Hello Again,

This past week has been full of fun and work, and normally when I have a non-stop, busy week I feel stressed I just want to get it over with and move past it all. Last Sunday I was journaling and writing about my busy week to try and work through the anxiety that came up with it, when I was thinking why does this have to bring me stress. All the things that are going to happen this week I planned and want to do. So why can’t it just be easy and why am I secretly hoping that it will go by fast? And I found that lately I have been out of my element. This summer each day has been different, there has been a lot of change and I am a creature of habit and routine. I like knowing how my day is going to go, I get uncomfortable with this week of plans and out of the norm later starts to my day and it seemed all very chaotic to me.

This added so much unnecessary stress to my day and what was I going to do because in reality I hoped that I would have more opportunities and plans like this each week but it was giving me anxiety. I was journalng about my anxiety and just continuing to think of all the things that I had to do. I finally thought ok I need to just think about what is going on right now and leave the rest of the week until it is time for it to happen. I made a decision to set an intention that I would be more mindful of when I was thinking about future things that we not yet upon me and to be present in the now. And you guys it changed my entire mood and the anxiety almost melted away! This was like a magic spell I found for myself. Each day I would just focus on what I was doing in that moment and it made everything I did more enjoyable. Here is was happened; each day I woke up I would get up go to my bathroom wash my face, brush my teeth and then go and do about 10-15 minute meditation. After my meditation I went and made a tea and started journaling, after I ate my breakfast without my phone, and went to get ready for the day. A couple things of other things happened; first I was about to focus one each thing that I was doing and just in an unrushed and enjoyable way. Second not having my phone for that first 45 minutes in the morning, I was about to be really mindful of each thing I did. Like washing my face I felt how the water temperature felt against my face, or how writing in my journal I could hear the noise the pen made as I scribbled down my thoughts on the pages, or how good my tea felt going down and warming me from the inside. It was an experience that I had overlooked for so many mornings before hand because I was busy worrying about events coming up and scrolling through my phone to take notice of these little things that make me feel so alive.

Each day I continued to be present with everything I did, I mindfully did each task with ease and with a new sense of gratitude. After about four days of being intentionally mindful and present I noticed that I felt more focused and clear. I found myself feeling like I could accomplish more with a better sense of direction and focus. Keeping myself away from my phone in the morning and minimizing my scrolling time allowed my brain to snap into focus and instead of doing tasks mindlessly I was doing them MINDFULLY now. It felt so good to not have added stress about future things and finally giving myself the full enjoyment of being present with each thing I did.

This was what I had experienced this last week and I hope that you feel inspired to set intentions to be more mindful and present in your schedule to help you reach better clarity, focus and minimize the unnecessary added stresses to your lives.

Let me know what you guys think of this post and if you have any tips that you want to share about how you improve your anxiety and allow for the little things to be more enjoyable for you.

xoxo

Kristy