181. how to pick yourself up from depression, boost your mood & get your spark back ✨

I recently just lost my mother, so things have been very difficult for me, and it kind of leads me into today's episode. I want to talk about some of the things that have been helping me get myself out of depression and pick myself back up, boost my mood, and really just get my spark back. Now. Obviously I am still grieving, and grieving is a little bit different than maybe you just being in a slump for whatever reason.

But I am sure that this episode will maybe help motivate inspire whether you are going through something such as grief or you're not feeling that spark in life. I also just think moving into the new year, there is definitely a part of us that wants to get that

motivation and inspiration for life again. And I feel like that is typically how life goes we ebb and flow, where sometimes we're more in a slump, whether it is something as devastating as a loss or a heartbreak, or your life is just chaotic and things are not working out, or you have health issues whatever it is, or there is just nothing really to be kind of excited about

in your life now. Also, if you guys have been listening to the podcast for a while, you know, even before I lost my mom, I was going through a pretty intense flare up. I have ulcerative colitis, which is under the umbrella of IBDs. So if you ever hear me say IBD or aulcerative clitis, I'm basically like they're the same thing. And so for a while I was down bad with my health and some of the things I'm going to be talking about more steps that I had to take in terms of getting my health back

and even boosting my mood and getting back into routine. Now,

I want to start with this quote that I shared on my Instagram last night, and it's really important that we address this before we take the steps that we might need to get back on track or just boost our mood. And this quote is from Whitney Hansen, and it says, you just came in from a rainstorm. You can't expect to be immediately dry and warm and comfortable, but you can do little things. Take off the heavy clothing, turn on the coffee pot, warm yourself in a blanket,

one small thing at a time. Healing is a process, and that's very relevant, especially when you're going through something such as grief. I'm on the podcast right now talking in a way where it seems like I'm okay, but there are many moments throughout the day where I'm not okay, and that is completely fine, even if I was going through something like when I was dealing with my flare up and it was really bad. Whatever you are going through, you have to realize, like it's a rainstorm, it might

still be a rainstorm, and maybe it was. You have to give yourself grace and love. And this ties into a lot for me, dropping perfectionism and control over how things need to go. I think this is really big when it comes to getting yourself out of ruts or

getting yourself out of depression. We have this idea of how it needs to look, or the stories we tell ourselves which make it kind of too big to even want to try to get out and try to get on a healthy routine or pick ourselves back up like it feels a lot, and then we don't want to do it because we're in this low state of being for whatever reason it is, and it just feels really overwhelming.

And so it's just important to remind yourself that you are going to need to give yourself grace through this time. It is not going to be perfect. You're gonna go through waves. I am doing so much better than I was the day that I found out my mom passed away, but the waves still come, and I just allow them to be. I allow the tears to come. I allow myself to feel into these feelings because I know that

it's just a part of the process. If you are just depressed for whatever reason, or you're just not feeling like motivation for life, understand that not every single day you're going to have this spark of this energy that's okay. Don't allow that to be the reason why you don't keep showing up for yourself the best way you can. You don't have to be perfect, but you definitely don't need to tell yourself like, oh, this shouldn't be happening, or I shouldn't be feeling sad. Why am I feeling

sad today? Or why am I feeling this wave? And one thing that I was talking to my therapist about when it comes to grief was the way that one allows grief to like flow through them. And I really was just telling her, I really just allow these waves to move through me, and I release the tears, and

I release the feelings. If it's anger, for frustration, if it's disappointment, if it's lost, whatever, I let it move through me, and it just feels so much better than trying to suppress it or try to hold on to it, or try and intellectualize how it needs to be different, or trying to change the circumstance for what it really is.

And she was also telling me how it's really sad, obviously, but it's almost beautiful to watch sometimes children who are grieving because the way that they grieve is so natural.

Sometimes you will see them, let's say, playing with their toys, and then all of a sudden, they just start crying, and the cry and they cry, and they cry, and then they go back to playing and it almost seems like everything is fine again, and they might be laughing or they might be whatever, and it just flows through them so naturally, and honestly, the first week of losing my mom, it really felt very childlike, where I understood that this is a natural process of feeling whatever emotions

that I'm feeling, and I just let them out and then they're would be times where like, twenty minutes later, maybe I wasn't jumping for joy, but I was okay, I was at peace, I felt okay. And I look at that the same way I look at trying to

control certain situations outcomes being a perfectionist. When things don't feel super aligned and I don't feel like one hundred percent motivated to go move my body or eat a meal, I look at that the same way as I look at the wave of emotions, where it's like I can still accept the fact that this is not perfected or doesn't feel perfect, or I'm not okay right now, but

I can still move through it. I can still allow it to be now in light of needing things to be perfect, to the tea, all the things that I'm going to be talking about there was not necessarily one day I decided to do these steps like A, B, C, and D. And this kind of goes back to the quote where it's like you get inside and you dry off, and you put a warm blanket on yourself, and then

you start the pot of coffee. Maybe one day that's exactly how I came in from the rainstorm, where I put the blanket on and I dried off, and then I started the coffee. But then maybe there was another day where I didn't want to dry off and I just went right to the coffee. And that is totally fine.

But for the sake of the podcast, I'm going to go through obviously like a list of things that I kind of did so when I felt a little bit better, especially when it comes to like my personal situation when

it comes to grieving. I got to a point, and I said this in my previous episode, if you want to hear more about me honoring my mother and just letting go of darkness and dealing with the loss of both parents when it comes to addictions and the darkness that can follow you when you have parents that have gone through that. There came a point for me where I really did want to release this darkness, this energy, this depression, this low energy state, and I also know

that that's what I deserve. And I think it's important to set an intention and really move into a new identity when you are trying to pick yourself back up and think about you know, the person that I want to be moving forward is somebody who embraces more of the light energy that is I know deep down within me, outside of this darkness or this depression. I want to release this darkness. I want to be somebody who moves through this grief or moves through this depression and comes

out on the other side. It's really just marking this new chapter, this new era, this new version of you. Now.

I think it's really important when you are wanting to step into a new identity, a new version of you, a new chapter of your life, you really make it very light and easy and enjoyable, especially when you are depressed or you're really down bad, because if not, you might go into that hyper productive era where you're setting one hundred goals and you kind of put a lot of pressure on yourself and then you get into this energy of being a perfectionist and then you kind of

don't want to do it again. I just wanted to embrace all the beautiful qualities that is within me and in my life and what I hope the future will be for me in twenty twenty five. Also connecting to my mother, there was a lot of darkness. There was a lot of you know, hard emotions that I had to hold and grieve and process. But there's also a lot of light aspects of her and her life and her legacy and the good qualities of her that I

want to focus on moving forward. So that's kind of the energy that I am in and with that what I actually did, And this is helpful maybe for some and maybe you don't want to do this, but I think it can be. I actually created a new mood board. I think like environment and aesthetics and visuals for me are really really helpful. And we're going to get into your mental diet because I think that that is huge.

But I kind of set a few goals and a vision for myself, nothing too crazy, especially going through what I'm going through now, trying to get back into work mode and one hundred things on my plate. I haven't

done that, and I'm not going to do that. But I think having some sort of vision that you hold and you can kind of either strive for or you can focus on that is making you feel really good about life is important because for me, there's a lot of different goals that I have that were set even before my mom passed away, but even like before my flare up. But I kind of tried to tap into my creativity, like what beautiful art could I make out

of this season of my life? What's something new that I can invite into my life, or a new hobby or just something that doesn't remind me of my past or doesn't remind me of the darkness. And not to say your goals previously before this are not meant to be picked back up. But again, you're entering a new version of you, So is there something new you can focus on or create? So I made a little mood board. I figured maybe I would show you guys, because I

think it's just really stunning. As always, I feel like all my mood boards are really pretty and it says embrace your light. I like to put different quotes on my mood board. Sometimes I'll just put the month, but I felt very called to put something that would just remind me of the light instead of the darkness. And on here, I just have things that remind me of the person I want to be and the focus that I want to have in this chapter of my life. I have a girl sitting on a mountain and she's

looking out into the trees. This all just reminds me of nature, and nature is so big for me. It reminds me of my mom, but it really just grounds me and I want to be out in nature as much as possible. I have a lineup of these journals which have just like light color, beautiful spiritual vibes. On those, it's actually reminding me of a project that I am working on. I also have a girl with her legs crossed and she has a microphone that obviously connects to

what I'm doing on the podcast right now. It gives me a lot of joy and peace to have this podcast. I also have a computer screen, which again just reminds me of some of the creative projects based off of the color scheme on there, that I want to continue to focus on. That just makes me feel really excited about life and like wanting to wake up and do something with my life. There is a girl sitting on a yoga mat in her place, which everything is light colored.

It gives you that energy of renewal. I have been doing a lot of yoga, which I'm going to be talking about. Another photo with a computer, headphones, camera, a latte. This just reminds me clearly of a lot of creative work which has been pretty huge for me. A very big north star and a girl who is walking with a coffee because I think this reminds me of like my hawk girl walks, which you guys know, I absolutely love. And also another photo of a TV with like pink

lighting in the background and there's lots of plants. This just reminds me of my home in the way that I am curating it to help me feel more at peace. My environl is very big for me, so that just reminds me of this new era. I think it's important sometimes to set that intention and kind of give yourself a little bit of a renewal. I made this on Canva.

You simply can just go onto Canva and type in desktop wallpaper and will give you like a blank canvas and then you can take some Pinterest photos and bring them or drag them or copy and paste them onto your Canva template and then you can save it to your desktop. So I always like to do that. I do that every season, and honestly, anytime that I feel like I need a little bit of a life rebrand. Okay,

so let's talk about mental diet and the power of your morning routine. I think these two things have been absolutely so crucial in all times, honestly that I've been depressed or in a rut. So at the end of the day, whatever thoughts you are thinking, whatever stories you're telling yourself, it is going to impact whether you want to continue to get up and roll with life or how you deal with the things that are coming to

you within your life. And I had posted yesterday on my Instagram story of a book called Embraced by the Light, which I will leave down below. If you are currently grieving or if you're spiritual. I think it's a really good book. I'm halfway through it. It's a really good book that was actually recommended by one of you guys, so thank you if you are listening to this episode, And it kind of talks about a near death experience that somebody had had and just talking about kind of

what happens in the afterlife. So I think it's pretty relevant if you are spiritual. If you're not, maybe you won't resonate with that, but it's helped me. But I was talking about how I would be ten times more unstable right now when it comes to grieving the loss of my mother if I did not connect with my spirituality.

And I do think about all of the hardships that I have been through, the loss of my dad, the health struggles that I've been through, the financial struggles, the dealing with my mother's addiction when she was here and I was even closer to her like when I lived with her, just so many things like big or small, even outside of family and parents, just life and tribulations and trials. I have always connected in a way that works for me to spirituality, to believing in something that's

greater than myself. There's a reason there's a rhyme, there's a lesson here. There is a trusting that I have to hold, even if I can't see it yet. I have to have some sort of belief or faith or something that has always really carried me through the times where I'm looking in my reality and it is shit, it is not right. It doesn't make sense, it's confusing,

it's scary, it's just unsafe. And that's what I have been doing, of course when it comes to grieving the loss of my mom, but in hard times, and the way I like to connect spiritually is mainly through journaling. I have always done this. I have one hundred thousand journals that I still keep to this day. In the hardest days of my life, I would wake up every morning and I would connect to whether it's myself my

higher self. Lately it has been connecting to my mother's spirit and writing to her, but also just writing out how I'm experiencing my current life circumstance and trying to even understand my current life circumstance. And I feel like spirituality is so unique to everyone. I am not saying the way I do it is the way that you should do it. There's people who are religious, people who believe in only like speaking to God or Jesus or

whatever it is. But whatever it is, I think that that is definitely something that can get you through and get you out of depression. Better is to believe that this circumstance right now is not going to be like this forever, that God or the universe has your back, even if it feels like nothing is working out right now. To have belief that things will eventually get better, even in your heart artist times. This type of thinking is

something that gets you through and gets you up. But you kind of have to have a practice, which is why I have a journal practice that I like to go to in the morning. Maybe for you it's putting on somebody who has a positive outlook on life, or maybe you're going to church, or maybe you have different speakers that you listen to online or whatever it is. I think connecting spiritually, connecting to a positive message, especially on the days where you are depressed and in a rut,

can take you a long way. And I honestly just think about this when it comes to podcast episodes or the one you're listening to now. I'm sure this is giving you some sense of Okay, I can do this, I can get out of this. It's giving you some sort of motivation inspiration keep listening to this kind of stuff. And I do this every day, especially when I'm going through like really hard times, and I did this many

different chapters of my life. I like to listen to meditation music as I am journaling as well to kind of give myself an extra layer of peace. I like to light an incense and make sure that my environment is nice and clean. I give myself some time in the morning to do that. If I need to do it again at night time, or even just speak out loud. I do that a lot as well, especially at night. If I'm too tired to journal, I'll just kind of like talk to myself and be like, Alicia, you are

getting through this. This is a lesson, or I tell myself an affirmation. I if I'm feeling grateful, or I'm feeling happy or sad, whatever it is, I acknowledge those feelings. I let them through and I let them out, and you get better at this as well. I feel like sometimes people don't really know what to say or how to journal or whatever. You don't need to be perfect, you don't need to You just need to come back

to yourself. And the more times you do this, you will find when you go through hard times, you will

be more resilient. And I think that there's a lot of people who look at the things that I have gone through, and I know that because I've gotten messages even now where you guys are like, it's insane the amount of strength that you have to even come up on the podcast and speak the way that you are, and that it's because I've had a lot of practice with going through hard things and being with myself and

doing the best that i can move through this. And the more times you do that, the more resilient you will be. Doesn't mean that it won't hurt. It doesn't mean that you won't grieve. It doesn't mean that you won't be going through life's tribulations and setbacks, but you will be strong through it and you will pick yourself up a lot better when you continue to have these types of practices. Now, just a quick side note about

anything else. When it comes to your mental diet, obviously, the stories you tell yourself and the things that you're consuming are very important. It will dictate your mood. And you can think about this. When you play a sad song, you'll instantly start bringing up memories and start crying, but before that you are basically fine. Life can really trigger you in that way, and you kind of need to

be a little bit more mindful of that. So right now, for me, I'm making sure that I'm steering clear of any sort of like content on social media or conversations that I'm having with people that it doesn't trigger me into things that I don't want. This is not to say that I am isolating myself, because I'm not, and I have a lot of capacity to also speak on the things that I'm going through, but I like to kind of control it in the way that I want,

you know. So for me, I've basically been off social media when it comes to consuming lately, I've been posting anything that is positive on my stories or like quotes or you know, if I'm doing yoga or moving my body, things like that. But for the most part, I'm just not consuming anything that could trigger me. And this really correlates to TikTok. For the most part, I don't scroll and consume all the time every day. It's not a

normal thing. But sometimes I do like to go on there because it's funny, it's something to do when you're bored, things like that. But realistically, when you keep scrolling, that algorithm just sends you one thing that makes you think about how the world's going to end tomorrow, and then the next thing it's making you cry about the fact that you know, there's so much loss and there's so much hurt in the world, and then the next one

you're laughing again. That is taking you on an emotional rollercoaster that you do not need to be on, and you don't have that much control over it. Yes, you have control over your algorithm. It's basically reflection of what you've been watching. But at the end of the day, you still keep scrolling and things are popping up every three seconds, and especially when it comes to video, it is taking you on a spiral that you do not need to be on. So for me, I've stayed very

clear of that. What I have been doing is spending a lot of time on Pinterest. For me personally, it's giving me a lot of ease and grace. I love seeing aesthetics and photos and quotes, and it's really a reflection of a positive mindset. So I create mood boards, I save quotes, and I share them. It just really gives me a source of inspiration and light and kind of keeps me in my creativity and my flow as well.

Gives me a lot of ideas where it's not the same as maybe going on Instagram and consuming people's lifestyles and making me think that I'm like missing out on things, or I'm annoyed or frustrated by seeing other people live their lives or on TikTok things like that. So being very mindful of the things that you're consuming and also just allowing yourself to only consume things that make you

feel a little bit better. When it is time for me to disconnect and to not create or to not work, I like to listen to commentary that gets my mind off of things. I play Dreamlight Value on my Nintendo Switch, like I do things that make me feel happy. It doesn't need to be this constant getting yourself out of this rut where you're always having to fix, fix, fix, and heal right, give yourself the freedom to just enjoy

life the way you want. So that's basically the first focus that I typically always have when I'm down bad. But what I've been doing recently because my mind is going to dictate whether I feel the urge to want to take care of myself and to do certain things in my life that will then compound and get me out of bed or feeling a little bit better physically. So let's talk about daily habits and routine. Now, when

you are not feeling good. For the most part, it's hard to convince yourself that even the smallest little habit will make a big difference. And the truth is, you're probably going to be convinced for a little bit that waking up and just making your bed is not really going to do much until you keep doing it and you realize, oh, I took that one step, and now I have this routine now, and now I feel a

little bit better to do with something else. So try your best to not even try to negotiate whether this one little baby step that you're going to try and implement is going to make a big difference or not, Like it doesn't really even matter. All we need to understand is moving our bodies and taking care of ourselves will eventually, over time change the way that we move through life and how we will feel. Now, I look at movement and eating well and even when it comes

to mental diet, all for my mental health. And sometimes I feel like when we are down bad, we want to set a bunch of goals when it comes to like glow up right, Okay, I want to get fit, I want to change my body, I want to change my looks. I want to change my bank account, I want to do all of these external things that are

typically kind of also tied to ego. And it's not to say that that's not a thing we can strive for, right that's fine, But when it comes to depression and picking up your mood, I really like to look at movement, especially just a way to work on our mental health.

And I think that that is helpful if you are somebody who's kind of that perfectionist and typically falls into the glow ups and the challenges to move away from what it can do physically for you, or like even result space and understand that all of these things are just continuous evolutions and support for your mental health that over time will build. But every day we'll just sustain

your mental health. And when it comes to depression and you having a low mood, a lot of that is a result of you being stagnant, you not getting up a lot and moving and not being in nature or not stretching or not moving your body in the way that it really needs to. And I know that it can definitely be hard, and it has been hard even

for me when it comes to my IBD. For one, like I wasn't able to do my hot yoga classes and do my weight training and do all the things that in my head I'm programmed to think like, these are the things that are really going to get me feeling good, whether it's for my mental health or my physical health, and like how I actually look. But coming back to doing small, little baby steps is going to

be huge. So for me, the easiest thing that I can do is to try to have at least one walk a day, because for me, there is almost no resistance to that. If I were to set the goal where it's like, Okay, I need to start getting back on my yoga classes, whether that's at home or in the studio, that already feels a little bit more challenging, even though that might be something that I want to

work up to. The walk feels easier. And I think that when you are down bad, you have to choose the easiest thing, And it goes against sometimes our dominant part that wants to just hit the ground running. But I promise you, if you approach you getting out of your rut from this place of love and enjoyment and light and effortlessness, you will go a long way and you will then want to and feel like you can

do harder things. I promise you that. So I started with just getting outside and going for a walk every single day, and now I'm doing at least two walks, and I'm able to do that also because my IBD, like my flare up, is so much better now, so I can trust myself with going outside and not feeling like I have to go to the washerroom or not working with a lot of pain and like all my symptoms and things like that. But of course even when it comes with my mom like, it feels like I

can do it more. And maybe for you it's not a walk. Maybe for you it's just getting out of

your bed and making your bed. Maybe that's your movement for the day, and opening up your windows and going out to your balcony or wherever it is, just standing outside, like that's gonna be like your movement because you haven't been and you've just been waking up in the morning and you're scrolling on your phone for like thirty minutes and then you kind of start your day off a little bit meh, and then you don't do much afterwards.

Or maybe you are starting to do your movement routine and instead of you telling yourself you have to get back on the weightlifting regimen that you were before. You're still going to the gym, but you're just gonna do a treadmill workout where you're gonna listen to your favorite music, or you're gonna listen to a podcast, or you're gonna listen to something light and it's just gonna be easy.

You don't have to think about it. Or maybe you're gonna do at home workouts, Like whatever you're going to do, you're gonna do the easiest thing. You're gonna drop the need for it to be hard. It doesn't need to be hard. This is not what you need right now. Okay, I do not need life to be hard. I need life to be really easy, and so do you if you are going through something. So let's do the best

we can to make it as easy and light. But movement is important, right, we have to still think about Yeah, taking care of ourselves is gonna be important, and the more we do that, the more we will compound. And I also wanted to start doing at home yoga again before I even started going back to the studio, basically just because of my symptoms. And so the other day I had this urge after a nap start one of Yoga with Adrians, which is a girl on YouTube that

does free yoga classes and challenges. I highly recommend doing some of her classes, but she was doing like a seven day challenge and she had posted day one on that same day, and I was like, you know what, I feel really called to doing this right now. And it was like a twenty minute yoga flow, a little

bit of breath work. It wasn't anything difficult. The sun was out, and I knew it was really important for me after my nap to get out of my bed, because you know those naps that you have sometimes where you wake up and you feel really depressed and then it's like, okay, I am either going to doom scroll right now and feel really crap about my night and then the sun's gonna set and I'm gonna feel worse, or I'm gonna get up and do something That's kind of what I've been doing if I do have a nap,

is to move my body. And I was usually doing my second walk at that point, but then I was like, you know what, I feel the urge to do a little bit of yoga, and then I did that and I've been doing it ever since now and now I feel like I want to do more. And this morning actually I woke up and I did the yoga right in the morning, which I wasn't having the urge to do the yoga in the morning. It's still kind of felt too hard and challenging. It kind of felt like

a chore to me. But because I started to do that yoga challenge midday effortlessly because I just wanted to, I'm now starting to do that in the morning, which ideally is what I would want to do, is to wake up in the morning and do some sort of movement. And I know eventually this habit is going to be able to move into when I go back into weightlifting, which feels way too daunting right now, but eventually it's going to allow me to do that. Another thing is

to get as much sun exposure, get into nature and even invite new energy into your environment. I think that is very huge, also keeping your environment clean. So for me, any single time the sun is out, whether I am gonna go outside, I am very down to go outside, even in the coldest months, because I just know how great it is for me. But I am making sure blinds are open all the time. I am looking out into the sun. If I'm not outside, I am bringing

new fresh air into my space. You need to do that, please. You need to do that if anything else, if you're feeling down bad every day, please because it is going to feed your soul. It is genuine medicine that you just can't get from even a podcast episode. You can't even get from a pill sometimes. And when it comes to your space, I know it can be difficult sometime

to make your space clean. But you know a simple act of making your bed in the morning, or you know, taking ten minutes before you go to sleep or even in the morning to clean up your space and have things tidy will really do you wonders. And for me,

I actually bought a lot of new plants. This was more more in memory of my mother, because she had a huge green thumb, and so I wanted to bring something into my environment that reminded me of her, and so I got a few plants, and I ended up buying this new It's not a bookshelf, but it's like a shelf where I can put all her plants and like all of her stuff on one of her plants actually I have from her place that I'm gonna be just nurturing. But I bought a few more and I

put them all on the shelf and it looks so beautiful. It. Renewed energy plants are really really amazing to lift up your mood. So if you can get just one plant, doesn't have to be a lot of money. But if you can go and buy a plant, I promise you it will change your mood. Now, getting adequate amount of

sleep is sometimes difficult when you are going through a hard time because maybe your mind is racing, or you're overthinking, or you're sad, or you're lonely, or it's just difficult to sleep. And I think taking the pressure off of yourself for having the perfect sleep routine is first and foremost, Like there's just gonna be days where you just don't

have the best sleep. And whether I was going through my symptoms and flare up or grieving the loss of my mom, I just reminded myself that not every single night is going to be perfect. Sometimes I might need a nap. If I can take a nap, I will. If I have to take things off my plate as much as I can, I will. You have to kind of do what you need on a day to day basis, right, you really have to tap into what you need every single day. But what has helped me is guided meditations

and sleeping with white noise at night. I don't think I would have the sleep that I'm having if it wasn't for falling asleep to words of affirmation or calming sounds in my nights. And so I always talk about the Mindful Movement on YouTube. That's the guide of meditations that I typically fall asleep to. But you know, you can find so many different ones online, just kind of

like having that comfort person or thing. Some people will fall asleep to podcast episodes that have nothing to do with healing self development, and that's fine too, Like if you need your comfort person to fall asleep, just do it. Do whatever you need as much as you need to fall asleep. Now, when it comes to diet, try to look at yourself as a plant that does need watering

and does need soil and sunshine and light. Really, right, like all of these things that I've talked about, it's like you are the flower that is a little bit

down right now, but you can revive it. And so having maybe one planned meal a day where you know it's going to be nourishing, has some protein, some carbs, some fats and whatever, or it's soothing to your gut health or whatever you need uniquely right, or you're just making sure that you're having your medication or your supplements whatever. You don't need to have all three meals perfectly balanced. You're drinking five hundred liters of water and you're getting

all your supplements in. You don't need to do that

because it's going to be overwhelming. But just having the intention of giving yourself one balanced meal if you can, can be very beneficial, and it will help you in a way where you might be less susceptible to doing the binge eating or going to like a fast food restaurant or getting food that might not support your body, and then it will kind of make you crave more, or you'll feel kind of gross, or you'll feel kind of bad because you're in that cycle, and then you'll

want to do it again and again. I think it's really important also to make sure that you are addressing any sort of emotional eating around this time, because that can be big. And I also did find myself doing a little bit of emotional eating, which I was kind of surprised about and I was very aware that I was doing it though, Like I was like, oh, this feeling feels like really old from back in the day.

And actually, if you struggle with emotional eating, I would suggest you get my book, The Ultimate Globe Gude, because I really talk about it in my book, and I give you lots of prompts and things that I have gone through and learned when it comes to the emotional poll that you have when it comes to binge eating

or like overeating. I had a really unhealthy relationship with food many years ago, and although I didn't go into it fully now, I did see that correlation a little bit and I was like, ah, okay, I need to address my emotions here. I need to feel my feelings. What am I feeling right now instead of going to

that food. So those are the things that I've been focusing on when it comes to my daily habits and routine, making sure that I'm moving no matter what, getting out in nature and you know, inviting new energy, really working on my mental health and journaling and just doing the best that I can. Obviously, there's days where I'm riding the waves a little bit more than others, but for the most part, that has really really helped me be

able to get my spark back. And then it just compounds, right, These things compound where now a few weeks into grieving the loss of my mother, I'm having a little bit more inspiration for life, a little bit more want and motivation to take on a new project, or to go and do more yoga, or you know, connect with people more. Now,

I really want to talk about things that are just as crucial as you working on these things that I've listed on an individual level, which is connection and community and even family. A lot of times when you are depressed, you're down bad, you don't have that spark for life.

You typically are pretty isolated in some sense or the other, whether you're holding in a lot of things that you haven't been expressing to other people, or you're just not wanting to share because it's understandable sometimes you don't want to share things with people. But there typically is not a lot of connection and community and life force energy outside of you that is within your current energy field, and as much as you can, it's important that you

invite that in. Now. For me, there's been two things one is therapy, which I know everyone says, oh, it's a lot of money and I can't afford it that and I think that there's different alternatives to therapy, and some people don't even want to do that, you know, listening to podcasts and journaling and things like that. But I think it is important, especially for those who think that they might not need it, because I'm definitely somebody who's like I kind of know everything, and this is

that da da da. I have a very open mind when it comes to therapy, and there's always something that I can work on, and there's always something that needs to be expressed. And I think it's really important to have those spaces with people to open up and just

to even let things out. So if you can, twenty twenty five, let the year be of you having at least just one session a month where you have that go to person, whether it's a therapist or even a life coach, like some of you guys work with me one on one sessions, which I will be opening up again pretty soon, so I'll always have that link down below. I am not a therapist, but I do know you guys get a lot of comfort from doing one on one sessions with me, and I love doing them with

you guys as well. And I think it is really important that you have that person that you can go to. And I do think it's a really good investment. And I think that there are many things that we spend money on that are not good investments within ourselves. But then we will say, oh, therapies too expensive, or this

is too expensive, or that. I think for a lot of the times we can make things work if we put that on the priority list, but if you can't or you are doing therapy, because this is something that I'm doing still as well, is to make sure that you were surrounding yourself with people who you can feel a sense of peace, calm, positivity, and or somebody you can lean on. And I know it's difficult sometimes to

have people in your life to lean on. It's only recently in my life that I have a few people that I could really go to and lean on and like cry to. It's not even a natural thing for me to do all of my life. I really haven't looked at my friends like that. I haven't had friends like that that I felt comfortable to. Mainly was because of me, like myself but regardless, only now have I

had that, so I understand that sometimes it's difficult. Obviously, it's nice to have those friends to be able to talk and grieve and you know, express your feelings or heartbreak or whatever. But you don't even always have to have your friends be there to that. It could just be people who make you feel a sense of like positivity.

I just know those friends in my life that are on their goals or they're really positive and they just have a good outlook on life, and I just want to be around them more, and I make that effort. And I really do that even on the times where I feel like meh, like I'm just in this depressive state right now, I don't really want to do this as that I make an effort, whether it's weekly or daily, if I'm talking to somebody, usually it's my best friend

that I'm talking to you every single day. But that really helps you get out of the spiral of things. You really got to get out of the spiral of things. Obviously, using podcasts episodes can be very beneficial because not even your best of best friends can always be there every second, especially if you're spiraling on things. So it's really important that you incorporate some of that into your mental diet. But there's gonna be nothing that compares sometimes to connection

and the support of somebody else's nervous system. Essentially that will really help heal you and help move you through some of the darkest days that you might be going through. And I would say for the first two solid weeks of me grieving the loss of my mother, I made sure that I saw someone every single day. And that was like not something that I typically do if I'm going through a depression or a heartbreak or something like that, Like maybe I'll see somebody here and there, but for

the most part, it's not like that. But when it was something as deep as that, I knew, even though I didn't really want to always see somebody, it was so important that I physically saw somebody. So every day I would meet with a friend or I would have a conversation with somebody. I went home for the holidays and spent it with my cousins and aunts, and I just kept doing that, and I just told myself, you know,

it doesn't feel comfortable. I don't even want to see half of these people, not because I don't love them or I don't want to actually be around them. But it's just like I want to be in my little cocoon and I just want to escape from the world. But escaping from the world, even if you're going to be listening to positivity and stuff like that, you have to understand that you embracing more of this light energy and you really expanding and you getting out of this depression.

There is always going to be a human element and even nature that is important and that you do need. You do need even if you don't feel like it, and even if you don't want it. So just always reminding yourself like it's good for you, even if you don't feel like you want it right now. So with that said, these are the things that I have been doing to get myself. I don't even want to say back on track because it's a different era, it's a

different chapter, it's a new chapter. Life will be different always, And I think that there's beauty in that as much as there's a lot of loss. There's a lot of beauty in that. And I think if we start looking at it that way as well, it stops being this thing that we have to do to get back on track. And then it's overwhelming, and then we don't do it. It's like this new energy, a new version of you, which can be very beautiful. And I think that's just

the process of evolution realistically. And you know, spending some time really thinking about what God you to this depression or this rut or this low vibration is very important and sometimes it's not you. You know, life comes at you very quickly. But taking some time to really reflect on that if you can, if you need to, you'll find a lot of lessons from this that you can take and really use to change the way that you're going

to continue to move through life. Even if again, it wasn't really in your control, like me losing my mom. It's not really something that I need to sit here and be like, what's the reason why this happened? You know what I mean? But I can take what's going on and be like, Okay, this is how I'm going to move forward in my life. And I'm going to take this light and I am going to do what I can and support myself and I'm going to connect spiritually.

I'm going to connect with the message that I know that my mom has for me, which is she wouldn't want me to be down here in a depression, in a darkness, holding onto energy that I do not need and that's not serving me. She would want to see my light. You would want to help me evolve and grow, and see me evolve and grow. And so if that's what I'm going to try and focus on as much

as I can. I'm going to obviously honor my feelings and the loss that is you know her, But I am going to get through this, and I am here to get through this. I am not here to not evolve. I am not here to be in a depressed whole. I am not here to allow the darkness to continue to plague me. I'm not going to do it. I am not and I hope you guys don't as well.

And I hope that my episodes and my content can be a source of inspiration and motivation for you guys to continue to move forward, because you deserve to have a life that is not filled with anxiety and depression and confusion. It is going to involve you actively participating in you moving forward. So I hope this episode helped. Next week's episode will probably be that episode that I said that was pre filmed, so you might see that, but regardless, you'll see a new episode when you see

a new episode. Thank you guys so much for all the love and and I'll see you guys in the next one. Bye.