5 ways to love yourself this week

Small things can make massive impacts. That’s why making a conscious effort to show yourself some love in just five small ways can be awesome boosters to your happiness and wellbeing! This week, try these:

1. Do: Walk barefoot in the grass

Disengage from technology and all things fast-paced. Get close to nature by feeling its roots between your toes and breathing in its fresh air.

2. Eat: Umeboshi plums

“Ume-whatta-what?” I hear you say. Here’s a simpler name – Japanese pickled plums. Although the strong acidity of these babies can be quite overwhelming at first, believe me when I say that the benefits that they reap are worth any squeamish face you may be forced to pull.  Among other things, the plums are extremely alkalinizing and are strong stimulants for digestion. Word is that they’re also great for hangovers!! Have one of these natural medicines every day as an awesome preventative health measure. Still not convinced? What if I told you Miranda Kerr eats these? I rest my case.

3. Play: “I spy” by Mikhael Paskalev

My ultimate happy time tune right now. This song switches on all my body’s cues to dance, smile and sing at the top of my lungs… regardless of where I am. I love the lyrics “To fall is connected to trying”. Word Mikhael, word.

 

4: Give: To a cause you’re passionate about

The act of giving to others is very conducive to a balanced and feel-good mind. This week, recognise an issue that touches you – whether its poverty, illness, a natural disaster, etc – and give something towards it. Small change counts. When you realise how good it makes you feel, you will realise that the act of giving is too an act of receiving. Total win-win situation. This week I’m going to donate to the recovery of the recent bush fires that occurred in New South Wales.

5: Say: “Old ways won’t open new doors”

Don’t accept things as they are if you’re not happy with them. Be proactive in improving aspects of your life that don’t serve you by thinking about what you can do to make positive change.

Have a glorious week! xxx

A Wanderer’s Wisdom: Valencia, Spain

All of the greatest life lessons I have learnt have eventuated from travel. You just can’t learn this stuff in school. Each and every place on earth brings with it a unique opportunity to gain an insight into our amazing world, and also into our amazing selves. I have certainly taken something with me from each place I have visited and by putting them on this blog, I hope to not only relay this wisdom to you but also inspire you to travel far and wide! Each post will include what I learnt about the place, and also what I learnt about myself – my ‘life lesson’.

Valencia was the first stop of my European adventure. I remember experiencing a really odd mix of jet-lag and extremely-eager-overthetop-excitement.

What I learnt about Valencia: The importance of religion. Leaving my hostel the first morning and walking out into the town’s square, I was completely blown away with what I saw: Hundreds of people were lined up at the Cathedral waiting for hours to kiss the feet of a statue of Mary. As I wrote in my journal afterwards – “Religion is SO important here!”.

MY LIFE LESSON: Get lost to find your way. After witnessing the scene at the town square, my travel partner J and I went for a walk. We got lost. Very lost. It was here that I realised how horrendously lacking my sense of direction was! But it was also here, after wandering around with no idea of where I was for 3 hours, that I recognised the incredible advantages of getting lost. While you feel uncertain and perhaps even a bit anxious, you are also overcome with a sense of curiosity and excitement at the unknown literally lying around the corner – and why not approach life like this? Embrace the fact that you don’t know what lies ‘around the corner’ and be excited for the new experiences and even challenges that it could bring!

When getting lost in a foreign country, a feeling of ‘otherness’ almost smacks you in the face – not being able to sufficiently communicate with the people around you while treading on such unfamiliar territories really puts your place in the world in fantastic perspective. Just another reason why I’m telling you nicely to just “get lost”.

How to say “love” in Spanish: amor

xxx

Improve your wellbeing with innovation’s four C’s

“Innovation” is a major buzzword in business. It’s all about finding new or better ways of doing things to improve processes and create more value. With the rapid growth of new technologies, economic instability and more competing pressures and priorities than ever before, innovation is  now essential to business success.

But it’s not just business that can benefit from innovation. We can apply its concepts to our own lives to live and LOVE more, and better. This is particularly important as the same pressures mentioned above are so applicable to our own lives.

Innovation superstar and Director of the groundbreaking Danish institution MindLab, Christian Bason, has laid out the four key concepts needed for successful innovation; these being the 4 C’s of consciousness, capacity, co-creation and courage.

Consciousness

To best work on you, you need to know you. That is being aware of and acknowledging who you are, what you love, where you want to be and the areas you want/need to improve in order to live a balanced and wholesome life.

There are many things you can do to develop this relationship and inner-awareness with yourself. You may like to try:

~ Meditating: Try to practice meditation almost everyday to gain mental clarity and deep inner consciousness. I aim to do a minimum of 15 minutes of yoga each day. It works wonders.

~ Keeping a daily diary: Write down not only what you have done each day, but also how it made you feel and why it made you feel that way.

~ Making an inspiration board: This is a great way of identifying the things that lift your emotions and wellbeing. See a picture that makes you happy but you can’t pinpoint why? Pin it up on your board. One day your association with this picture will click, and this will be a day that you learn something new and very exciting about yourself.

Capacity

Do you allow yourself the capacity to focus on yourself and actively maintain your wellbeing? Reshuffle your life if you feel it is out of balance. This could be on a small or large scale; I personally just reshuffled mine in quite a big way by going part-time at work to provide time for my uni studies, and more importantly myself (to prevent complete insanity). A small scale way could be simply waking up five minutes earlier to lie in bed and say or write down your gratitudes and goals for the day.

As well as having time, ask yourself if you have other resources to improve your wellbeing. These could be the resources to:

~ Prevent any negative thoughts becoming ingrained in your mind: You could keep a box of affirmations, and pick one out every morning to boost your mindset for the day. Alternately, just pick one when you feel you really need that little boost.

~ Nourish yourself: Always have access to fresh and healthy produce.  Nourishment plays an extremely important role in the wellbeing of the mind, body and even soul. Find a farmer’s market near you. Stock your fridge. Enjoy cooking with the produce (I usually spend my Sunday afternoons cooking nutritious meals for the week with the radio blaring and a glass of red). If you put love into your food, your food will put love into you.

~ Receive support: Those in your life are part of your journey. It’s simple – spend more time with those who make you happy and make sure you actively maintain these relationships. Decrease time spent with those who provide toxicity. This leads into the next C…

Co-creation

Those you spend time with inevitably effect your life – how happy you are, how you spend your time, the decisions you make, and so on. You should want to be at your happiest when around the people that you love. Make it contagious – it’s so fulfilling seeing smiles light up their faces – create this happiness with them, not just for them. This is something I’ll call COLLECTIVE LOVE. It embodies the idea that many people who love together is far more effective than just one person who loves alone. Create and develop the changes in your life that promote love, together. You could do this by:

~ Holding a self-love dinner party

~ Travelling together: For me, there’s no better way of finding out about myself and providing perspective on life than travelling. Sharing this literal journey with someone else can deliver even more intense lessons of discovery. It builds incredible bonds.

~ Always being there for one another: Support is key. News flash: You don’t have to make all your life choices on your own. NEVER think less of yourself by asking for help and guidance. Sometimes we need someone to hold our hand while we choose and walk down a certain path.

Courage

Improving ‘processes’ to lead the life you want to live is made so much easier when you truly believe that you can do it. Have the confidence that you WILL reach your full potential. If this is difficult, you could gain this courage by:

~ Thinking of your most challenging moments: Okay so you might be thinking “why would I think of something depressing if I want to be happy?”. Bear with me. When my self-confidence reaches its dismal lows, I think back to the biggest challenge I have ever undergone. Then I think of me now. “I survived and overcame that. If I can do that, I can do anything.” Sometimes all it takes is a little perspective to get our frame of mind where it should be.

~ Setting yourself small, achievable goals

~ Writing your ideal day: This is a great exercise I picked up from Life’s Shiny Pretty Things (fellow Perth girl, woo!). It involves writing all the details of your perfect day; “what it looks like, what it feels like, what it tastes like… [it] challenges if you were living it? No? Why not? Find your why and then your how will come.” Not only does it further assist you to identify more about what you want, but it also makes your dreams completely realistic. With so many thoughts processing through our minds each day, writing them down on pen and paper makes them totally official and totally alive.

Apply these four C’s to enhance the process of your life. Whether in business or not, by the end of it you could call yourself one successful Sista 😉

xxx 

Self-love dinner party: ‘I love my food, I love my earth, I love my self’

I recently invited six of my closest Sistas over to experience an evening of love for food, earth and self.

To create an atmosphere of relaxation and intimacy, I scattered flowers from my garden around the house and lit tea candles in various jars and glasses I had scoped out from thrift stores. The walls were adorned with affirmations and my Tibetan prayer flags hung loosely above the dining table to carry their spiritual vibrations.

We began our evening in the lounge, soaking our feet in warm, rosewater infused petal baths and nourishing our bodies with a spread of vegan nibblies. I had made basil pesto, raw cashew cheese and cumin spiced nuts for the occassion, and had bought a wheel of raw spicy brazil nut cheese from my local farmer’s market. I decided to gourmet it up with the crudites and provided whole baby carrots, snow peas and lightly steamed asparagus.

While I got on to preparing the main course I handed each Sista a piece of coloured cardboard with their name on it. We then proceeded to carry out the oh-so-corny but extremely heartening activity of writing what we love about each other on each person’s card. It worked beautifully – each girl had a piece of the evening that they could take home to remind them of their own worth.

Main was then served at the dining table, which was decorated with candles in jars, flowers and shells. We feasted on mushroom quinoa risotto, thyme and oregano roast root vegetables, and a broccoli and flaked almond salad. The entire menu for the evening was vegan to show respect for our earth and nature. I loved watching the girls enjoy the food I had prepared. After all, it was prepared with love.

After dinner I was presented with a final opportunity to express complete love for my Sistas – with chocolate! An absolutely delightful raw coconut and chocolate ganache tart provided the perfect end to the perfect evening.

Practicing self-love involves recognising why to love yourself, and this can be difficult to achieve on your own. So get your closest Sistas together. Pamper yourself. Nourish yourself. Remind each other of how amazing each of you are. And allow yourself to carry the consequential feeling of self-recongition and worth outside of the gathering and into your life.

xxx

Aloha Sista’s!

Welcome to my blog of self-lovin’! My name is Tessa and I’m here to spread guidance, encouragement and seriously sweet vibes to allow you to radiate in your own brilliance, wonderment and worth. Because Sista, you ARE worth it.

So why do I dig this self-love thang so much?

Because I’ve had my fair share of its evil arch nemesis, ‘self-loathing’. I was never confident in myself – CONSTANTLY comparing myself and trying to be like others – and at 18 those feelings of dissatisfaction and worthlessness developed into some pretty nasty mental illness.

The road from there has been a rocky one, and although completely smooth and uphill from here, I’ve accepted that it’s a road that will never truly end – it’s common knowledge that every human being, particularly women, experience feelings of insecurities and self-doubt. It’s normal. Heck, it can even be healthy. What’s not normal or healthy is letting these feelings dictate your life.

I learnt this the hard way, but my gosh, I learnt it well.

By accepting me, respecting me and loving me, my excitement and complete joy for life have opened up to the widest that they can possibly be. From experiencing the life changing effect of self-love, what now fulfils me most is spreading its message far and wide, whether to strangers or my closest friends, neighbours or people on the other side of the world, young or old.  Because I really do believe in the power of self-love.

So Sista, are ya with me? 

xxx