Here Are a Few of My Favorite Things . . . . .

Over the last few years, I have compiled a lot of tools to manage stress, heal the body, regulate the nervous system and shift my mindset.  I use these tools on myself and with my clients.  Here is a list of some of my favorite resources that I have compiled over the years.  

HYDRATION

If you aren’t hydrated, you are not going to feel good, period.  Start your day with 8 to 12 ounces of water with lemon and 1/8 tsp of pink Himalayan sea salt.  This will open up your body to absorb the water that you drink the rest of the day. 

Book Recommendation:  Your Body’s Many Cries for Water or Quench

BREATHE

Develop a breathwork habit this year before you do any other habit changes.  You can do 5x5 breathing or a whole host of other strategies.  It doesn’t matter which one you do, pick one and do it consistently.  My recommendation is to do box breathing right when you wake up in the morning to fill your beautiful mind with oxygen.  It needs it to make good choices.  

Book Recommendation:  Breathe by James Nestor
Program:  Soma Breathwork on MindValley

ALIGN YOUR SPINE

Poor spinal alignment, in my humble opinion, is killing us.  Poor posture is not just about neck and back pain, it impacts our mood, ability to concentrate and self worth.  Spend time every day working on postural alignment exercises to decrease pain, prevent injuries and to build confidence.  

Book:  Pain Free, Pete Egoscue

Schedule a massage, it's what we do.  The muscles can help align your spine when given the correct instructions.  Don't wait until your back goes out or you need to replace your knees and hips.  Take care of this while you still can.  

Not sure what to book, pick any treatment and we'll help you when you get to the office.  For serious pain, book a Functional Neuromuscular Therapy session.

CONNECT WITH YOUR SOUL

Your soul already has the solutions to all of your problems.  The challenge, is that most of us are not connected to ourselves, we constantly seek answers outside of us.  This is where developing your intuition is the most valuable gift you can ever give yourself.  Your intuition will always guide you to the highest path for you, your ego will always try to direct you to what it already knows how to survive because it has the strategies for it.  So if you want health, but have only ever known a lack of health, your ego doesn’t know how to create it for you.  Your higher self does.  

Resources 

Energy Healing with Crystal Cook
Rebecca Campbell Podcast

Programs

If you are interested in doing the deep soul work this year, Soma Tribe is my monthly membership where we go deep into healing and soul alignment.  Check out a 30 day free trial to see if it is a good fit for you.

MEDITATE

This could also be considered connecting with your soul, however, I feel it deserves it’s own line because most people are wrong about meditation.  They think you have to sit in silence for hours on end trying to clear out that big old brain of theirs.  Not true.  My mind is a very fun place and is very rarely silent.  However, I do like to direct it to what I want instead of letting it run around like a toddler after a Halloween party.  

You can use meditation to reprogram your unconscious patterns, clear away emotional clutter, redirect your mind to what you want, and so much more.  I used to believe meditation was an excuse people used when they wanted to take a nap and I actually made fun of them.  The irony in that is hilarious considering it is the number one thing I suggest people do when it’s time to make changes in their life.  

Can’t quiet your mind, not a problem.  Learn to direct it with precision to what you want to create.  

Meditations I Love

The Centering Exercise
The Six Phase Meditation
The Priming Exercise

SOUND FREQUENCIES

Music and various sound frequencies are tools we can use to shift our emotional state and our mindset pretty quickly.  Here are some of the ones I have playing in the background of my office and my house almost all of the time to make sure the energy and the vibration of my home are kept at the love or above frequency.  

Mainstream Reiki (my new favorite channel on YouTube)

The Sound Healers

SMELL

Did you know that smell carries with it the most powerful memories?  Which also means we can use it to create new ones and to keep focused where we are going.  Places like Costco know this, which is they use the fresh baked smell of the bakery to get people to spend more money.  Using essential oils or other feel good scents can help elevate your mood and your mindset.  Keep a diffuser running with oils like orange, bergamot, peppermint and lavender.  They help elevate your mood and declutter negative thought patterns.  

ALWAYS BE LEARNING

If you’re not growing your dying.  I think Tony Robbins said that and it’s true.  I also heard somebody say that comfort was more dangerous to our health than stress.  I’m not sure how true that is, but I understand what they mean.  We get complacent and almost apathetic to our lives, so we stop learning, we stop growing, we just want to keep everything the same.  The problem is, we came here to learn something, to grow, to create.  If you aren’t creating something new in your life, why not?  Read a book and be open to changing your mind about the way you see the world.  Get out of your comfort zone, on the other side of the pain of change is the thing you have always wanted.  

Resources

MindValley - The BEST investment I make every year is on my personal growth.  MindValley is the Amazon of personal transformation programs and it is incredibly affordable.  It’s all of the best teachers on personal development in on easy to use app.  

Link:  https://join.mindvalley.com/r/yL4M2joYlt7h

FOCUS ON WHAT YOU WANT

Where your focus goes, your energy flows.  Often times we focus on what we don’t want instead of focusing on what we do want.  I don’t want a toxic relationship.  I don’t want pain.  I don’t want to be overweight.  I don’t want to be tired and stressed out all of the time.  I don’t want to be alone.

If those things weren’t at play, what do you want?  This question makes a lot of people look at me like I am speaking a foreign language.  When someone comes in with a lifetime of chronic pain, migraines and the other conditions I treat, I ask them what they want instead.  Confused, sometimes a little angry, they say I just don’t want pain.  

If that’s where we need to start, that’s okay.  The challenge is then we create more pain so we can continue to want to not have any of it.  Confusing, right?  

That’s why we must know what we want when we are not in pain.  If you are grieving a relationship ending, focus on what you want instead. I choose a healthy, loving relationship.  If you are having knee pain, focus on what you want instead.  I want to run a 10k.  Know why you want it.  Maybe you want to feel free in your body, or you want to feel loved and supported.  Start creating experiences where you feel loved, supported and free in your body and then you’ll start gravitating to people, experiences and solutions hat will help you create more of what you love.  

Books

The Path of Least Resistance
William Whitecloud's Secrets to Natural Success

KNOW YOURSELF

Many people do not really know themselves.  Who they are, why they do what they do, what their soul’s came here to experience.  My three favorite tools for getting to know myself are:

The Enneagram

This powerful tool is something I use to help my coaching clients spot their own blind spots and to help them understand how their perspective of reality was shaped and how it works.  It also helps you understand how other people’s realities were shaped and how they operate in the world.  Of all the things I have learned, this was the most beneficial to truly understanding myself and my personality structure.

Book: The Enneagram Guide to Waking Up
Podcast: Enneagram 2.0
Online Test (you don’t need to pay)

Gene Keys

This is a great resource to understand your soul’s journey and what you came here to learn and to experience.  You can create a free online personality profile and the .PDF is easy to read and understand.  

Human Design

To me, this one is a little more complicated than the other two and takes more study to implement, but it’s worth it if you’re curious about how your energy works.  You can get a free test online and there are tons of resources on YouTube to get a better understanding.  I had a reading done years about by Cathy Rivers and it was truly life changing.  It helped me gain a deeper understanding of my soul’s journey and how to better focus my energy.

COMPLETE THE PAST

Completing our past is important to make room for the future.  I am sharing with you my annual completion exercise that I do with my membership as a thank you for reading this far and for supporting my purpose driven work to help people integrate mind, body and soul so that they can feel better and live more purpose driven lives.  

This was a lot of information!  Bookmark, this post and I'll keep adding links to my favorite things as the year progresses.