Where to Start.
I started to journal many years ago when my girls were little. I have been always a single mom, and I found myself needing to always be on, always ready. Which often caused me to be on edge, and not finding time for myself.
Stressed out, and always looking like I was angry. I don't even remember how I started to Journal, maybe I read a blog like this or heard it from a friend. I was instantly hooked. I set my alarm about 30 minutes before the girls would get up, and sit in the silence and write. I can tell you it was one of the first times I heard nothing but quiet at my house. :) At first, it was hard to get up early, I mean what Mom doesn't want some extra sleep? It did take a bit to get it part of my routine, days I wanted to sleep rather than write. Why Journaling is therapeutic. As I kept it up, I noticed things began to change, the mornings were more peaceful. I wasn't running around yelling at the girls to get up. I was more chill, I also became more positive, I was able to set goals in my journal. It was like a diary, expect no talk about the cute boys at school. It was my time and I enjoyed it. It was a progression over time, once I noticed the change I was hooked. Now I usually don't miss more than a day or two in my journals. I honestly think we can solve a lot of problems with journals. It also keeps your mind alive, your brain functioning and the creative.It does wonders for focus and keeping the neurons firing up.
i hI found it was one of the few times I had hot coffee and I finished a whole cup without finding it later in the microwave. It was a time that I got to enjoy. My journals also came with me when I traveled or went away for a weekend. It was important for my self-care to keep it a daily thing.
Journals, they Matter. I keep my journals in a bottom drawer in my dresser, every once an a while I pick one and read a few pages. One journal I wrote how I would love to visit India. I honestly don't remember ever writing that. About 3 years ago I was in India and volunteered there for just over a month. Journals have the power to make goals come true without you even realizing it. My Journals have helped me overcome grief, they give me a place to write honestly about how I am feeling. A chance to look back and say "whoa that's not so kind, where did that come from?" I have found they have increased my self-awareness and my ability to check in with myself. Benefits of Journals:
How to get a Journal Started. The best thing I can say is being committed. Pick your reasons why you want to journal, less stress, self-care, healing. Give yourself 30 days to commit. Take note of how you feel starting a journal and how you feel in 30 Days. Not sure what to write? Be sure to grab my Journal Prompts here. So go grab yourself a Journal, buy yourself a good pen and start! Be sure to Grab yourJournal Prompts to get you started. Happy Journaling Anna xo P.S Here is another Blog you might like Be Brave 31 Days of Self Care Need a Journal? Here are some of my favorites:
Disclosure: This is a professional review blog which gets compensated for the products reviewed by the companies who produce them. All of the products are tested thoroughly and high grades are received only by the best ones. I am an independent blogger and the reviews are done based on my own opinions.
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 Do you feel you are ready to explode? Hi! I am so glad you are here! I am Anna and I am a mum to 2 beautiful girls and understand how it feels to be stuck and not so brave. I asked myself one day how I became this way? This is not the mother I hoped I would be. I loved my children deeply but I felt it wasn’t enough. I could talk about their achievements, their grades, goals and how they were doing, but couldn’t say anything about myself. I blended into the scenery and felt lost. I sought out help and began to realize that it is OK to do things for me, self-care was a must. Little by little I began to shine and my authentic self began to appear. I embraced my brave self. This started a passion in me to reach out to other moms and share what I have learned so YOU can live your life center stage, not in the background. How to become your Brave Self 1-Self- Care Self-care is now the word being heard everywhere. Books, ads, magazines. But what is it? Self-care can be defined as the practice of taking action to preserve or improve one’s health. So, what is it? It is a small daily action we do to take care of ourselves to avoid burnout as well. We want to avoid getting to the point that we are stressed and are no longer able to cope. It can be a 5-minute breather outside, a walk or a hike. Nature does our soul good. A laugh with friends. Change up your hairstyle, buy yourself a new outfit. My favorite is to go to Lush and buy a new bubble bar and have a glorious bath. One thing I highly suggest is to watch how you talk to yourself. Do you speak lovingly to yourself? A day of saying how fat you are, I am so stupid, I can’t wait to lose 10 lbs, I am an idiot, I am so clumsy. I want you to start here, start talking to yourself with kind words. What do you like about yourself, what are you good at. ”When you recover or discover something that nourishes your soul and brings joy, cares enough about yourself to make room for it in your life. Jean Shinoda Bolen 2- Journal One thing I find is gold to me is my journal. It’s my place that I write what’s happening in my life, my goals, what bothers me, who upsets me. It’s like a diary but for adults. I honestly feel and it been proven much can come from journal time. It’s taking that time for you. It’s telling yourself that you matter enough to make time for yourself. It helps to clear your emotions, gives you increased focus and increased stability. I journal as soon as I get up in the morning, set my alarm before anyone else is up. It’s also my time. It starts your day off in a positive way. What I found is setting the alarm and being intentional there was not saying I don’t have time. Here are some Journal Prompts if you need help Buy yourself some fancy pens, and a beautiful journal and start to write.  3- Try Something New Each Day
I challenge you to try something new each day for a week and let me know how it goes. Seriously, try it. We can get stuck in a rut, doing the same thing every day. Tuesday Taco Night, Friday Pizza, Wednesday Date Night, same route for work. I challenge you to try something new each day, a new food, drive a different route to work. Sign up for a course, attempt to speak a new language. Totally up to you. 7 Days, 7 new things to try. When we are in a rut, we need to do some new things to get out of it. Think of it as the new things are the rope thrown down to get us out of the hole. We need to reach for it. Starting tomorrow do something new, can be small like a new driving route, or how you do your hair. When you go shopping try a vegetable/fruit you have no idea what it is buying it and figure out how to prepare it. You have 7 days to try new things. Then I want you to send me an email and let me know what you did, and I will share with you what I have tried Let’s do it 7 days 7 new things. Are you ready? "Although no one can go back and make a brand new start, anyone can start from now and make a brand new ending." Carl Bard Reach our any time Anna xo Other Blogs You Might Like Change is good for the Soul Grab Your FREE Self-Care Printable  Change it can scare the shit out of us, we can run from it, avoid it, stay stuck, do everything in our power to avoid it. Why? Why do we do that? What is so wrong with change. Join me as I dive into change because after all, we all do go through it whether we like it or not. If we haven’t met before welcome My name is Anna and I have lived through a lifetime of change. Sometimes out of need, sometimes our of desperation and other times it was a natural process. I admit change can be scary, we don’t know what it feels like or what to do with it, or even how to begin. I have been sober now going on my 8th year, and am continually changing and learning to embrace who I have always meant to be. First, let's talk about what is change? Change- to make radically different: TRANSFORM I get asked often by my coaching clients, “well how do you know when you need to change.” Well, if you are reading this or asking the question I would wager that you are being led to change something in your life. You can also feel exhausted, overwhelmed, angry, things that at once time brought you joy do nothing for you. And if we sit for a moment deep down we know its time. OK, so we need to change, Now What? Once you know its time to change you first need to accept it, embrace it and give in to it. Don’t listen to the voice in your head telling you not too. Our body likes comfort. I highly suggest getting some books on change, chatting with a friend, getting an accountable partner. Get clear on what you want to change, and why. Dig deep into the why and what would happen if you don’t change? Sit with that, do you get tears? If not see if you can dig deeper, it's important to add feeling to your why. When things get tough it's your why that will get keep you going. Now you have a Mission — To Change Somehow we have thought that once we start on a mission to change it will be all rainbows and unicorns. We will be all Magical. This couldn’t be farther from the truth. Think of it like this. Say you just started a plan to run a marathon, the first day you go for a run, granted you can get off the couch you will be very sore. The next time you run sore. Until eventually you can run and look forward to it. Change is kinda like that, it truly sucks in the middle of it. Its painful, lost memories pop up. I would suggest share what you want to change, eat better, take a course, create community. By sharing it we make it real. It is no longer a thought its out there in the universe. See if you can find an accountability partner someone to check in on your goals and to help you not to give up on yourself. How to start to bring Change.
Always keep going no matter what. You are exhausted, your skin is itchy. You are filled with anger, you want to sit and eat chips and ice cream for days at an end. All of this is natural. I remember when I first got sober and was working the 12 steps, OMG I wanted to quit, I was so angry, I had nightmares, my skill crawled. I was quite frankly a mess. I wondered why am I doing this. Then I remembered why I didn’t want to live like I was living. I knew I deserved better, my daughters deserved better. You may go through some or all of what I described sometimes all in a matter of a few minutes. The key is not to judge it or quit. Take breaks, naps, binge on NetFlix but keep going. No matter keep going, reach out to someone and remember your goals. Share with someone. You will be surprised and also feel blessed by hearing “oh my me too.” During times of change, we can feel so alone like an alien living in someone else’s body. If we are used to keeping things to ourselves, this can also be something we can change. Share your story, find your voice. Something I learned on my journey and I have it hung where I can always see it The world needs who you were made to be. I encourage you to set some goals, journal and reach out if you need help Be sure to come hang out with me on Facebook Like what you read? Here is my first Blog feature with Elephant Journal I would love to hear from you. Anna xo
 Fulfilled Life Vs Happy Life I am going to chat about pursuing fulfillment instead of happiness. Happiness is a feeling and can come and go, while fulfillment is a way of being a state if you will. Let me start by saying fulfillment is not another word for happiness. We can be happy and unhappy at times, but still, be fulfilled. We can be angry, sad, and still be fulfilled. I think in our push for instant gratification we become tired trying to pursue happiness, we do things that make us happy. We become not so patient we want, what we want now. So we buy things to make us happy, eat things, drink do drugs, meet someone and date them because they will do. We are not into waiting and jump at the first thing that comes our way. We are happy at the moment but wake up the next day wanting to cure that happiness fix.
What will make us happy today? Trust me I know, this was my life for so long. I drank, ate, dated the wrong people said things, didn`t say things all because at the moment it made me happy. I think sometimes this is how we end up feeling sad, overwhelmed and just blah and exhausted. We tiredly pursue being happy going from one thing to another, our brain is constantly in overload trying to get our next great fix. It’s exhausting. We can also put our happiness in our titles, and when those change we lose our happiness. We can collect lots of titles, from mum to daughter, to our work position to a friend. We commit so strongly to our work, when that shifts we feel lost, our happiness is gone. I know this personally when I have lost jobs, my identity was lost, I did not know how to become happy. I had all my happiness relying on my job, my friends my finances take that away and I didn`t know who I was or what to do. I remember a couple of times in my life once when I finished a job that I was at for 4 years. I was in transition for a bit and was really lost. My work friends where just work friends and we ceased to hang out anymore. I lost my identity, I was confused and torn. Another pretty big part of my life was when my daughter became older and independent. Which we all want as a parent, but I no longer was the Play Group Mom, we no longer gathered at the playground. I felt unfulfilled. Why? This is mostly because I had all of my eggs in one basket if you may. My happiness was all in my job, my friends were from work, the outings were work parties. Take work out of the picture and well I had nothing left. Same with when my daughter grew up. I had to spend quite a bit of time figuring out who I was? What did I like, what was my passion. Do you find yourself lost? Exhausted? Lost? Blah? Lifeless? Maybe a search for fulfillment is the route rather than the search for fulfillment. I have painted a nice picture of happiness :). But really what is the difference. Happiness comes from what we do, work, being a parent, eating, drinking, while fulfillment is why we do it, who we are. Happiness is short term, pleasure-based, while fulfillment is long term, giving to others, building our character. Mother Teresa, I will wage on saying she had a very fulfilled life. How do we have a fulfilled life?
If you have any questions or comments let me know. I would love to help. anamilne@shaw.ca xoxo Other Blogs you might be interested in Change (Yep I said it) Being Brave Be sure to join the Community and not miss out |
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