We’re living in a time where we’re constantly being pulled from one thing to the next. We eat our lunch at our desk, inhale our breakfast while running out the door to work, and we grab something quick for dinner as we rush home from a busy day in the office. On top of all of that, we’ve got social media constantly pinging us and people “liking” and “not liking” what we post on a daily basis. It’s no wonder so many of us feel worn out and spread so thin. It’s time for a little (or a major) reboot to reconnect with yourself. So, how do you learn how to connect with yourself? This is something I had to learn for myself and I’m delighted to share some of it with you today.
Do you remember yourself? It’s that person inside of you screaming for your attention but you’ve been too busy to notice. For me, I never spent time reconnecting or even connecting to myself in the first place. I was brought up with non-stop sports, clubs, activities, travel, agendas, etc. as many of us were and I was never taught how to enjoy life or relax. It wasn’t until I got the biggest wake up call of my life (10 years of chronic health issues, which you can read more about in these few posts: My Thoughts Part 2, What I Learned from the Hardest Year of My Life and How I Healed, What I Learned from a Decade of Chronic Illness, and How I Overcame a Toxic Situation as well as in my best-selling cookbook, Eating Clean: The 21-Day Plan to Detox, Fight Inflammation, and Reset Your Body) that I hit rock bottom and was forced to stop, slow down, disconnect from the outside world and reconnect with myself. That rock bottom saved my life, changed me to be the healthy woman I am today and without it, I wouldn’t be here talking to you about how I turned my life around. Don’t wait for the wake up call to hit your life for you to wake up. You can slowly start to reconnect with yourself on a daily basis. Here are a few ways I want to inspire you to get started today.
Disconnecting to Reconnect with Yourself
When we disconnect from social media, TV, radio, magazines, parties, events, obligations, and any other forms of media and interaction, we get a chance to look at our inner ‘stuff’. Most of the time it’s not pretty. I don’t know many people who like to sit with themselves in silence and really look at what’s going on in their lives but since I started doing this myself, more and more people who do this have come into my life. Call it Law of Attraction if you wish but trust me, when you start looking inside and discover what’s really going on inside of you and what story you keep repeating in your head over and over again, you’ll see your patterns, what’s blocking you in life, and why you can’t get out of your own way no matter how hard you try. They say life starts where your comfort zone ends so why not venture out of that comfort zone and start to listen to yourself more? Reconnect with who you were before all the noise influenced you to be who you’ve become. Stop giving your power away to everything outside of yourself and start trusting yourself and listening to your intuition. We’re all born with intuition but we’re scared to trust ourselves. Look deep down at where the little fears pop up in your life and release them by trusting your intuition will guide you to what you need and where you want to be in life. Take back your power and start having more control over your thoughts and your mindset; this will shift your life drastically.
There’s More to Health Than Kale
Our nervous system controls a great deal of what’s going on in our body every second of every day. While eating healthy foods is a huge way to jump start your way to wellness, I realized that there’s more to the equation than just food to heal our nervous system, which is heavily relied upon by all of your organs and muscle- so yes, this system is a big deal for your overall health! Recently, while healing my body, I realized all the kale and healthy superfoods in the world couldn’t heal me. Even though I eat very clean, whole foods every day, there is more to health and well-being that just what you eat. It’s about trusting yourself, going within to cultivate self-love and a self-care routine, following your intuition and realizing that no one has the answers to heal you or make you healthy but yourself. For way too long I gave my power away to others who told me how to eat, what to eat, and how to be healthy, but soon I realized that the only person that knew what worked for me—-was ME and that’s when I started to learn how to shut off all the noise and disconnect from the messaging that didn’t work for me and go within.
Turn Off the Noise
There’s a lot of noise out there. And I’m not talking about loud music or loud people talking. I’m talking about the constant messages we’re bombarded with on a daily basis in the forms of social media, TV, radio, magazines, newspapers, people giving you their viewpoint and advice, authorities, experts, etc. Yes, I agree some of this noise can be beneficial in very small doses but for the most part, we’re overwhelmed by what and when to eat, how and when to exercise, how much sleep we need, how to slow the aging process, how to be successful, how to keep ourselves together without falling apart and so on. We spend more time looking at what everyone else is doing and not enough time asking ourselves what we really need. Often times what we need has nothing to do with what the noise is telling us, which you will discover when you get quiet with yourself. So, what do we need? Taking care of yourself, saying ‘No’ more often to give your mind and body time to relax and decompress, cultivating a self-care practice (eating healthy, working out, sleeping at least 7 hours a night, getting massages, going for walks outside, etc.), and understanding that self-love is not a cheesy phrase that’s used to make you a narcissist. It’s about realizing that no matter what happens outside of you (at work, in relationships, etc.) cannot effect the way you feel about yourself (a.k.a. giving your power away to other people). When you allow others to effect the way you feel, you’ve given your power away. You and only you are in charge of your feelings and when you take back your power, own the fact that no one can push you down or make you feel bad about yourself, you realize you’ve had the power all along- you just forgot you had it.
This summer, get back in touch with yourself. Slow down, connect with yourself, get quiet, go inwards and really ask yourself what you want without listening to the noise outside of you. I assure you, you’ll be pleasantly surprised at what you discover. And you’ll start to sparkle from the inside out.
Xx,
Amie
Love the picture. There’s nothing like the ocean, a beach like the one pictured, to rejuvenate the soul. It reminds me that the Creator who set its boundaries ornusnto enjoy the many gifts it offers in so many ways.
“Disconnecting” for a while to reconnect with what is truly life sounds like a great way to regain healthy perspective & renew/restore a quiet heart.
Thank you Ellen; it’s so soothing, isn’t it? xx
Yet another beautiful post Amie. These mind/body posts of yours are my absolute favorite, and seem to be just what I need to hear lately. I know you have your cookbook out (just ordered it!) but truly feel like you have a memoir inside of you. Thanks again for your vulnerability and sharing so openly.
Thank you so much Mindy! So lovely to hear from you. A memoir has been on my mind. We shall see. xoxo Thank you again!