Little things that make a big difference

Hello! I’m back, after a 2 month hiatus. I have lots of interesting articles lined up to share over the next few weeks. Today I wanted to start with an intentional living topic. I have a page in Notion called “This works” where I collect a list of small changes and ideas that have had a big impact in my daily life. I thought I’d share them with you today!

✨ Spend 10 minutes a day doing a digital declutter for 30 days. Then keep up as required.

✨ Approach your job like it’s your hobby, and your hobby like it’s your job.

✨ Make one low-waste swap every month.

✨ Listen to/watch videos on 2x speed (when the purpose is to extract information.)

✨ Embrace the reverse sleep-in (especially for parents) and go to bed really early.

✨ 10 minutes HIIT on the treadmill (1 minute sprinting, 1 minute walking)

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From woman to a force

My husband does this hilarious impression of me. He pretends we’re in the middle of a really tough work-out, and in the middle of the struggle, he, as me, pauses and says “I am not a woman. I am not a human being, I am a FORCE of LIFE. The power of the universe runs through my veins. Come on let’s do the next set!”

It cracks me up.

I don’t actually do this (okay maybe I have once) but it is a subject that I’ve talked about with him a few times.

I noticed there are certain moments when I feel as though I break through the some of the very normal constraints of being a human being in this physical body, and somehow access a different dimension of myself.

I think of my self containing a physical body, an emotional body and an energetic body. Most of the time I dwell in my physical and emotional body. On the rare occasion, I activate my energetic body – and when this happens – this is what I describe as the feeling of transcending from a person to a force of life.

Time spent in this state are powerful periods of creation. Things just happen, everything flows, and concepts are brought to life.

There are three activities that I have identified that makes me feel this way;

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How to stay consistent with your goals

On the first of January, I set myself a whole bunch of goals to achieve, as I have done many Januaries that have passed. Usually, by February, life settles back to how it has always been, and I settle back into who I have always been. I then live my life in a state of transit, waiting for the next chance to begin again.

It is the 6th month of 2020, and somehow, I am still on track. This is newfound territory for me.

This year, I did things a little different.

At the start of every month, I set myself goals that I want to achieve by the end of it. At the end of every month, I look back, reflect and tally up how I’ve done. I’ve done this consistently for 5 months now. I stuck with it, and that is no small thing, not for me. I’ve notoriously been an “all or nothing” kind of person.

I have not achieved every goal I set out to do. Let’s say I set myself 100 small goals between January to now. I have probably achieved about 70 of them. But…that’s still 70 steps in the right direction. That is momentum. That is a huge success!

Retrospectively, if I had not set myself these targets, and was just left to my own devices, I would have probably achieved around 15-20 of them haphazardly. The difference is monumental.

Today, I’m looking at what worked. What I did differently that made me DO differently this time around? Here’s what is working for me:

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The lists I make to stay organized (& Happy)

Since becoming a mother, I have really stepped up my organization systems. I had no choice! I’ve said this multiple times on this blog but – being organized allows me to do two things;

  1. Consistently and steadily meet my family’s needs.
  2. Consistently and steadily meet my own needs.

I have a collection of lists that I refer to on daily/weekly basis that really helped me stay on top of things. These lists remind me of next steps to take without having to think too much about it, and they also help to capture important information.

I thought I’d share some of the lists I make and how I use them with little glimpses on a few items from each of my lists too! If you get a little kick out of organizing things like I do, you might enjoy this!

The apps I use are: Evernote & Notion mostly. Google Docs and Google Keep come in handy too!

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How to make time for everything

Hello hello! This year, I’ve decided to commit to sharing a new blog post with you on the full moon + new moon of every month. So, each month when you look out the window and see the glowing moon in the night sky, and perhaps you even feel a surge of that mystical lunar energy rise up within you – head over to my blog and you will find something from me, written with the intent to nourish your mind & soul.

I’m also really enjoying creating on instagram stories at the moment. I like to share little snippets of my day to day life, but also like to reflect on a topic every week centered around spirituality, intentional living, and conscious motherhood. If you’re on instagram, I’d love to connect with you there.

Now onto the blog post!

A few weeks ago, I was chatting with a girl on Instagram who, like me, is also on the road to residency in the US. She kindly complimented me on my ability to juggle many things at once. Medicine, motherhood, spirituality, writing and now, youtube too.

I was taken aback by what she said – because the areas of my life that she considers to be my success, I so often feel inadequate in. It astonished me, the differences in how I perceive myself in comparison to how someone else perceives me. And maybe the truth of who I am sits somewhere in the middle of both of these extremes. It got me thinking, that while I do tend to be quick to dismiss myself, the reality is that yes, I do juggle a lot. Yes, I do work hard to do the things that are important to me, and though I may not be able to do everything to the level of my satisfaction, and though I may feel like I’m constantly failing at a lot of things, the fact that I try is worth something. And yes, maybe I do have something of value to say on this topic.

Certain things in life, like motherhood and medicine, tend to be all encompassing. Meaning that it’s almost impossible to compartmentalize these things into little blocks of time. It takes over everything. It’s a 24/7 direction of life.

It’s hard to imagine a life beyond these things sometimes, and it’s certainly even harder to make the time and space for other in your day.

But heres the thing – we all have 24 hours in a day, and we decide how to spend it. Our time and our health is truly our greatest wealth, and it’s worthwhile to use what you have intentionally and on the things that matter most to you, otherwise you may get swept up in the flurry of a busy but unfulfilling life.

Since becoming a mother, the amount of “free time” has been cut exponentially, some days it feels like a mythical concept.

Before children, the majority of my time went to either school/work, and all that was remaining was my time. I could do with it, whatever I wished. I could  choose to be productive and build the life of my dreams or I could snuggle up in bed and watch Friends. After motherhood, all that remaining time outside of school/work goes automatically to my daughter. Like a direct deposit.

Without intentionally and purposefully carving out a little slice for yourself, you might never get it. Time is precious, and we have so little of it. The very least we can do is use what we do have.

Here are my thoughts on how to juggle it all.

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How to start enjoying the things you hate to do

Today I want to talk about how to start enjoying the things you hate to do. Here’s 2 reasons why I think this is worth your consideration.

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Done is better than perfect

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My husband always says I’m an “all or nothing” kind of girl.

I’ve always been that way. Even as a young girl, when my mother used to ask me to clean my room (and I was so messy back then), I could never just quickly put things in it’s place and tidy up. I had to go all out. But only when I felt like it.

First, I would wait. I would wait for the “perfect time”, when I truly felt like cleaning my room. I would start from 0 and I would turn my room upside down and inside out.  I would basically move in to my room all over again. And of course – I’d get tired, so it would would take me like a week to complete cleaning my tiny little room. I’m exhausted just writing about it.

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How I try to live beautifully in this moment

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This moment is the only moment of our life. The past is a memory, the future is our imagination. We must live deeply in this moment, live with intensity and make this moment as beautiful as it can be. When we live life with this moment-by-moment awareness, there is no doubt that everything will change for the better.

“Live in the moment” is something that we often hear, and yet sometimes, it runs the risk of being too conceptual – leaving us not really knowing how to make that happen.

But this is something that feels increasingly important to me, increasingly vital to my happiness.

You see, how you do anything is how you do everything. How you live in this moment is how you live your life. We have to make it the absolute best it can be.

We cannot know what will happen tomorrow, we cannot even know for sure what will happen in the next moment. We can make plans, but we can never know for sure. I have come to realize that the only way to live happily and in the best way, is to make the best of this moment – because that will put you in the best position for the next moment. Life is connected that way.

But I needed a real way to experience it. I needed real guidelines that I could follow to increase my awareness, mindfulness and perception in my day-to-day life.

So, I keep three things in mind, before beginning any new task during my day – and I would like to share them with you today.

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The power of getting somewhere

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So…I have been distracted with the new Facebook page I created for this blog. It’s a nice change from blogging, with shorter more frequent posts. More photographs and visuals. More personal. I wish I was better at this social media stuff, but I guess I can start here.

Today I am writing about something that is very much rooted in my own self-reflection; a pattern of complacency and tendency for mediocrity that I have noticed in myself. This blog post may be more of a rambling than anything else. Perhaps something more for my diary, than for my blog. But here it is anyway.

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