Whatever constitutes your elixir of life. Do more of whatever moves you!
Learn what makes you feel better on every level and do it - consistently and regularly in manageable chunks for sustainability - make this your new year's resolution!
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So it’s a misty, murky afternoon and I’m out for my daily walk and my daily dose of nature, and for me it’s a non negotiable. Whether I’m out swimming in cold lakes and rivers, whether I’m out walking in my local woods, whether I even get out for 20-30 minutes every day, for me it’s a non negotiable.
It changes everything, it changes my physiology and therefore it changes me mentally, emotionally, energetically, spiritually, relationally, behaviorally. It changes me on every level for the better.
And so as we approach that dreaded time of year where we might start to oversubscribe to our New Year’s resolutions and expect so much from ourselves, I invite you to think about incremental upgrades. Doing this with self compassion, with focus, with a care and attention NOT to oversubscribe ourselves. And to make those gradual changes for the better, which are going to help us, which are sustainable and which help us. Rather than oversubscribing to big, huge expectations for ourselves in terms of New Year’s resolutions and then failing in the beginning even.
So for me my non negotiable is to get out in nature every day, even if I make it a 20-30 minute walk around the block. And it’s far preferable to sitting in indoors all day, especially winter where we’re in overheated rooms, rooms that are over electrified and overlit.
It can make us feel really lousy when we’re not moving our bodies. We are animals in the end. We are meant to move and for me that’s the elixir of life – movement.
So I invite you to think about your new year resolutions as the time approaches and approach these with self compassion and managing what you can do and increasing that incrementally over time, so that you stick to the plan.
And for me getting out in nature every day is my way of diffusing all of that pent up energy, stress that accumulates and aggregates when I’m indoors every day.
So even on days like this - dreary, drizzly days in the height of winter here in the northwest of England, I invite you to see if you can do the same for yourself, to get out even for 10-15 minutes and see the difference, FEEL the difference more importantly, feel those improvements on every level.
