles happens when we are recovering and resting. It is a necessary part of the process. There is such thing as too much of good thing. So, remember to rest.

Action Step: Eat Real Food & Move and Challenge Yourself. Keep the body you live in healthy and strong treat it link the lambogini it is!

Learn to Build Community & Deepen Relationships

I've always been challenged by this because I am a bit of a loner. I love people but I do like doing things by myself even though I know its better if we work together. You learn more and get places faster. You reach your goals faster. So, it's my goal to embrace the people who are a part of what I consider my community and deepen and strengthen those connections and also build new connections. When we help and support eachother we are so powerful. Divided we don't thrive, we remain pretty stagnant.

Now, if you feel alone where you live or you don't feel connected with the people around you. Build community where you can find it. While I think it's important to have a support system where you are physically. I also believe strongly you need to feel supported fully. If you don't feel connected to the people around you, find community online or nearby.

Ask yourself, who do I want to be connected with? How can I connect with them deeper? Who in my community needs support? How can I help? How can I connect with and stay connected with more people in my commuity? How can I encourage others to do the same? Building community doesn't come naturally to a lot of people. A lot of us are taught that its bad to depend on others and that we need to be tough and pull yourself up by your bootstraps or some bullshit like that. This is exactly that, bullshit. We are meant to be connected, we are meant to work together, we are meant to live in COMMUNITIES. This is what is natural to us from the beginning of time.

Because this is new to me, building communities, I will be reading more about how to do this effectively and I'll share this also on my Patreon.

Some of the books that were suggested to me were:

Toolbox for Sustainable City Living: A Do-It-Ourselves Guide by Scott Kellogg and Stacy Pettigrew

Why It’s Essential: This book is a hands-on guide to sustainable urban living, with a focus on skill-sharing and building self-sufficient communities.

What You’ll Learn: Practical skills like gardening, water harvesting, composting, and energy generation that empower communities to reduce reliance on exploitative systems.

Solidarity Economy: Building Alternatives for People and Planet” edited by Jenna Allard, Carl Davidson, and Julie Matthaei

Why It’s Essential: Explores how solidarity-based models like cooperatives, mutual aid, and skill-sharing can build economic and social resilience.

What You’ll Learn: Frameworks and examples for organizing communities around shared values of equity, justice, and mutual support.

The Art of Gathering: How We Meet and Why It Matters” by Priya Parker

Why It’s Essential: Focuses on how to bring people together effectively and meaningfully, a crucial skill for fostering solidarity and mutual aid networks.

What You’ll Learn: Techniques for designing gatherings that strengthen bonds, encourage collaboration, and build trust within communities.

I'll be sure to share with you on my Patreon page as I read them and which one I'll be starting with.

Action Step: Ask yourself the questions above and then take action. Try different things to connect with your community. I suggest fun things, hobbies, and see the connections you can create and nurture.

Reading the books reminds me of the next thing I'm going to focus on.

Educate Yourself

I feel we have a lack of accurate information, and this really makes it hard to decipher what is good or bad information. I do believe this is being done deliberately to us for a while now. I decided because history repeats itself that reading books about history, community, people, and even reading just for fun is a healthy way to educate yourself on how to handle the landscape of today. While I'm aware that books are written in the perspective of the author, I want to hear these different voices, voices of the past and present, and expose myself to different narratives and hopefully learn outside of the scope of just today's politics and what is being fed to me by the media.

Be mindful of the things you expose yourself to because they do affect your energy. Music, email, TV, the News, people, social media. It all effects your energy. Be intentional with what you expose your energy to. This protects your mental and physical health.

Action Step: Create a reading list or a book club for yourself or in the case of the book club, with your community. Read things you normally wouldn't so you can expand and thrive. Read books to explore other cultures. Read the books and discuss with the people in your community. I can't think of a better way to spend your time.

Resist

Under no circumstance will you give into the fear and the doom and gloom. I refuse to live like this. I will embrace all the things I just talked about. I will move deeply into community, education, and having fun. Even when it might seem difficult. I don't know about you, but I still have a lot of life left to live and I intend on living it fully and freely and I will not let anyone be a Debbie Downer in my life. No offense to anyone named Debbie, just a SNL reference and if you don't know it, definitely check it out.

Action Step: Every time you feel the gloom take over, stop check in with yourself, and do something to give yourself a little bit of love. Work can wait; everything can wait. All we have is this moment right now and one thing I know for sure is, right now, I'm good, safe, happy, right now. No one can take that from me.

Last but not Least, Have some Fun!

I am committed to having more fun this year and for the years to come. Putting what is supposed to come first. Myself, my family, my community. I want to focus on gardening, embracing and creating art, traveling, exploring, and just making sure I'm having fun every day. Yes, I know, we all have to work, we are slaves to this bit of a hellscape we are living in. I know I need to look past that and keep moving towards what lights me up as much as possible. Little by little, adding more and more, every day.

Action Step: Pay attention to what lights you up, brings you joy, and do more of that every day. Simple but not always easy.

This is what I plan to do with my time. I hope that I can inspire you to do some of the same. Like I said earlier, we a small and powerful on our own, together, we can change the trajectory of all our futures.

What we focus on expands. So, lets focus on what is possible not on the circumstances we are being fed.

Join me over on my Patreon where you can follow along for free or support Soul Aligned Self Care in one of the tiers. I plan on adding a lot of new free content on all of these topics to help with these challenges starting in February 2025.

https://www.patreon.com/c/Tinastinson

Lots of love and care.

Xo, T