Tag: quality of life

Creative Life: Where To Start

Starting to Create Again

Have you ever gone through seasons where you felt uninspired and unmotivated to create? I’ve been going through that lately! It’s been driving me crazy!! I love to create and craft! I truly believe getting creative is so important for our self-care! But sometimes finding the energy to do it can be difficult. Yet there are so many benefits to creating. Being creative can be so empowering! It is also a great source of hope, joy, and relaxation!

Where do you start when you are wanting to get back to being creative or to begin a creative chapter in your life?

Just start! Start where you are and work with what you have! Sometimes when we are wanting to start a new habit or new goal we set these crazy high expectations for ourselves. If it’s your goal to be more creative maybe start with having one creative activity a week or a couple of evenings a week to work on creative projects. It can look however best fits your life in this season. My goal is just to be creative no matter what that looks like! Whether it’s a completed project or a part of a project just get creative!

What will you create today or this week? Post pictures in the comments! My hope for myself is to start being more creative more often and to simply start something positive and refreshing in my life! What is your creative goal in this season?

I’ve written about three projects in this post that I’ve done this week! I hope they will get your creative ideas flowing!

Wallpaper Adventures

Today I was walking around my craft room wanting to start a creative project. I recently purchased this wood circle from Hobby Lobby. I didn’t have any particular plans when I bought it, but today when I was looking at it decided I wanted to decorate it with embossed wallpaper. I love working with embossed wallpaper! It is so pretty and fun to paint! This may be a strange decision, but the wood sign has a frame on the front so I decided I would decorate the back so that it is one even piece. I traced the wood circle on the wallpaper and cut it out.

I used hot glue to attach the wallpaper to the back of this wood frame. Hot glue can sometimes dry kind of fast so I did it one section at a time.

I wanted to do this layered paint look on the wallpaper with the brown gel stain and green paint. I did a dry brushing technique for the green and watered down gel stain.

I just painted as I wanted. I started with the gel stain and then the green. I just went back and forth with the brush. I did wipe it with the cloth a couple of times to give it a weathered look. This is how it turned out!

What is your creative style?

Dollar Tree Plant Sign

I’ve been thinking about several different craft ideas today, but landed on decoupaging this plant sign from the dollar tree. I love decoupaging with different materials and in various surfaces. It’s so easy to do and so relaxing! I used a bright green and brown paper for this project. I traced the sign on the paper and cut it out.

Then I brushed mod podge on the metal sign and laid the paper on top. You can then seal it by brushing mod podge on top of the paper. It’s such an adorable little hanger!

I love this sign because it’s such a good reminder to keep growing!

Felt Lavender

I’ve been thinking about making more felt lavender for a while and today was finally the day. I’ve already done some of the steps to make the felt Lavender previously so it will be a quick craft to make. Felt lavender is very simple to make. I have photos of the stages below.

First, you have a strip of purple felt whatever size you would like then fold it and glue it in half.

Then cut small slits into the side that’s not glued.

Then use hot glue to wrap it around a floral stem.

Once the stem is all wrapped with your felt you have a lavender stem! Super easy! So I already had a few made and then I made enough to fill this Jean pocket. You could put these in a vase or any kind of container!

This Lavender craft I already had parts of the felt prepared from months ago so it only took me 15 minutes to get the whole thing created. Is there a project you’ve gotten all the supplies for and it is all prepared but haven’t had the time to complete it? Maybe today is the day!!

Journal Prompt: Dream Vacation

It can be uplifting and a source of hope to have a dream vacation in mind. Whether is dreaming of the beach, the mountains, new places, or new experiences keeping these things in mind can add excitement to our lives. Todays prompt is all about reflecting on what a dream vacation looks like for you!

Journal Prompt

What is your dream vacation? What is it about this type of vacation that you enjoy?

Do you plan to go on this vacation? How can you work towards it?

If you went on this dream vacation what activities would you look forward to most?

Who would be with you on this vacation?

How to Reframe Your Thoughts with Gratitude

What We Think Matters

The quality and content of our thoughts impacts us on many levels. The way we think has an impact on our mental, emotional, and physical health. It can be easy to develop habits of negative thinking and self-talk. Like any habit we can change how we think and develop new thought patterns. Take a minute to reflect on these questions:

  • Do your thought patterns tend to be more positive or negative?
  • When thinking negatively how does it impact your day? How does it impact your actions and reactions?
  • Think of three things you are grateful for. How does it make you feel to practice gratitude? How does it change your perspective in this moment?

Positive thoughts and thoughts of gratitude can have many benefits to us. According the the Mayo Clinic these are just some of the benefits positive thoughts can have (Mayo Clinic Staff, 2022):

  1. Longer life span
  2. Lower rates of depression
  3. Decreased stress, distress, and pain
  4. Better overall well-being and quality of life
  5. Better coping skills and increased resilience

Paying Attention To Your Thoughts

It takes practice to pay attention to and change our thought patterns. Some of the ways we think are so ingrained in us that they come to mind subconsciously. These are called automatic thoughts and for a lot of us they tend to be negative (Hoshaw, 2020). The first step to changing these thoughts is to notice them. There are a couple of ways to do this including:

  • Write down all your thoughts in a journal throughout the day.
  • Simply pause and paying attention to your thoughts throughout the day.

Once you notice your thoughts you can then make efforts to change how you think.

Reframing Thoughts With Gratitude

You can change your thoughts by intentionally correcting negative thought patterns with positive thoughts. One way to do this is to reframe our thoughts with gratitude. Replacing our negative thoughts with grateful thoughts allows us to be present in the good things around us.

In the image below is an example of how you can do this.

This takes practice! You can practice by journaling your negative thought patterns and then writing a replacement thought of gratitude. Even simply confronting negative thoughts in our mind with grateful thoughts can make a huge impact to our thought life.

The more attention we put into having thoughts of gratitude, the easier it becomes to think grateful or positive thoughts naturally. To practice this now you can write out in your journal five negative thoughts you’ve had today and five reframed thoughts of gratitude.

References

Hoshaw, C. (2020). “Are You Kind to Yourself? Tracking Your Thoughts Might Surprise You” https://www.healthline.com/health/mental-health/are-you-kind-to-yourself-tracking-your-thoughts-might-surprise-you

Mayo Clinic Staff (2022). “Stress Management” https://www.mayoclinic.org/healthy-lifestyle/stress-management/in-depth/positive-thinking/art-20043950

Making Physical Health Goals

We are constantly being told by society how we should look, what we should weigh, and how to have the “ideal” body. Today we will discuss making physical health goals…but not goals that someone else has for you. Today we will reflect on your goals and what’s important to you!

Defining Physical Health

When thinking about self-care for your physical health, this can include anything regarding taking care of your body and it’s biological system. All of us have a unique system and our goals can be unique to what our body needs. Here are some questions to consider when thinking about making goals:

What areas of my health am I wanting to change to take care of my body?

What does my body need to function at it’s best?

For me personally when making physical health goals, I often get overly focused on my weight or my appearance. But I’ve been learning to instead focus on my internal health. Asking myself questions like what would help me manage my multiple sclerosis better? What will help me have more energy? What is a good way to take care of my body’s internal functioning? What makes my body feel good and healthy?

What about your internal health is a priority for you in this season of life?

What are your physical health goals?

Setting Goals

When setting goals it’s important to be specific and have a plan to put your goal into action. Here are some questions to consider:

What actions will I need to take to accomplish my goal?

How will I know if I’m making progress?

What routines can I put in place to support my goals?

Any form of change takes time! Be patient with yourself and remember taking care of our physical health is a life long journey.

Daily Resilience: Grounding

Resilience is something that we can practice daily. There are many tools to build resilience. I wanted to share a time recently when I used grounding.

Practicing Grounding

I was starting to feel overwhelmed and my thoughts were spiraling. I could feel the stress increasing in my body. For me this feels like a pit in my stomach and my body tightening. Before I learned about resilience I would feel this way and let myself continue to spiral. This time I knew I needed to decrease my stress. I stepped away and went outside. I sat on a bench and closed my eyes and grounded myself. Here are some of the ways I did this:

  • I put my attention on the support of the bench beneath me and against my back.
  • Then I put my attention on the feeling of the breeze against my skin.
  • After that I allowed myself to put my attention to the sound of the birds around me.

Grounding is all about allowing your attention to totally shift from your stress to one of your five senses. Taking this moment to take care of myself was huge! I felt so much better and my stress decreased. I could now think clearly and wasn’t spiraling anymore. Sometimes stepping away is essential!

How could you use grounding when you get stressed?

The more you practice grounding, the easier it will be to use it to decrease stress.

Comment below with your favorite way of grounding!

How to Budget Your Energy

One of the biggest lessons about life with chronic illness I’ve learned is how to budget my energy. For myself and a lot of people living with chronic illness our bodies experiences fatigue and energy differently. I can’t speak for other people but I will share what this has looked like for me.

I’ve learned to think of energy budgeting as a series of deposits and withdrawals. Things that take energy are withdrawals and the things that fill you with energy are deposits. When living with a chronic illness there are types of activities that take a lot of energy for us that the average person does not consider taking any energy. This could be something as simple as a shower, getting ready for the day, driving to work, or cooking a meal. Deposits of energy are things that give us energy this could be taking a nap, taking rest breaks, or pacing ourselves when doing a difficult activity.

For me personally I am evaluating my energy levels throughout the day. There are days where I start the day at a yellow and have to be careful with how much I push myself that day. There have also been days when my day started out and I was completely exhausted and unable to go to work or do my normal life activities. Then there have been days when I start out with a lot of energy on one of the greens. But have had to be careful to not take too much advantage of the unexpected energy and deplete what I have.

The most important part of evaluating your energy is to simply notice. Notice what your body is telling you it needs. If you notice you are very tired is it possible to make a deposit by taking a small break or a nap? It’s even good to journal about patterns you’ve noticed in the week or month about things that have been draining or adding to your energy. Below are some helpful tips of what helps me budget my energy:

  • Develop routines that support your energy. This could be going to bed and waking up at certain times. Eating foods that give you energy or doing light exercise to stimulate your energy.
  • Be willing to say ‘no’. There have been times when there were fun activities going on with my family or friends and I’ve had to learn to be able to say ‘no’ when I didn’t have enough energy to go. There are activities that can be more taxing then others and it’s important to know your limits and when to say ‘no’ and when to say ‘yes’.
  • Letting others help you. This is one of the hardest for me. There are times I don’t have the energy to keep up and need help! It’s okay to ask for and receive help from others. Sometimes it makes a world of difference!

Daily Resilience

Today I want to talk about our brain’s neuroplasticity. This is so cool! Our brain has the ability to generate new neuropathways and neurons! It can literally adapt to our habits and decisions. This might sound like a boring topic, but it is life changing!! Since our brain is malleable and able to create new pathways it allows us to change our lifestyle, the way we think, and how we live. Our brain creates neuropathways to allow our body to work efficiently. This is why it can be so hard to break old habits because our brain and body have adjusted to the old habits and have neuropathways to support those. But there is hope that our brain can build new pathways to support new habits. Can you think of a time when you first started a new habit and it was really hard? But when you stuck to it and kept practicing it got easier and easier, this is because of neuroplascity. How can we use our brain’s neuroplasticity to support our new habits? The key is the tool of attention! Using your focus, energy, and attention to work towards the new habit. This is very practical to do. How can be use our attention as a tool:

  • Focusing your attention daily on the new habit through journaling and tracking
  • Practice the new skill or habit regularly
  • Make a vision board to focus on your new goal
  • Training your brain for the new habit by doing research or making a plan for implementing the new habit
  • Talk about your new habit regularly with an accountability buddy or group
Resilience sign with wooden cubes on background