Lifestyle – Page 4 – The Grounded Tree

How To Feel Comfortable On Your Own

The art to learning how to feel comfortable on your own, starts with you.

Recently I took myself out on a date, a date where I was able to treat myself to a lovely dinner and to the theatre. At first, I thought what would people think if they saw me by myself, ‘’was she on a date and the person didn’t turn up?’’ or ‘’poor her, eating food by herself’’. I was consumed with this anxiety that I needed company to assist me to do the things I want to do. It wasn’t like I’ve never eaten or gone somewhere by myself before, but there was this little voice in my head that was stopping me. After a few talks with myself, I picked myself up and slam the door behind me and off I went.
I had the most fantastic time ever, I was able to be more in tune with myself, I felt comfortable in knowing I was spoiling myself and the benefits were all for me because I truly deserved it.

We often sacrifice our own adventures we want to experience out of judgment, fear, and uncertainty. We also pre-empt what others think, but if I am being brutally honest, others are not really looking at you and if they are, they’re most likely admiring you.
Being comfortable by yourself is a habit we constantly need to apply in our self-care routine as we can get lost in life and start to rely on attachment through someone or something.

If you find yourself missing out on experiences because of other people. Why not give yourself a day in a month where you spend some time experiencing something that you want to do by yourself. You will start to see the benefits of giving yourself some time which boosts your confidence in feeling comfortable on your own.

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3 Ways To Beat The Winter Blues

The winter season has arrived and it’s time we fight back the winter blues with these 3 techniques.

December is that month where a lot of change is happening, the weather starts to get colder, it gets dark earlier and we are all preparing for the festive period, we know and love called Christmas. It’s a strange time because although we should be happy, it can also be a time where we isolate ourselves. The weather plays a big impact on the way we feel, the lack of sunlight really plays a big role in our mood and how we feel on a daily basis. As the days get darker, we tend to retreat to our safe space which is usually our homes and we find it hard to interact with others. It’s typical to have winter blues where we feel tired, gloomy and annoyed, however when it becomes a permanent mood and affects all aspects of your life, you may be experiencing seasonal affective disorder (SAD).

For me, when it comes to winter season I used to become distance because all I wanted to do is stay at home. Even if friends or family reached out to me, I would make excuses not to go. The weather really did affect my mood. However, this year around I don’t know what has happened but I enjoy spending time out with my loved ones and seeing the Christmas lights when its dark uplifts my mood in a way.

In order to overcome your winter blues and find ways to not isolate yourself, I have a few tips that have helped me and will help you.

Go outdoors
Spend as much time as you can outside in the daylight, even if it’s for 20 minutes. The serotonin is a chemical that is released in your brain to reduce anxiety and stress. Spending the right amount of time in the daylight will improve your mood

2. Reach out to your friends/family
No-one knows what is going on inside your head and if you don’t speak up about your anxieties, others won’t know. Letting your loved ones know what you are going through will relieve some stress on your part and make your loved ones aware of how you’re feeling.

3. Change the voice in your head
All the negative talk you tell yourself, as a result, affects how you feel. To change that frequency, you need to find ways of speaking positive affirmations into your life. Changing your language and your thought pattern will enable you to step out of your comfort zone and bring more joy when you let go and say yes.

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9 Ways To Invest In Yourself

When was the last time you invested in yourself?

You might be thinking what do you mean investing in myself? I mean the investment where you spend some quality time by yourself and did not feel guilty about it. We are often frivolous to spend our time on others but when it comes to ourselves we lack the same enthusiasm. Perhaps one reason behind this could be because there is not enough time in the day or week for you to fully relax because they are always something that needs to be done.

In our bodies we produce endorphins, endorphins are the chemicals that are released in our bodies that cause us to feel good, by doing the things that nurture us we unknowingly release this chemical. As humans, we want to have this feeling on a daily, weekly and monthly basis. So why do we not do this often? For me, I love sitting at home with the candles lit and I go down the rabbit hole of watching Youtube and Netflix or blogging, I love the process of writing a blog post and sharing my knowledge and experiences with you. That feeling of joy that we reap should always be our attitude towards investing in ourselves overall.

Spending quality time by yourself doesn’t have to be hours on end, it could be an hour to all day. Below I have some examples of how you can spend some quality time by yourself tapping into the mind body and soul

THE MIND

-Listen to a podcast to inspire your mind

-Write your thoughts and wishes in a journal

– Declutter your mind

THE BODY

-Go for a walk in nature (listening to the sounds around you, how do they make you feel)

-Exercise ( yoga, gym, kick boxing, pole fitness, horse riding etc)

-Cook yourself a nourishing 3 course meal

THE SOUL

-Explore your creative side

-Start that side hustle you’ve been putting off

-Learn a new skill by enrolling in a course

Do you know about the wellness wheel? This is a great way to focus on investing in yourself in all aspect of your life through the dimensions of wellness. To learn all about it click here

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The 7 Dimensions Of Wellness

*Free PDF worksheet*

Ever felt like you have your life together but, there are certain areas that could be improved. I’m not talking about a drastic change but one that you can simply build from, by having an awareness of where you need to improve on.
Recently I had that feeling, the feeling to get my life in order just a little bit more, so I decided to look at the areas of my life without being too harsh on myself. This is how I discovered the 7 dimensions of wellness.
This is an exercise where you can judge what level your wellness is currently at and how fulfilled you are in this area too. There are 7 dimensions that make up your life Physical, Emotional, Intellectual, Spiritual, Social, Financial and Environment. Each area makes up a portion of how multi-dimensional your life is. Think of it as a checklist and you are ticking to see if everything is balanced.
I will break down what each area consist of and the examples.
Physical:
Physical wellness is the ability to exercise
Eat a well-balanced meal
Drinking the daily recommended water intake
Managing stress levels
Having regular check up’s (dental, doctors, sexual health)

Emotional:
Feeling balanced on an emotional scale
Acknowledging your faults from a non-judgemental place
Taking time out to recharge
Managing healthy relationships between yourself and others
Getting plenty of rest

Intellectual:
Gaining knowledge about the world around you
Engaging with learning something new
Reading, watching films or listening to podcasts
Talking to new people
Reading the newspaper

Spiritual:
Understand your beliefs
Knowing your self worth
Connecting to your higher self
Understanding your mind and body
Meditation

Social:
Having a balanced social life
Spending time with family and friends
Doing activities you enjoy
Actively developing healthy relationships
Interacting with the world

Financial:
Investing your money into the right things
Having a saving accounts
Creating a budget
Learning about becoming more financially stable

Environmental:
Recycling
Having an awareness of the social issues with the environment
Decluttering your room
Taking other uses of transportation
Taking care of your surroundings

Overall score:

Your overall score is an indication how balanced out of 100 you are currently feeling out of all the 7 areas. You should be aiming to be scoring 10 in each earlier, but fear not if you haven’t scored a perfect ten because thats when you discover how to improve.

Once you have rated these 7 areas out of 10 to your satisfaction, it is now time to acknowledge where you could improve.
Underneath the wheel I want you to write down how you will improve to boost your score.

For example, my personal rating for the environmental area is a 6. I do recycle my rubbish but, I do not actively have any awareness about buying local produced products over imported products and what they do to keep the meat persevered. This is just one way I can improve to boost my levels in the environmental area.

I have created a free PDF worksheet which enables you to see the wellness wheel and the examples that come under each area. You can print it out or fill it in automatically.

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Go With The Flow

Change and fear of the unknown are one of the biggest anxieties people face including myself. I hate change and often feel panicked and anxious about a situation where I’m not in control or the thought of not being in control gets me feeling anxious. When I have entered the situation and it went surprisingly well, I always overthink why did I get myself so worked up about it.

I was listening to a video recently that made me fully understand why we are reluctant to change. We are scared of change because we consciously prejudge how a situation is going to go. Usually, it starts with the negative thoughts of us failing, we dive into those thoughts and before we know it we have gone into a spiral of questioning. We then find an excuse to why we can’t do it and search for evidence to strengthen our clarification that what we ‘believe’ is right.

But, what happens when you can’t run from a situation, what do you do?
Recently, I was in a predicament where I was offered an opportunity that I didn’t think I was capable for the role. Normally,
I would find any excuse to turn it down and then beat myself up about it later. But instead, I said yes!. I didn’t know what I was doing or even if I was appropriate for the role but, I went in there with the confidence and knowledge that whatever I do, I will gain from it.

Every situation you have been in has taught you something new about yourself, whether you enjoyed it or not. These are the fundamental lesson that you should be aware of when entering a new phase of change. When something is not to your taste, the lesson behind is ‘’ In order for me to know what I do like, I have to go through the things I don’t like’’. If you think about it, everything you’ve been doing, you once tried and didn’t know how it would turn out.
That is the beauty of going with the flow, you never know where it can take you and most of the time it always ends up in your favour.

So my message to you is to stop trying to control a situation because what you might think is not for you, is definitely meant for you.

Stay Grounded X