If you’ve been around a while you know there have been a lot of changes in my life this year. We’ve moved states, I returned to work in a field I’ve never been in before which requires that I take college classes on top of a typical 40 hour week, I am a proud wife and a mother to two (and hopefully a few more), we are renovating a home, and I feel called to create on YouTube.
To be honest this is more busy than I’d like to be but I know there is a way to do it all. Not rushed, not stressed, not constantly overwhelmed. Since having children and the reminders that they bring, I’ve adopted this phrase of savoring life.
Savoring my seemingly mundane everyday moments that may pass others by.
To savor means to appreciate fully; enjoy or to relish.
In order to savor life we need to find ways to appreciate it fully. To relish in the moment.
And for me that starts with nourishing my body, and nourishing it well. If I’m not eating enough, especially not nutrient dense meals, I lack energy, motivation, and my fuse shrinks to almost nothing. If I want to be able to show up to all my responsibilities, I need to make sure I’m eating every couple hours and replenishing my mineral stores.
Read this next if this sounds like something you need: Pro-Metabolic Eating: What makes a healthy Body?
Next is adopting daily, weekly, and monthly rhythmns and systems that make showing up everyday easier. Since I know I can get overwhelmed when I feel like I don’t know what’s coming taking the time once a week to plan is so helpful. The weeks where I don’t sit down on Sundays with my husband and plan meals, or talk about different things that are happening during that week often leads to miscommunication, frustration, and overall negative feelings. So taking the ten minutes to briefly touch base on Sunday afternoons has been a wonderful way to start our week together, on the same page with a plan for what’s for dinner each day.
A few other things that help me to savor my days are:
- Consistent sleep schedule: With a consistent schedule I know when there are times that I need to be in work mode and other times where I am free to think about just connecting with my kids.
- Clear phone boundaries: Having clear phone boundaries like no phone before breakfast or dinner means time to focus on myself and the people around me.
- Getting outside as a family everyday: I love using this time to reconnect and get everyone up and moving nothing compares to the energy outside, its so good for all of us.
Now something that helps me create ease in my days and more time to savor the process, un-rushed is called “mise en place” a practice I was doing already but didn’t know the name of until recently.
If you are unfamiliar with “mise en place” it’s a culinary term from France which means to put in place or gather. It refers to the setup required before cooking. In my life this sometimes refers to cooking but I have been doing this on and off since I have had kids. Pulling out their pajamas after supper to get ready for bedtime, unpacking my lunch bag as soon as I get home so I won’t have to do it the next morning. Laying out my work clothes the night before so I don’t have to make that decision in the morning. I liked to call it my 2minute tasks but that’s a little different. Mise en place is setting up yourself for ease. It seems little but It’s been impactful for my day to day.
How you choose to savor your days is up to you. For me most of the time that’s sewing, sipping tea, sitting in the sunshine, hanging with my husband and kids, and planning for what’s to come. Knowing what I do today will impact my future makes me pay attention.
What’s interesting is My whole life I’ve been a slow mover. When it comes to making decisions sometimes it can be a painfully slow process to everyone else but me. Once I make a decision though I rarely regret it or wish I made a different one.
A few years ago I kept a Lock Screen on my phone for a majority of that year as is said Be Intentional. (Another word I love) because that year was hard and filled with a lot of new changes. Change is something I’ve always struggled with.
I used it as a reminder to put the phone down, to be fully present where ever I was.
I crave slowness. I crave simplicity. I crave being where I am fully. I don’t wish to be rushed, stressed, or overwhelmed.
In this day and age it is so easy to get caught up in the scroll. In wishing for more, yearning and pining for what others have. Constantly in motion and on to the next. While I think progress is a wonderful thing, I believe we as humans need to pause and pause more. Create space for less. In order to Savor our days.
I believe you have choice in your life. You can choose busy. You can choose stressful. You can choose overwhelm.
Or you can choose peace. You can choose Joy. You can choose slow. You can choose to savor.
Even though we can see into some one else’s day so easily doesn’t mean we have too. You are allowed to hold boundaries for yourself. You are allowed to do your own thing. You have choice.
So go out and savor your days.
