This Podcast episode is a synopsis of the last several blog post. I will be working to create more Podcasts in the coming weeks.

2020 is here! A new year, a new decade, so why are you trying the same old New Year’s Resolution?

I’ve never really understood the New Year’s Resolution. I understand the concept of wanting to make a positive change in our lives, I help people do that every day. I even get the whole new year, new start stuff. But what I don’t get is this. Yes, it’s a new year, but besides the clicking of a clock and a page-turning on the calendar what has changed in you?

You still have most of the same people in your life. Things are pretty much exactly where they left off in 2019, right? It’s not like the past year, ten years or lifetime been wiped clean? The problems, issues, and stressors of you had in December haven’t disappeared on January 1st? We all know that answers to those questions – NO. Life is continuously moving forward. Unless we truly spend time looking for answers and work on personal development, not much is going to change. And just to clarify, saying you’re going to lose 20lbs, eat better and or exercise more are not personal development. They desired personal outcomes.

So let’s stop with the resolutions and start this new year off with a plan to become the best version of ourselves. Because if we only lost 5lbs, cut back on the junk food, and got out for a walk once a week we would be a better version of yourself.

Over the next couple of weeks, I’ll be discussing the Simple Easy Joy of being your best self. So until then, be kind to yourself, make life simple, live with easy and base your choices on joy.

Ready to get your year off to a great start? Schedule a complimentary discovery session with me TODAY!

Living our lives in gratitude is an important part of the journey to connect with our Authentic Self. We’ve all run across the phrase “practicing gratitude,” but what is it and how do you make it part of my everyday life?

Well, today I’m going to give you a better idea of what practicing gratitude is and offer several practical ways you can integrate into your day. I know personally after I added these practices to my day over the years I have seen better sleep patterns, better moods throughout my day, less illness and better overall enjoyment of life.

Studies have shown a link between being grateful, mental health and overall life satisfaction. There is scientific data showing a correlation between regular gratitude practices and lower levels of feeling anxious and depressed.

The process of being grateful and giving thanks is helpful in reducing stress levels. The best thing about being grateful is it’s contagious. Your positive mindset creates energy and space allowing others to reciprocate with their own appreciation.

THE GRATITUDE PRACTICES THAT IMPROVED MY DAILY LIFE:

1. BEING THANKFUL

This was the fastest and easiest way I started my gratitude practice. The idea of being mindful of the things I was grateful for each day took a little work.

So to help me be more consistant I started a gratitude journal. Many people write a journal, but a gratitude journal is a little bit different. While a daily journal can have any and all thoughts, a gratitude journal focuses on what you are thankful for each and every day.

Some people like to journal in the morning, others write throughout the day, I prefer to write mine at night before bed. I prefer bedtime for a couple of reasons, it forces me to consider what time I want to go to sleep say 10 pm then I know I need to stop everything else by 9:30 pm to have time to reflect on the day and write what I was grateful for. The practice also gets me away from the tv and electronics right before bed.

Finally, the practice sends me off to bed with positive thoughts and a smile on my face. It’s a reminder what a great day it’s been and I get to have another one tomorrow after a good night’s sleep.

A gratitude journal allows you to reflect on your spiritual growth and integrate appreciation into your life more and more. That said, every journal entry does not have to be monumental; in fact, small entries denoting your gratitude for life’s small blessing are just as important. For example, your appreciation for your good health, family, and friends.

2. BECOME INTENTIONAL

It’s important to stay focused on the big picture. While it’s great to notice gratitude in your day, don’t get bogged down in the minutiae. Gratitude is a high-level practice and best refected on with a light touch.

Set time aside and just write, some days many gratitudes will flow, other days it may feel like work, which is also ok – just spending time and be grateful for the time to reflect. The goal is to minimize the things that block your ability to be intentional in your practice. In practicing gratitude, try and keep things in perspective.

As you notice positive benefits, like better sleep, it’s ok to recognize the challenges of getting to bed to achieve those benefits.

3. GRATITUDE FOR YOUR GIFTS

An important part of a gratitude practice is recognizing all of the things we take for granted as life’s gifts. What do I mean? Think about the simple things that put a smile on your face – that laugh of a loved one,

Over the last couple of weeks, we’ve been discussing self-care from creating a practice of self-care to taking time to check-in and see how we are doing.

This week I want to look understand how self-care or the lack of it affects your life. I’m not just talking about at home, but at work, activities, and social events.

Let’s start with looking at our daily life. Are you stressed before you even leave the house, or walk into work? Are you rushing and cutting corners trying to save two minutes? Have you put in extra hours just to be passed over, for someone who never works overtime? So how is all this misdirected energy working for you? I bet having a self-care routine would benefiting you, your work and your quality of life?

How are our daily habits supporting or hindering our self-care? Are you always eating at your desk or on the run? What are you eating, do you pay any attention? Is it real food or something packaged or fast food? Do you take a break at least a couple of times a day? Are you bringing work home? Do you check your email just before going to bed? What other habits or behavior do you have that are not supportive or have a negative impact on you?

Checking email before bed because you’re waiting to hear from a client I get, but not every night. Bad traffic can make you late for work, but you first have to actually leave earlier enough to get there on time. Eating at your desk, yes, there might be days it has to happen. All of those behaviors are fine on the rare occasion. It’s when those become the norm we get ourselves in trouble. Is there one behavior or habit you can you try to improve for your own self-care?

Here is one I have done – I was famous for running late. My husband would joke, If I said I was leaving in 5 minutes, he would expect to see me in 30 minutes. This was especially true if I was at the office working. That behavior caused stress in my relationship at home – not good.

To start changing my behavior, I started being as clear as possible with my husband on exactly how long I will actually be. Second, I look at what I’m doing and see if it’s something that needs to get done at that moment or can wait till the next day (hint -99% of it can wait) Third, I set an alarm to remind me to start shutting things down about so I can leave on time. The alarm has worked so well I’ve now started setting an alarm in the morning at home so I’m leaving the house on time. I usually set the alarm about 10 minutes before I need to be out the door, so I don’t freak out.

So what are you looking to change? How are you going to improve your self-care? Here are a few ways you can help make sure self-care is the priority and not the behavior or habit that don’t support you.

Do you have a plan in place to ensure you are getting the self-care you need?

How will you ensure and track your getting the self-care you need?

Do you have a support network that recognizes and encourages you to maintain your personal self-care needs?

How can you best support your friends/family in their self-care needs?

Earlier this year on my blog, I spoke how 2019 was the year of self-care.  As we move into the third month of 2019, many of us have given up on resolutions and are back to some of those habits we were hoping to change.  Well, it’s never too late to make small changes.

Let take some time in March to refocus on self-care and check-in with ourselves.  Whether you do it first thing when you wake up in the morning or maybe while enjoying your morning beverage.  Take a moment and see what’s going on for you. Be Gentle with yourself and just listen to what your body is telling you.  For some of us, this may be difficult. We are not very good at listening and especially what our body is telling us.

So just listen, your body will tell you what is going well and what is not going so well at the moment.

Is your body feeling thirsty, tight, bloated, sluggish or maybe just tired.

Now that you know what your body is in need of, it becomes easy to provide self-care.  What self-care tools do you have to help your body heal? It’s time to discover what’s good for you. You don’t need to do some long list of self-care routines. You need to listen to your body and do the things that matter.

It may take a little time to really listen and understand what your body is telling you, but once the lines of communication are working you’ll be amazed how wonderful of team you can be.

Keep life Simple, find the Easy in each day with what brings you Joy.

#simpleeasyjoy

In my last post, I wrote about Self-Care being a practice.  In the best case a daily practice. Today, I want to take some time and give you a few ways to add self-care to your daily routine.

This list is a jumping off point.  I’ll be going into more depth in different areas over the next few posts.  So let’s jump in.

Understand the effect of Stress on your mind body and spirit

First, the bodies reaction to stress is a natural response by releasing adrenaline to allow us to push through an evanescent time in such a way to be successful. It is when we put our body in a constant state of stress that we start to see the negative side effects.  We beginning to see ourselves getting sicker more often due to a weakened immune system. Our body recovers more slowly. We notice more aches, pains, due to the constant high levels of Adrenalin and cortisol. High levels of Cortisol can also lead to weight gain, high blood pressure, disrupt sleep, negatively impact mood, reduce your energy levels and contribute to diabetes.

So how do you work to reduces some of these side effects?

* Be physically active* Limit Distraction at least an hour before bed* Limit the amount of Caffeine you drink in the evenings* Get a good night sleep – six to eight hours. We each have our sweet spot when it comes to the number of hours we work best on

Slow Down and Enjoy the Day

I know what your thinking, so down?  How do you slow down when you have a two-page list of things on your to-do list.  I understand this is not about adding new things to your list but prioritize a couple of things in your day to take for granted.

* Appreciate the beauty of the season.  This is one of my favorite things I do.  On my Instagram you’ll find my #morningwalk photos of nature from that day. * Wake up early and enjoy the peace of the morning.  If you had told me when I was in my 20’s I would be an early morning person (4:30 am) I would have said you were crazy!  The fact is whether it’s 4 am or 6 am, those early morning hours are an amazingly productive and centering time of day.* Take time to enjoy your meals. Many of us eat our breakfast on our way to work.  We eat our lunch at our desks. Sadly at the end of the day, we eat whatever is available for dinner.  I challenge you to pick one meal time – I suggest lunch. Take some time to disconnect and enjoy your meal – pack your self-something special to enjoy.* Treat yourself  This can be anything from enjoying a special treat taking walk, reading a great book or listen to your favorite album.  Treating yourself to little things is a wonderful way to re-energize your day.

Learn to respond to your world, rather than react

Being reactive is a natural part of human nature.  We all have three gut responses, I call them the Three “F” – Fight, Flight, Freeze.  When you are responding, rather than reacting you hold back on the “F” and choose to evaluate the situation.   Think of this way, reactive people respond to the energy in the room, responsive people can change the energy in a room.  Just think how much less stress you’ll have when you understand you can choose to control how you walk through life.

These are just a few way you can start a practice of self-care. I’ll be back with more way to reduce stress and take better care of yourself. In the meantime, what do you do for self-care and stress reduction?

2019 is here and the idea of Self-Care is Everywhere. The best part of self-care is that it’s an integral part of living a Simple, Easy, Joy Lifestyle. In this podcast, I introduce a starting place to introduce self-care into your daily life.

Over the next several weeks, I will bring you new ways to make simple self-care part of your everyday life with Simple, Easy Joy!

This Post on Unconscious Fog is from The Morning Walk Podcast.  Enjoy

Good morning and welcome to the morning walk I’m your host as a seller’s

Today, on the podcast I want to talk about the last few days I had.  If any of you follow me on Facebook or Instagram you know that my week was from hell, just hell.  It wasn’t good.  Now granted this is not to say the whole week sucked, but more than 60% sucked.

At one point, I literally had to unfriend, disconnect and otherwise remove two members of my family from my inner circle on social media.   This was probably one of the most painful, sadist and difficult decisions I’ve ever had to make.  Never once have I ever thought that I would need to protect myself emotionally and spiritually from people who I love and who are supposed to love me.  After several days of reflection about what happened, I understand that while I love these two people.   They both in different ways have a very negative and toxic side to them.

On top of that, I also found out that a very dear friend had a biking accident, again. She was hit by a vehicle backing out of their driveway.   Evidently, the driver never looked and just put it in reverse. (note to self-be careful backing out of a driveway.)   This isn’t the first time she’s been in a biking accident she and I have gone through several biking accidents together. One offered me a upclose view of her getting 120+ stitches in her face.   At least now I know why I didn’t go to medical school.

Both of these incents with my family and her accidents made be reflect how unconscious of our behavior we have become.   We drive, eat, talk and other things without really giving any idea to consequences or possible results.  I see people all the time, so oblivious to the world around them they walk into traffic, people and objects.  People are living in their own little  unconscious fog and have no idea the damage they are causing outside of their fog until they get hurt, hurt someone or worse.  The bigger concern I have is the number of people in their fog who don’t even care if they hurt someone.  This is most evident in our politics as of late.

Listen, you are welcome to any opinion you want.  I have mine, you have yours, could not agree more.  However, when your political opinion because more important than the people in your life, social circles, family.  Your fog maybe a little too deep and what’s really hit home for me this last week was just how deep and penetrating this unconscious hurtful behavior in this fog can be.

I’m sure now you’re wondering how is this at all positive?  I spent one night restlessly tossing and turning thinking about what happened with my family members. 

So here are the positives that I came up with come.   

* There is an always will be an unconditional love I have for my family.   Even if we can not have a conversation at this time because the fog is too deep.  I know, time will move on and thought, ideas and feeling will change both them and myself.

* While I may not like their thoughts, words, and actions.   I have to consider their behavior may be part of their unconscious fog.   I can respond to their unconscious fog behavior by limited my interaction with them.  Now they may respond with a conscious action that is far more permanent in ending the relationship, but that is their choice.    I will move on knowing I did what I needed to do to keep my own health and happiness.

* Making the choice to put myself first and support my physical, emotional and spiritual self, are much more important and keeping a toxic relationship of any kind.

* While I can not control the thoughts and feelings of others.  I can control my thoughts and feelings.  There is a great strength in knowing that.   Yes, I may feel sad, depressed at the behavior of others.

This Post on Finding the Simple in your day is from my Podcast The Morning Walk. 

Good morning and welcome to the morning walk my name is Aejaie Sellers this morning we are outside walking,  it’s a beautiful day You may hear some noise in the background.

So as we walk I wanted to talk to you today about the simplicity of the morning I’m experiencing right now.  I’ll give you a little bit of backdrop right now, it is beautifully sunny out, not a cloud in the sky. The sun is bright and warm on the skin, but the temperature is about 55 degrees. So it’s a little chill.   it’s not cold but it’s invigorating. there’s a slight breeze the trees are kind of rustling. Flowers are kind of moving and all the listserv leaves are kind of shifting around this really pretty view as I’m walking by. At this hour, just after 7 am, there’s not a whole lot of traffic.  

The simplicity of the Moment

It’s the Simplicity of this moment That is caught my eye,  I’m here experiencing this simple pleasure of walking in the morning this time in the morning there are no cars.  no people around at this hour that I can see.  At this moment we’re the only ones here enjoying the Simplicity of the world.

So I want to take a minute and talk about Simplicity.  One of the things I talk to my clients about is how to make life simple.   You see Life is simple.   It’s designed to be simple.   It’s designed to have an easy flow.  Simply life is about finding your joy.   The issue most of us run into is that we complicate think life has to be complicated.  Because life just couldn’t be that easy.  We’ve been told all of our lives, life is not easy.  With that advice, we  choose to complicate our lives on a consistent and ongoing basis

Time for Action

So my goal for today is to help you find a way to take a little bit of that complication out of your life.  Take some of that stress, mess and dread out of our day-to-day life.  Start to understand that life may actually be as simple as it appears.  Life can be joyful and easy.  Every day doesn’t have to be a struggle. 

If every day feels complicated, the question is why are you fighting the Joy.  Now, this is not to say that there aren’t days or situations where there are complications that you may have to work through. But that’s a much different situation, and may not be of your doing.   However, even at those times, there is a simple answer if you look.

So I encourage you and go out and find the Simplicity that’s in your day-to-day life.  Look for the simple and easy. Reach for the simple pleasures that are around you.  Spend some time living in a place of simple, easy, joy.

I hope you have a great day and find the simple easy Joy of your day.

If you would like to work with me to find you Simple – sign up for a free discovery session today!

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