Step 8 - De-stress and self-care - Life Purpose Guide

De-stress and self-care

Most of the things we have talked about so far could be considered de-stressors and self-care. You will find if you don't continuously look at the ways you spend your time and reset how you might be doing things, you’ll become unbalanced. Just like riding on a bicycle becomes habitual and second nature, where you don't even have to think about the balance, it just happens, you need to form this same habit with self-care in your life.

Boundaries:

I believe that learning to set boundaries and maintain them so you can protect your energy and time is the foundation of self-care.

How do you know when you need to set a boundary? If you are feeling obligated to do something to keep the peace or to avoid conflict a boundary needs to be placed here.

If you feel like someone is walking all over you or you feel like a doormat, a boundary needs to be set.

Setting boundaries is about deciding what is acceptable...

Life Purpose Series Step 7 - Connection

 Being a part of a community makes you feel like you're a part of something bigger than yourself. It's important for us as human beings to feel accepted and to be able to offer our support to others. Being connected helps us feel a sense of purpose that we might not get from anything else.  

I talk quite often about the Blue Zone Study and community is one of the Power 9, nine commonalities that lead to longer, healthier, happier lives. As a matter of fact, 3 of the 9 have to do with friends, family, and community.

Be sure to spend time with, talk to, or write to your friends and family every day. Connection is one of the basic human needs and is very important to connect with the people in your life. This is one of the most important pieces of the health and wellness puzzle.

This step can be very important right now especially after coming through the past year and a half. 

Finding connection within some of the...

Get outside every day

I know this can be hard when you work indoors or also during winter weather. Making a point to be outside, even for 5 minutes, can make a difference in your mood, your energy levels, and it can even lower your blood pressure. 

You are a living being that needs sunshine to feel good and to grow. Think of yourself as if you were a plant that needs the sun, water, and fresh air to grow and thrive.

Some of the things you can expect when you spend regular time outside every day:

• It can help with anxiety and depression.
• It can help boost your vitamin D levels. Did you know that 40% of men and women in the US are deficient?
• It can help increase creativity, concentration, and mental clarity.
• It helps lower blood pressure and reduces cortisol levels.
• Being active outdoors helps us age more gracefully by improving sleep and improving mobility.

Getting outside with a friend is even better and we will talk more about community later in the guide.

We all feel better...

This week we will be working on Step 5

Movement

Being active can help you control your weight, relieve stress and anxiety, improve energy, improved sex life, and reduce the risk of disease. 

It always improves our mood and makes us feel better.

This is why I include this as a part of the life purpose journey.

If you really want to connect with yourself and your purpose you do need to take care of yourself. Self-care is key.

Yes, you can find your purpose in your life without movement but you might at some point be interrupted and thrown off course by dis-ease. 

I can’t stress enough how important self-care is so don’t skip this part. 

It is natural for us as humans to be active, so find something you love and do more of it!

Action Steps:

• Walk, hike, run, swim, bike, yoga, pilates, martial arts, weight lifting, gardening, sports, and dancing. Just find what you love!
• Keep trying new things until you find something you like enough to do everyday.
• ...

As women, we always focus on taking care of everyone else and often fall short on taking care of ourselves. Keep in mind if we fail to care for ourselves we will not be able to care for others.

At some point, we burn out and sometimes get sick. While some of these steps will seem simple and may also be something you know you should already be doing, it’s not always something we are doing.

You might be thinking? What the heck does this have to do with life purpose? 

Well, if we feel like shit we will not have the energy or the motivation to pursue any new ventures. I want you to have success and feel amazing.

It’s also hard to pursue anything new when you're sick. 

My hope for you is to uplevel however you feel right now. 

So let’s do this!

Eat Real Food

What is real food? Well, it's food that grows from the Earth, and food that has no label or under 5 ingredients on the label that are real food. This is really simple but not easy to do. It does...

Create a path where you feel lit up~

Some of the things we talked about in the last step, revisit what brings you joy,  are things that really make you feel lit up inside when you're doing them. It's the feeling as if you're in a flow, time passes quickly and it's amazing how much you get done. It could be something simple like painting watercolor or something more complicated like volunteering. Either way, it lights you up!

These are the things you need to focus on and also need to spend the majority of your time doing. I understand, we all have responsibilities. This is true but, you can start shifting your life in a way to make things that bring you joy become your responsibilities. This can take time but if not now, then when??

To create more space for yourself, be aware of the things that are energy suckers, things, or people that make you feel crappy, anxious. and tired. Remove or mitigate these things from your life immediately. I don't know about you but I have no time...

5 steps to find life purpose 

Start to live as your authentic self and create the impact your want in the world

How exactly do we become lost or disconnected from ourselves to the point where we feel completely stuck and uninspired in life.

I hear this time and time again especially from women heading into the middle part of life. They just feel like they have no purpose and no joy in their life. Like they are just going through the motions. I call this “Living on the hamster wheel.”

I believe a big part is we spend so much time, sometimes years taking care of other people, putting everyone else first at the cost of our happiness and health. 

Most of this is expected of us from our family, significant others, and also society in general. Women are expected to be the perfect caretaker, mom, wife, friend, employee, and business owner. We are also expected to do this while looking and acting a certain way, thin, young, and beautiful. If I have to hear about one...

Setting boundaries might sound a bit confrontational or limiting. Actually, it’s what I think is one of the most important forms of self-care/self-love and it is not limiting but actually very expansive and can help you live your life more fully being authentically yourself.

What exactly is a boundary? A boundary is a limit we set around what we consider acceptable and unacceptable behavior. What we will do or not do, accept, and tolerate.

A boundary is very personal, it has nothing to do with another person. It is our own setpoint for what is acceptable in our life and it is our responsibility to set and maintain them and no one else's.

If you feel someone has stepped over one of your boundaries it’s because you let it happen.

It is not someone else's job to uphold and respect our boundaries, it’s our job.

If you set a boundary and don’t hold to it then you will send the message that no one else has to respect it either.

We teach people how to treat us.

...