Feel the Prana

Well, we’ve made it through the first month of the new year! Congratulations. Chances are you set some loose or possibly hard rules for yourself sometime around December 27 of last year. You told yourself you were going to eat healthier, drink less, sleep more, remove all physical, emotional, spiritual, financial toxins from your life.

And some of you may have stuck to this goal! That’s awesome!

But what if January was harder than you thought? What if you just didn’t have time to tackle the projects that you told yourself you would? That’s fine too! Life is complicated, especially these days, and often we hold ourselves to a higher standard on January 1 (or let’s be honest, January 3 because the first weekend doesn’t count) than what we might have room for in our lives.

It’s time to be a little more realistic with our goals. Not bigger or smaller, just more manageable. Maybe you want to organize every closet in your house and make it look like a perfect Pinterest board. Maybe you want to work out five days a week and only eat salad for lunch. Or maybe your goals are more self-care-based. Maybe you want to learn a new hobby like cooking or knitting. Maybe you want to find an hour a day to sit in bed and read. Maybe you want to learn to be more assertive. Maybe you want to finally quit the job that’s been making you miserable for months. Well, February is as good a time as any to work toward those goals.

But trying to go from zero to a hundred is a good way to burn out and often will make you feel bad about yourself for not accomplishing whatever lofty goal you had set. As is the way with dealing in absolutes. Saying “I’m only going to do this” or “never going to do that” isn’t how life works. The best example is fad diets, a tried and true New Year’s Resolution. Cutting things out cold turkey is just not realistic. It’s much easier and more manageable to say I’m going to do this this week or I’m not going to do that today. Baby steps will always take you farther, trust me.

“Focused February” is a concept I first heard about on the podcast “This Might Get Weird” with Grace Helbig and Mamrie Hart. Mamrie decided Dry January wasn’t for her and wanted to give herself a few weeks to get out of the holidays before diving into a month of focus. So I had an idea. Instead of just calling it “Focused February” and pressuring myself to constantly be vigilant and disciplined, but not really have a plan, I would create a calendar that made completing my goals, or at least working toward them, a little simpler.

You’ll notice many of the days repeat. This is to create habits and routine. You’ll also notice there’s no dates marked on the squares. I did this intentionally. For some people, completing tasks like laundry and meal prep may be easiest on the weekend. But for some, nine to five is just a catchy Dolly Parton song. Weekends may be your busiest time of the week. So think of this more like a Bingo board. Take a look at what you have coming up for the week, the month, and try to cross off each day as it comes.

And remember, this is completely individual. You should cater it to your own goals. I would recommend your first day making a list of what you want to accomplish this month or more long term. Journal about why you want to accomplish these things. (And a journal can just be the notes app on your phone!) Think about how your life will improve if you get these things done or make or break this habit.

Then on the second day, break down this list of goals into as small details as you like. For example, one of my goals is to wash, dry, fold, and put away my laundry in one go. Often, I’ll get to the first two, and then a load will sit in the dryer for a week and the rest will remain in a wrinkly ball in my hamper. The “fold” and “put away” only takes about a half hour. I can absolutely find that half hour in my day. It’s more of a mental block. So my goals will be smaller. Do laundry once a week so it doesn’t pile up (hence having more to fold and put away at a time). Purge my closet of things I don’t wear anymore. Reward myself with something when I complete this task.

This is just one minor example. Your goals may be loftier. But I suggest you look at areas of your life where you are letting things pile up. Maybe it’s the dishes, maybe it’s meal prep, maybe it’s making appointments. No one thing is too trivial to put on your list. I promise that doing the thing you need to do is way easier than thinking about how you don’t want to do the thing. And it will make room in your life for the things you really want.

You may notice “meditation” as one of the guidelines. It may not be something you’ve done before. I’m still quite a beginner myself! But the experiences I’ve had where I’m able to tap into a meditative state, or even just clear my mind of daily worries for 20 minutes, have been so beneficial to my mental health. As the month goes on, I will share resources on easy ways to meditate, guided meditations I’ve enjoyed, and breathing techniques that will make whatever time you spend in meditation helpful and enjoyable. Check back on this blog or on my Instagram! (@kaitlynrosewrites)

The list of “daily tasks” I’ve laid out are simple ways to keep your mind and body healthy as you work toward your goals. If you find that they don’t apply to you, or are hindering you in accomplishing what you want, by all means, make your own list! Or toss it all together. Being focused is not about being hard on yourself, it’s about being disciplined.

February is a month of love and passion. No, I’m not talking about romantic love or red hearts and Valentine’s Day. Make it a goal to be passionate about your daily life, make it a point to fall in love with yourself each and every day. And one thing I’ve learned about self-discipline is that it’s a hell of a lot easier when you’re passionate about what you’re doing.

Over the last few years, there has been a huge boom in what is called “wellness” culture. Celebrities are talking about self-care and going to therapy. Taking care of oneself is no longer seen as a selfish act. At least, not in the way that the media portrays it. That’s to say, self-care and wellness has become synonomous with skin care lines and the latest juice trend.

Of course, it’s nice to spend time pampering yourself with new products and putting healthy things into your body, but somewhere the lines got crossed where self-care simply meant “buy things”. And when we look at self-care this way, it becomes a luxury for the priveleged instead of a necessity for all.

There is a phrase I find myself using often: “you can’t pour from an empty cup”, which essentially means, if you don’t take care of yourself, you won’t have any energy to care for someone else. We must chose ourselves first, always, in order to have the capacity to help others.

The truth is, the concept of “self-care” as seen in mainstream media is approached in the simplest of terms. Buy this thing, start this diet, do this workout, and you will feel better about yourself. But its almost the exact opposite of that. The work that needs to be done is first and foremost, internal. Tools and products can be helpful, but chosing yourself over and over again has to be the priority.

Look at it this way, if you were to join a gym and buy the latest matching work out set, and then go to the food store and buy all the non-GMO organic fresh produce, and have a medicine cabinet filled with protein powders and vitamins and a hundred dollar skin care routine, would any of that matter if you don’t believe you deserve to be happy? If you’re going to the gym because you hate your body, if you’re buying produce but let it go stale in your fridge, if every time you’re washing your face you’re focusing on your uneven skin or bags under your eyes, won’t you be that much more tempted to buy the next thing hoping things will change?

We must first do the internal work. We must say that we are worthy of the things that we want. We must decide that we want to exercise because we want energy and strong muscles that will prolong our health. We must chose foods we enjoy and have the time to cook, finding a healthy relationship with food and our bodies. We must acknowledge when we need rest or when it’s more beneficial to push ourselves toward the things we may not be totally stoked for, but will make us feel better in the long run.

Self-care and wellness aren’t about looks or even physical improvement at all. It’s about chosing the things that serve you, and setting aside the things that don’t. Learning to say no to friends and family when you don’t have the energy for something. Learning to forgive yourself for your mistakes. Understanding the ways in which your mind works and learning to be kind to yourself. And sometimes that can look like a long bubble bath with fancy face masks or motivating yourself into a workout with a new outfit, but we must put our mental health first before we can use materials to aid in our journey.

Try this exercise: Write down things in your life that bring you happiness. Next, write down the things that drain you. Think of the times that you wished you’d done things differently (i.e. stayed home and rested instead of staying out late with frineds, or vice versa!) Then, think of times you chose yourself and how you felt after. It may be that you felt guilty; the internal voice of shame told you you were selfish for doing something for yourself instead of someone else. Work on quieting that voice. It gets easier with each step. Think of the ways in which you cope with stress or sadness and decide whether these things harm or help you. Asking yourself these questions will make it easier next time you’re faced with the feeling of needing a little TLC.

In a way, it’s a blessing to see self-care like this. It makes it something accesible for all. It is much more complicated than a quick fix with the swipe of a credit card, but once you see self-love and improvement as a lifelong journey toward welllness, you will appreciate it that much more.

Goodbye New Year's Resolution, Hello Focused February!

Is Wellness Only for the Privileged?