JANUARY CHECK-IN & ROUNDUP
Only one more day left in January you guys! I don’t understand how January always feels SO long, like every year it’s the longest month and then the next 11 fly by as if they never even happened. WTF?
I wanted to do a “check in”, and see how everyone fared through our first month of 2024, as well as give a little roundup of my January. Personally, I thrived this month, and I don’t want to make anyone who didn’t feel that way feel less. January can be very overwhelming for a lot of us, the holidays are draining and that carries over into January, the constant darkness (no sun and short days) greatly affects our mental well being and motivation. My intention with sharing my roundup isn’t to rub “look how amazing my life is” in anyone’s face. I have messes happening behind the scenes and I’ve had down days this month also, but overall I know I thrived this month. I’ve been really excited about quite a few things that have happened in my life and it makes me so hopeful for the remainder of this year. This is my year.
“One” thing that’s helped me thrive in January is implementing very simple things to my daily routine. Maybe one, or all, of these things is something you’re up for incorporating into your own routine and get yourself thriving in February.
Getting up earlier to have an hour to myself before the kiddo gets up. This gives me the time to do my morning skincare & stretches in a relaxed manner, plus some other things I’ve added to my mornings.
Journaling, one of the new things I implemented into my mornings. I used to “Dear Diary” all the time as a teen and well into my early 20’s. I’m not sure why I stopped it, but I think it had a lot to do with losing myself to other people and allowing them to be the focus, without even realizing I had done this. As I mentioned, I journal in the mornings and evenings, and it has been incredibly impactful to my mental well being and self awareness. I have manifestation journals, a gratitude journal & a free flow journal. If you’re thinking of journaling, I’m going to tell you that you need to set time aside specifically to do it. Same time every day, otherwise it’s going to be very easy to neglect it. I think that goes for anything in a daily routine? Set aside the time or you’re not going to be doing it.
Waiting to have my coffee until an hour after getting up. Again, getting up much earlier to make time for myself now allows me to sit and enjoy my coffee while chatting with my daughter at breakfast. This is giving us much needed quality time together. Most of my time spent with her is just being her mom, making sure she’s fed, washed, dressed, getting to school, etc. These are what parents do, but it’s not exactly nurturing our relationship. Before, I would make my coffee right away and then she’d get up, and I’d make her breakfast and the coffee would sit getting cold and truly I was just drinking it mindlessly. Now I’m actually savouring the taste, the warmth of my first cup of coffee, also while savouring her company and conversation. It’s been a game changer for the both of us and how we are getting out the door every morning.
Staying off my phone. I recognized how much of a true distraction my phone is, and how it made simple tasks take ten times longer. Which in turn makes less time for moments to myself, or true moments that are filling my cup. Example, making my kids lunch, it’s not a cup filler and I’d go on my phone in between making a sandwich to the next step of the lunch packing etc. Therefore taking me, say 15 minutes vs. it could literally take me 5 minutes.. That’s now 10 whole minutes of time to sit with my daughter, or have a little decompression of my own before the bedtime routine begins for her. I also noticed I would turn to my phone when work was overwhelming in the day, which holy hell January has been a lot, and I noticed the mindless scrolling was actually draining more energy from me. It’s been an adjustment, because I use my phone to talk to my friends daily, so I do miss talking to them as often but I think by limiting my time on my phone I’m actually being more grateful for the time I am spending talking to my friends and not taking it for granted.
Meditating twice daily, but if I can’t because of whatever reason that’s also ok. Routines are wonderful, but we also can free flow our routines when needed. Remove what’s not working, add things to it. I try to mediate before and right after work. I do guided meditations and just music mediations where I visualize the things I am manifesting. Believe it or not, I’ve even mediated in the forest on some warmer mornings! Who is she? Haha!
The way’s I’ve adjusted my daily “routine” have aided me in being more mindful of numerous aspects of my life. Being more mindful has given me such amazing eye opening self realizations this past month. Like, it’s truly exhilarating to see such progress in myself in just 31 days. I think this just proves, no matter what age you are, you can still change who you are, you can still learn new things about yourself, you can adapt to new ways of thinking and navigating life. I’m going to be 40 this year and I’m starting to think I’ve really never known who the fuck I was until now. Again, 2024 is my year.
I’m no longer matching anyone’s toxic energy. I’m very easily triggered by toxic energy, specific people obviously trigger this in my life. By matching that energy I will elevate my voice (nice way of saying, I’ll be yelling), not think before I speak and generally after it’s said and done, feel like garbage for the uncontrollable reaction someone got out of me. Not anymore, I’ve had a few toxic encounters and have remained level headed with a firm speaking voice and a thoughtful response back. I’ve taken MY power back and I don’t need to get the last word in, if I carefully choose my words I am content, even if the other person wishes to continue on with toxicity.
I also realized I had given my power away on creating my own happiness. I unknowingly put it onto to someone else to make me happy. Probably because my life is quite messy and having a bright light amongst the mess is an intoxicating feeling. I’ve always regulated and made my own self happy. I have never depended on someone else to create this for me, so this was quite a foreign experience. The issue in expecting your happiness to be provided by someone else isn’t a sustainable way to be living. Other people have down days, they aren’t available to you when you need them (which they don’t need to be!), they are living their own lives. When you are relying on them to feel happy, you’re bound to get upset or hurt feelings when they can’t. Like I said, I’ve never been that person, I’ve had it done to me, it’s exhausting to be that for someone. It was a complete “a-ha moment” while reading a manifestation book and I couldn’t believe I was doing it! Now that I’ve recognized it and faced it head on I’m feeling so much better. I’m back to making myself happy and in turn that’s stopped a whole other slew of unhealthy emotions. I guess my word of advice is, never let anyone take your power no matter what that power is.
I got up to a whole bunch of soul enriching social activities this month, with my kiddo and on my own. Right now I know I need time with her and the time to myself. Both her and I need to be out of the house more and surrounding ourselves with loving and supportive ppl. She needs to be having fun and feeling joy, and I need to be around ppl who are inspiring me, motivating me, supporting me and connecting with my soul.
Surrendering to my fears. There can be a lot to fear in life, if we allow it. I’d been on a relatively positive mindset, but fear crept in regarding a particular issue in my life. Instead of trying to avoid the fear, I acknowledged it’s existence, wrote about it in my free flow journal and surrendered to it. It worked! I stopped feeling that anxious pit in my stomach. I was able to address this fear and trust the process because I know it will be the outcome I am manifesting for myself.
Practicing patience in different areas of my life. This was one of my intentions this year, and I feel like the Universe definitely put me to the test with my ribs. Thanks to excessive coughing my ribs were a serious mess, I’ve been unable to do any house cleaning, bathe my child, help her put on her snowsuit, carry my groceries, make a bed! I’m an incredibly hyper independent person and this is killing me because I’m relying on my parents to literally help me with the most mundane of tasks. I also haven’t done my daily yoga in over 2 months and that is also killing me! I had another “a-ha moment” and was like, wait, this is a lesson for what I asked for. So, I surrendered to the circumstances, wrote out my feelings on it and accepted it’s going to take time. I’ve replaced morning yoga with forest walks while I listen to my affirmations, and it’s been really nice and not something I would have done if I hadn’t hurt my ribs. So, thank you Universe for giving me a different perspective and the opportunity to enjoy the outdoors. This small lesson in patience is also giving me the skills for bigger areas of my life that require a great amount of patience and trust in the process, so I’m thankful for it. I’m also super thankful to my chiropractor whose got me on the mend, I might even be able to do yoga tomorrow! If anyone needs an amazing, attentive chiropractor let me know, he’s very caring, gentle and a damn peach!
I’ve not listened to any true crime podcast in, also, almost 2 months. I’m sticking to either “Law of Attraction Changed my Life” podcast or “Lavendaire” podcast for bedtime. Just like what we eat, what we choose to consume in our minds makes a difference. Do I miss my murder stories, sometimes…. I also sometimes feel like maybe I’m depriving myself of something I do enjoy. Maybe, that’s something I will need to tackle in February, finding a balance of nourishing my mind with good vibrational podcasts, but also not depriving myself of the podcasts I enjoy.
Getting validation and support from my new therapist. In just 4 sessions she’s validated so much of the trauma I’ve experienced, things I’ve questioned like “hrm, did I embellish how that really went down?” or “am I the problem, I caused that”. She also taught me about Post Traumatic Growth, which I had never heard of.
My volunteering shift had to be cancelled due to the one big storm we got and now they’ve apparently filled the position I was going to do. They offered the opportunity for other positions but now I haven’t heard from them on what other opportunities they need to fill. I think it’s back to the drawing board, but I’m specifically looking at volunteering at an animal shelter or rescue.
I’d love to know how your January has been, did you feel like it was a good start to the year? Did you make a routine or change up a routine? Did everything go to shit and you’re like WTF 2024? TELL ME!
