Three of my secrets for feeling more ease and less overwhelm

Stress and overwhelm don't have to be part of your everyday life.

I’m here to tell you it is possible to change how you live your life, while staying ambitious and high-performing in your career. The way you do it will not look like how anyone else is doing it.

That’s part of why it might seem daunting. 

You don’t have a blueprint, and you've been subconsciously or consciously following societal and cultural blueprints all your life (i.e., expectations of who you should be and what you should be doing at a given moment). These include blueprints that don't truly align with you and how you've evolved over the years.

It's not your fault. We aren't taught how to care for and treat ourselves. We're taught to work hard at all costs, be immediately responsive and available to everyone, and to work tirelessly prove our value and worth. We're taught that work and personal sacrifice is life, not simply a part of life.

Here's what I've learned though. There isn't a blueprint that can show you how to care for yourself, because no one is living your life -- with your thoughts, your innermost struggles, your hopes, your deepest desires, your circle of friends and family, your resources, and your experiences. 

But there are things you can try to create your own blueprint. If you remain open to exploring and experimenting, you'll find ways to create a life that works for you - one with less stress and more ease and fulfillment. 

Here are the three game changers that have helped me:

😴 Quality Sleep

I aim for 8 hours each night - sometimes 9. We all need a certain amount of sleep per night. Sometimes I wake up bright eyed and bushy tailed with 7 hours, sometimes I need 9 hours. Quality sleep is critical for your brain and body to refuel. Countless studies show less sleep leads to less optimal brain functioning, productivity and emotional regulation during the day. 

Parents of infants, for example, understand what sleep deprivation does to you. 😫

✍🏽Journaling

Just like you clear and declutter your desk, your kids’ drawers, your closet, home, your inbox, and other spaces, your brain space needs to be cleared and decluttered too.

Studies show journaling helps increase your self-awareness and decreases mental distress. It allows for you to clear out and express thoughts and emotions on the page, so you aren't holding onto the stress they can create when they sit in your mind untapped or unexplored.

I journal in the morning for 5-10 minutes or in the evening. If I journal in the evening, I do it right before bed and I often write for longer. I don't force this though; if I'm sleepy, I skip the journaling and go to bed.

🧘🏽♀️Meditation

Study after study shows the benefits of meditation - it reduces stress, boosts your mood, and can decrease your risk for depression.

I was the "I don't meditate" person. I resisted it so much, until I became more curious about why I rejected it when I tried it. It felt awkward because I didn't like stillness. Most of us high-achieving, movers and doers don't like to be still in our minds. It's not a familiar state of being. Our brains don't like the unfamiliar - it views it as a threat.

And like the resistance we might feel towards journaling, we sometimes resist meditation because we don't like confronting the possibility that a feeling or thought will come up that we don't want to deal with. But we cannot hear ourselves if we don't get quiet and still. And we can't change something we aren't acutely aware of.

It might feel awkward at first, but once you begin a meditation practice, you'll feel your attitude and how you approach your day shifts to having more intention and calmness, and less reactivity. For me, even 10% more calmness is helpful.

I meditate for 5 minutes in the morning. That’s my goal each day, before my kids wake up. I meditate after I brush my teeth, but before I workout.

I don’t do guided meditations in the morning (where someone guides the meditation with a monologue) but many people like them so give it a try, if you think that might work for you. Something is better than doing nothing.

P.S. The picture above was taken at a wellness retreat that focused on holistic wellness (from the inside out). I don't typically meditate outside, by a pool or with a poncho on. 😉

The goal is to try something different and make it a practice, so you can feel differently. Embodying more ease does not come from intellectually and logically understanding the cause of your stress and ways to decrease it. You embody and feel more ease, once you start practicing the things to create more ease. It's the practice that allows your body and mind to lock into each other so you can feel better.

If you keep repeating to yourself that it's not possible to do anything different to feel how you say you want to feel -- that's the reality you'll create for yourself. Your brain will actively work to confirm that belief of impossibility for you.

So let your brain go to work to confirm that change is possible and that you deserve to live a life that doesn't feel so misaligned, overwhelming or stressful. Because it doesn't have to be that way. And you deserve to give yourself the gift of feeling good - that Nina Simone kind of good. 🙌🏽

♻️Share this message with others who need to hear it too.

#stressawareness #selfcare #empowerment