Switching gears from travel, I thought it time to address the fundamental values of mindful living to cultivate joy and live a more enriching life. This blog isn’t just about gallivanting around the world. I’d like to bring us back to a place of reflection, revisiting slow living topics and the intent for healing and growth.
Taking a break from my slow travels, I’m spending the next few months at home. Stability is key for wellbeing. And I need time to catch up with myself. Get back into a routine of healthy eating and exercise. Soothe the spinning wheel of anxiety.
Related: Crying at the mountains in Wanaka, New Zealand
Also… I miss writing about mental health.
So I thought it time to readdress some fundamental values of slow, mindful living to cultivate joy in my life and practice what I preach.
This list has long been in-the-making. My healing journey has been slow and arduous. It takes awhile to integrate these themes into daily life, and even longer to see results. So be patient and go gently.
I hope you find solace in these fundamental values of mindful living to cultivate joy and live a more enriching life.
1. Ugly self-care
Because we live in a capitalist society, “self-care” has become another product. These days, I watch with horror as people roll their eyes at the concept, believing it’s some kind of frivolous self-indulgence.
So let me clear something up. Self-care is an ugly thing. It’s difficult work and only counts as a consistent long-term practice. Sometimes, it doesn’t even feel good.
I love this post by Carma Barre, who shares this sentiment and lists her own ugly examples of what self-care looks like.
True self-care involves unmarketable things, like discipline, planning ahead, and parenting yourself.
Self-care is ignoring Netflix and going on a run. It’s getting my ass in the kitchen to cook a nourishing meal. It’s surrendering to an intense yoga practice to work through all the devastating emotions living in my body.
Maintaining good emotional hygiene is hard as hell and completely foreign to some people. It’s hard to practice compassion when you feel like shit and everything is shit. It’s hard listing gratitudes when it feels like the bills will never end.
But true self-care cultivates moments of stillness. It recharges my batteries so I can stay ahead of burnout. It only feels good later. But this discipline, being so focused and aligned with yourself, creates endless energy. Self-trust cultivates and this is where joy lives.
2. Self-awareness
Where it begins for many, a fundamental value of mindful living is self-awareness.
Becoming self-aware is a monumental task. For a long time, I was under the illusion I had to fight the storms in my head to get ahead of them. But when I realized I was caught in a storm (hence self-awareness), I finally saw a way to step out of it. Study it objectively. And eventually ask it to move the fuck along.
It’s hard to do. It takes meticulous attention and daily practice. And it comes in many forms, from meditation to journaling.
But being able to “de-fuse” from my invasive thoughts felt like coming out of a cage. They no longer thrashed me around. And I was able to approach them with love.
This was revolutionary when I started addressing a few self-limiting beliefs.
As it unfolded for me, I started to realize I’ve prescribed to some toxic beliefs about myself and about the world.
Things that had quietly bound themselves to me, like that the universe isn’t a kind place and money is always scarce. I noticed micro-behaviors that confirmed these stories… ridiculous things like rationing toothpaste and being constantly threatened by people.
Self-awareness feels like setting myself free from my own bullshit. It opened me up to embracing new opportunities and nurturing an innate sense of peace.
Only then was mindful living possible, to cultivate more serenity and joy in my life.
3. Connecting with your body
Believe it or not, our bodies hold on to our trauma. This is articulated beyond my credentials in The Body Keeps the Score, one of the most powerful books I’ve ever encountered.
The simple fact is this. When you don’t move your body, it becomes a breeding ground for stress. Life is a hustle and tension culminates in our nervous system and in our muscles. We’re glued to our desks, meanwhile our bodies scream at us to move. Mine manifests in nail picking, lip chewing, and hair fiddling.
And exercise is a release. I put this to the test during the darkest days of my anxiety. I started marathon training and I gotta say… the results exceeded my expectations. My panic attacks stopped. The mental fog lifted. And I was finally able to sleep at night.
These days, I set hourly reminders to check in with my body. Any movement will do. Walking. Dancing. Stretching. Even shaking, which physiologically releases anxiety.
This is a non-negotiable practice. Although I’m no longer marathon training, I implement yoga and running into my daily routine, even if it’s just 10 minutes.
It keeps the stress at bay and better enables me to access peace.
4. Growth guided by love and compassion
My psychologist once told me, “No one has ever been shamed into greatness.”
It was her response to my endless, often brutal, chase for success. She posed a radical idea… that growth accelerates when we introduce compassion.
That our pursuit of it should be guided by love and patience, rather than the whip of criticism.
For so long, I believed I needed those lashings. I needed the mindset of “never good enough”. Being my own torturer pushed me to be better, right?
Except it made me fucking miserable. The pressure was paralyzing, so things often went unfinished. Then I’d call myself lazy for it. Because that asshole in my head is good for me, right?
What a lie. I find myself a hundred times more productive when I release that monumental pressure and instead do things from a place of joy and childlike curiosity.
It’s the mental evolution of accepting all your faults, releasing perfectionism, and giving yourself a damn break.
In fact, this has made my “ugly” self-care routine easier to manage. Instead of saying “I’m going to do 90 minutes of yoga”, I simply nudge myself to get on the mat. No expectation. No attachment to the result.
Guided by love and compassion, I find myself going to the mat day after day with ease. Sometimes I do 5 minutes. Sometimes I do 90 minutes. Both are acceptable. And instead of avoiding my mat like the plague, my body is getting stronger.
This concept can be applied across all areas of life. A few examples are listed below of how I changed the narrative and started getting shit done:
- Change “Write an epic article that will change someone’s life” to “Jot a few thoughts down“
- Change “Create the best video Instagram has ever seen” to “Tinker around with the camera for a bit“
- Change “Do project XYZ” to “Start project XYZ“
This takes the spotlight off the result so you can focus on the joy of doing. And before you know it, things start to build.
Growth through compassion is key as one of the fundamental values of mindful living, to catch when you’re being too hard on yourself, cultivate joy and live a more enriching life.
5. Sampling joy from all things
When we’re open to it, life is full of joyful moments. And I don’t know about you but I had zero mechanisms to sample any of it.
One of the perks of self-awareness is realizing how much toxic bullshit we hold onto. Mind you, this is a painful process. But it enabled me to start dismantling behaviors that didn’t serve me.
Most notable was releasing the need to be in competition with everyone all the time.
Joy is available to us everywhere. But we literally reject it by playing games like comparison and status ranking. The idea of me being happy for somebody else’s win was inconceivable. The pressure of the rat race is real, and I operated under the dogma of “conquer or be conquered”.
This meant feeling superior when I was winning. And feeling envy when someone else was.
Sounds pretty toxic. This mindset is rooted in fear that the universe is scarce.
Understanding that the universe is abundant and that other people’s wins can add to our joy (not take away from it) releases the toxicity from our bones. Being genuinely happy when good things happened to the people around me opened an onslaught of opportunities to experience joy. How can that be a bad thing?
I felt better about the world when I started seeing people as collaborators rather than competitors. It eased my anxiety.
It’s a powerful practice as one of the values of mindful living to cultivate joy in your life.
6. Alone time and understanding who you are
Mindful living doesn’t work if you never spend time alone. It’s one of the best parts of mindful living!
Life is constantly testing us. It throws curveballs. We go through some shit.
Every once in a while, we need to draw back into ourselves. Connect with our core and figure out our needs. I delve into this topic deeply on this guest piece for 5 mantras to check in with your authentic self.
We need to understand who we are when no one’s around. It’s crucial for wellbeing.
Neglect your needs long enough and your body will start signaling distress in a way you can’t ignore. I’ve been there. It sucked.
For mindful living and general balance, it’s important to have hobbies and quiet time. Moments of stillness is where some of our best thinking happens. It’s where creativity thrives.
Everyone should have alone time slotted into the calendar. Life is busy but that’s how it always will be. Commitment to ourselves should prioritized so we can continue showing up at maximum potential.
7. Community and social connection
When I uprooted all my relationships by moving across the world, I was suddenly without a social group.
The amount of anxiety this caused was a big lesson. Not only did I underestimate the value of community, but I completely took it for granted back home.
Community is fucking important. It links back to our primal instincts, the need to feel safe and liked and accepted.
And in today’s world, people are more disconnected than ever. On our blind pursuits, we forget to foster relationships. We all should be actively seeking to belong somewhere, to be part of a group of like-minded people with a common purpose.
Volunteering is a great example of this. It could even be your team at work, granted you don’t hate your job. For me, I want to join a singing group this year. Singing is a great way to relieve stress and I always prioritized it as a kid. Funny how kids have life figured out.
Find something that makes you happy. Then find a community to do that thing with. It fires all sorts of good neurological signals that you are safe and connected.
Have I missed any values of mindful living? How do you cultivate joy in your everyday?
