Seven Day Checklist to Reclaiming Your Sanity
Confluence Daily is your daily news source for women in the know.
By: Lisa M. Hayes: Confluence Daily is your daily news source for women in the know.
Day One: Curate your social media feeds with people you’d invite into your home.
All that noise on your social media feed seeps in your brain in ways almost no one understands or can predict, even when you’re doing the speed-scroll . A lot of it is not good for you.
Start thinking about your social media feeds as if they were your living room. If you would not invite that person over for coffee, there is no reason they need to be on your wall seeping into your brain. The truth for most of us is the majority of the people in our social media circles are not real friends. You don’t have to agree with everyone you follow. However, if you wouldn’t want to spend time with them, they probably shouldn’t make the cut. It’s perfectly ok unfollow or even unfriend. Letting them go is like cutting sugar out of your diet. Then you can curate a social media experience that feeds your soul.
Day Two: Create and commit to an afternoon tea ritual.
People all over the world do it and they do it for a reason. Afternoon tea is a way of putting a period at the end of one part of your day with an intentional pause to refresh for the next part of your day. It forces you to slow down and savor. When you make it a habit you are building a habit of savoring things – which is a very good habit to have.
I don’t want to hear you don’t have time, because you can make the time for all kinds of things that aren’t mission critical. You do it every day. Afternoon tea is a non-essential beautiful thing that anchors you in a state of peace and beauty. Gifting yourself some peace and beauty every day is an antidote to the insanity out there that’s making you anxious. So, get some tea and a book or journal to spend some time with while it brews, not once, but every-damn-day.
Day Three: Turn off the alerts on your phone.
I’m sure there is a study out there somewhere that proves those binging and dinging alerts coming from your phone cause an instant spike in anxiety. Exactly no one needs a spike in anxiety.
Between news alerts and social media alerts many of us carry devices that call for and get our attention instantly with a notification ding. That ding makes being present in your moments next to impossible. Those pings are designed to disturb you and they are very effective.
You do not need a CNN alert every time there is a disaster somewhere in the world or the President offends someone. You also do not need the satisfaction of a ping every time someone likes your latest Facebook post or Instagram photo. What you do need it to reclaim your attention and sovereignty over your electronics so you are using them instead of them running you.
Day Four: Replace one hour of your daily screen time with music.
And by screen time – I might mean TV.
Music is pure magic. There is nothing better at lifting a mood or relieving stress than music. Think road-trip with a perfect mix tape. Music can curate an experience and a vibration better than anything else. It’s almost like mood of your choice on demand.
Music has a very similar effect on the brain as meditation does. Let’s get super-real here. A lot of us wish we meditated an hour a day, but almost no real living human actually does. However, anyone can pump the tunes for an hour to set a mood of your choice in motion.
Additionally, that intentional break from digital stimuli is very good for your brain. It improves concentration, sleep, and creativity.
Day Five: Smudge yourself, your stuff, and your space daily.
Smudging is not just whoo whoo nonsense. There is some solid scientific research that shows sage or cedar smudging is very effective for cleaning bacteria and pollutants from your environment. Additionally cultures from all over the world throughout history have had smudging rituals for clearing negative icky energy.
You know, bad mood? Smudge.
Cranky friend? Smudge.
Haunted basement? Smudge.
Now, I’ve heard it all before:
I’m allergic to sage. Use lavender.
I can’t use smoke in my apartment. Get a spray.
My husband will think I’m crazy pants – Do it anyway.
Smudging is about one part thing your smudging with and one hundred parts intention. So, find something to work with and smudge all that nastiness off your body, your stuff and out of your space – every day – preferably twice a day, once in the morning and again before bed.
Day Six: Commence with an intentional smiling practice – even if you have to fake the joy.
Studies show that people instinctively respond to a natural smile better than they do a fake one. However, I don’t need a study to know that people will respond to a fake smile better than the absence of one all together. Smiling makes things better.
However, here’s the secret beauty of a smile – your brain will respond to a fake smile almost exactly the way it responds to a spontaneous one. Your brain is an ever operating pharmacy. Smiling triggers a flood of feel good brain chemicals that are at your disposal 24/7.
So, smile at everyone, even the people you don’t like, even when you don’t feel like it. If your schedule doesn’t involve seeing people to smile at all, set a timer and smile like a crazy person for at least a half hour a day.
Your brain will thank you.
Day Seven: Start now and Memorize a new poem every-single-week.
Poetry is powerful medicine. I know some people who might say poetry isn’t their jam. However, I’d say it’s because they haven’t found the right poet.
Some of the greatest thinkers of our time and in history of express(ed) themselves in poetry. Poets have a way of seeing life, love, struggle, and triumph as art. The right poet can shift the way you see things through prose without effort.
The very act of memorizing something requires attention and intention. It requires a special kind of focus that changes your brain. When you memorize something it’s an act of choice and that changes you and your perspective in ways that aren’t obvious but are very powerful. That thing becomes a part of you in a very magical way.
Extra bonus: Having an internal library of memorized poetry up-levels your cool-factor exponentially.
More by Lisa:
A Self-love Story About a Woman, a Man, and a French Bulldog Named August
Lisa is an LOA Relationship Coach. She helps clients leverage Law of Attraction to get the relationships they dream about and build the lives they want. Lisa is the author of the newly released hit book, Score Your Soulmate and How to Escape from Relationship Hell and The Passion Plan.
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