How To Start Down a Holistic Path

So, I knew that I needed to change the way I lived my life but other than that I didn’t really know what that meant to me. I did some soul-searching with the help of yoga and the word holistic kept coming up. I heard people say that they want to live a more holistic life or in a more holistic way but what does it really mean to ‘live’ a holistic life?

Dictionary Definition of Holistic

If you want the dictionary definition holistic is described as a philosophy of full comprehension of the parts of something that are interconnected and explicable only by reference to the whole. Now, the medical definition is the treatment of the whole person, taking into account mental and social factors, rather than just the symptoms of a disease. Well, what does that really mean to us? How do we piece all of this together to help create a happier and more peaceful life?

But how do you define a holistic lifestyle?

A holistic lifestyle can be defined in many ways really, but simply put it is creating or finding ways to align your mental side of yourself (spirit and mind) as well as your physical body to work together as a whole creating harmonious peace and happiness.

The end goal would be to get to a point where any issues in these areas don’t hold you back and you’re able to find ways to cope, both in your mind and body. (I don’t like using the word ‘fix’. There are some things that cannot be fixed, it may end up being something we have to adapt to living with, and guess what? That’s OK.)

Holistic living

Holistic living is learning to understand and be able to view ourselves as having many dimensions, multiple factors can affect each layer of our mind and body. Developing a mind-body connection is probably one of the biggest things we must try to accomplish if we want to live a more holistic life full of peace and happiness. We have to learn, no matter how painful it can be at times, to be truthful with ourselves on how we really feel and what we need in our lives to adapt.

Here are just a few steps you can take (this is where I started) to start on your mind and body journey to a more holistic life:

• Eat healthier (no surprise here): start small, even adding in a healthy snack is a start. For me, I look for magazines at my local co-op that grabs my attention with beautiful, mouthwatering images and then I try a few recipes from the magazine over a month or two. Some suggest to pick one thing (dairy, gluten, sugar) to cut out of your diet, I tried this but it was hard to stick to so now I just take it one meal at a time.

• Exercise (again, no surprise): Make sure you find something you like to do. My suggestion would be to start with yoga (this may be biased 😊), there are so many variations to try, especially if you’re looking to really sweat. The Baptiste method is pretty intense at times. I followed their 40-day program, there are weekly yoga flows to get you started if you want to try with their method of teaching.

• Expand Your Mind: Find authors who emulate what you want to be or provide a more holistic/spiritual view. Currently, I’m reading “The Universe Has Your Back” By Gabrielle Bernstein.

• Meditate: This was hard for me at first but over time I’ve realized that it really does help open up the spiritual side of your being. YouTube has some great videos from 5 minutes up to hours. One I tend to use a lot is Calm but just search ‘mediation’ and you’ll have plenty to choose from

• Find Ways to Detox (naturally):
  • Lemon Water -This is an easy way to detox your body
  • Detox Tea – one of my favorites is this one by Republic of Tea
  • Stretching – there are a fair amount of stretches that can help you ‘ring’ out your organs, especially in yoga

Remember this is a lifestyle change so don’t expect the changes to happen overnight, this is something I have to remind myself of constantly still to this day.

But what makes one want to make a change?

For me I think it comes from misplacing your happiness, forgetting where your true happiness comes from and where it lies within you. We start to fill our lives with anything and everything to avoid this missing feeling of happiness and peace. Everything you do to fill the time only works for a bit and then we’re right back to being unhappy so we turn to something new. But when do you realize and fully accept, you’re at this point?

Until one realizes that it can’t be masked with things or tasks, you finally reach your breaking point or have an ah-ha moment. Unfortunately, everyone is different (sorry, I wish I had a better answer). For me, it was when I knew I was starting to enter the realm of depression again all while developing severe anxiety.

It’s taken a few years to peel back the layers, develop new ways to listen to my mind and body, and find these things that have helped me get to a more peaceful, happy place. Don’t get me wrong not every day is perfect, sometimes I lose my peace and happiness but it’s the fire to keep fighting that gets you to the other side. I’m always trying to find new things to add to this holistic journey that will make the next day a bit easier and open up new paths. Tomorrow is always a new day to start fresh, one day’s failures do not pave the path to an unhappy future. I’d love to hear what things have helped you, please let me know in the comments!

Wishing you love, light and inner peace babes ✌🌈✨💜

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