3 Steps to help you start living more mindfully
My journey to living more mindfully began years ago with my older sister inspiring and peaking my curiosity. She led by example and educated not only me, but my family unit on many of the areas in life where we wasted food, used too many plastics and contributed to wasteful industries like fast fashion.
Learning to live mindfully took time for me to process and integrate. Slowly becoming new habits that turned into a new lifestyle. That journey has been so worth it. I am now aware and informed of the industries I support, and that has helped me understand that I vote with my dollar too.
I believe it’s valuable to begin living more mindfully so together we can help create a brighter, and greener future for the generations to come.
What is living mindfully?
We share this Earth with the insects, animals, plant life and billions of other people living here with us. Living mindfully means being aware of how we impact our bodies, minds and the world around us.
Empower yourself by learning what is in the food you eat and what ingredients are in your hair care, skin care and beauty products. Learn about how many chemicals are in the cleaning products you use at home. Get to know what impacts the industries you support have on the environment. And understand that the kind of music and entertainment you consume also has an effect on your mental health.
Basically, everything you consume affects you, on every level.
Why is it important?
When you begin to learn and educate yourself and how these industries directly affect you, your loved ones and the planet, you can’t unsee it. In fact, you begin to notice how much it is all around you…
Being more aware of what you purchase, what you use on your body, what you consume, and support is a sure way to begin living more mindfully. Before taking this on, it’s important to know where you’re at.
3 steps to start living more mindfully now
Log your lifestyle
Take a week to log what you’re buying, eating, drinking, wearing, using to clean your home, body and hair. Note how many disposable coffee cups, plastic bags at stores and plastic water bottles you buy/use.
After one week of logging, take a moment to review it and highlight the top 3 things on your list. These 3 things are the things that stand out to you most. This exercise will give you a mini basic assessment of what is going on in your lifestyle.Begin to create New Habits
Once you’ve logged your lifestyle and have reviewed it, choose 1 thing from your top 3 and reduce your use of that for the next month. This could mean replacing all your chemical cleaning products with natural cleaning products. Replacing your beauty products with natural beauty products. Or doing your best to purchase your groceries with less plastic (meaning buy things that come in paper boxes or vegetables without plastic wrap/bags, etc.
As you get more and more comfortable with reducing your first item, begin to add another item from your list to reduce your use/waste of.
If you choose to change your personal care items, be sure to dispose of them properly and reinvest in clean, healthy products. (You can purchase them from The Detox Market, Lush, Saponetti and more.)
If you logged your lifestyle and noticed you use a lot of plastic grocery bags or get a coffee cup every time you grab a coffee, try buying a reusable grocery bag and making your coffee at home or bringing a coffee mug to the coffee shop instead.
Together is more fun!
Making any change can feel challenging or overwhelming. I think it’s more fun to do it together with friends or loved ones. Ask someone to do this challenge with you for 1 month! Living more mindfully is so rewarding and is an amazing way to connect, bond and grow with your loved ones.
Resources
If you want to learn more about living mindfully, I’ve recommended a few documentaries to watch to help you learn more.
The True Cost (fast fashion)
Forks over Knives (plant based living)
Thrive (natural energy)
With love,
Luciana
