Simple Freedom – The Beginning of My Journey Into How to Simplify Life

deewilliamsWhen I was at the World Domination Summit, one of the speakers I found particularly inspiring (and hilarious!) was Dee Williams of Portland Alternative Dwellings and author of The Big Tiny. That’s her over there in the superhero cape (she absconded with a Delta airlines blanket). She gave an absolutely motivating talk on minimalism and choosing SIMPLE. She lives in a 84 square foot swelling – and LOVES it.

Listening to her describe the joy of selling her house and building her 84 sqft dwelling and loving every minute of it reminded me of the absolute contentment I felt when I lived out of my car for 7 years.

Everything I owned was in the back of my Volvo station wagon. My prayer flags were hung along the rear windows, and I’d fall asleep under the stars in a place like Joshua Tree, feeling so at peace knowing that all I needed was with me, and that I could go anywhere I pleased and do anything – climb, hike, raft…without having to pack;) I had no utility bills, no cell phone bill, no marketing deadline I had to meet.

I had a PO Box in Santa Cruz that I checked whenever I rolled into town. I forwarded my mail to strange and remote parts of the country if I knew I’d be there awhile. When I needed a shower, I always found one. People took me into their homes and fed me really good food and offered me to sleep in cotton sheets (cotton is so yummy when you’ve been in a sleeping bag most of the year).

Obviously, that’s a whole lot easier of a lifestyle to live in your 20s when you don’t have kids or own a home. However, I’d be amiss to say that having that feeling was impossible as an adult, with or without a family and/or a home.

I know there are nay-sayers who have the excuse that this isn’t possible once you “grow up” and have responsibilities. Our society accept stress and chaos as the norm. We argue that it’s a part of life in our society that we have to accept – most certainly if you’re a successful entrepreneur. But I’ve made a mistake.

In my own way, I’ve let myself get lost in that belief.

I lost sight of my goal – true SIMPLE freedom.

That FEELING of ease, contentment, relaxation along with freedom.

Despite all I have learned about creating freedom in life, I let myself believe that being a successful entrepreneur means being location independent at all costs, that I “have” to blog once a week, that I must have a constantly updated sales funnel, network at all times, and be interviewed on as many podcasts as I could.

I let myself believe that I wasn’t fully living unless I was learning EVERYTHING that I possibly could. Reading in all my free time – or listening to an audiobook or streaming a lecture. I filled every possible minute with something awesome, productive or geeky. I made myself So. Damn. Busy.

Then there’s the STUFF.

When I worked on my money mindset early on in my business (I grew up VERY poor and had to work on the whole money-is-evil thing) and accepted abundance into my life, I let it manifest as feelings AND things: a condo in Telluride at the base of the ski mountain, a home with killer views and an adorable sauna on the hill above the theaters in Ashland. Clothes made of delicious fabrics, a Subaru that was only a year old and Certified Used (I still can’t bring myself to buy a new car LOL;). Vacations where I’d not think twice about the cost. You get the idea.

It was in my mind that as long as I let these things flow and come into my life with ease, that my life would be full of ease as well. However…

My current experience (and I’m open to it changing) is that I was totally wrong.

The reality is, the more stuff you have and the longer your to-do list, the more you have to deal with – whether it’s with ease or not.

It doesn’t mean more stuff is “bad.” You all know me too well to think that I would judge abundance as bad. I’ve worked too hard on my mindset to let that happen;) It just means that whatever and whomever you allow into your life, you have to care for it.

And that takes energy.

This goes for people, things, thoughts…all of it.

When you have a relationship, you need to check in, create time to connect, compromise, talk about what to do for dinner, and have finance meetings. When you have kids you need to make lunches and drive them to school and events and talk to teachers and go to multiple birthday parties.

It means that when you have a condo in Telluride, even though you may put your mortgage and all bills on autopay, you still have to repair fans that break, replace deck furniture, or have someone shovel snow in the winter when you’re not there…

It means that when you have a house on the hill, you need to schedule your utility bill payments, fix plumbing leaks, keep up the landscaping. You need to flip your mattress and touch up the paint and get the moss off the roof.

When you have nice clothes you need to make sure to wash them on gentle cycle and pull out the ones that need to be hung to dry. You need to have hangers that don’t snag. You can’t trust your husband to do the laundry;)

The tchotchke around the house needs to be dusted and moved around to find things.

When you have a business, you need to keep the energy flowing and give and create and let the world know about it so you can help more people. When you have multiple programs and care for them immensely, you revisit them and improve them. This can all be fun – for me it IS.

Most of the time.

But it is really easy to let it get out of control as an entrepreneur. There are so many things you can keep doing, and the task is never done. I’ve watched so many videos about how to create a proper work day when you work from home/wherever you’re at, and taken workshops on time management, avoiding overwhelm, and how to create systems in your business.

And I implement what I learn. I delegate. I have a Virtual Assistant and people who help me do tasks at home. I…try my best.

Yet the bottom line is, running a business, having an abundance of things (even if they’re awesome!), traveling a ton – it takes effort to keep them going.

While all of these things are not bad (and are actually quite yummy!) they are not SIMPLE.

Some will say, “Let it be easy, Ana! What if you let it be easy and effortless?” I ask my coaching clients that sometimes. “What would happen if you just let this be easy?”

The reality is, it would be easier – but it would still be more stuff in my life that I had to care for – even if it was caring for it with more ease!

Again – more ease, but still NOT SIMPLE.

We are here on this beautiful planet with this one precious life (at least in this incarnation) and no matter how “easy” we can make something, the more you have to deal with, the less time you have to NOT deal with things. The less time you have to JUST BE. To stare at the clouds. To sit quietly with a friend.

multitasking Check out this really vulnerable photo I’m sharing of me below. It’s a photo of me breastfeeding, checking email on my iPhone, and looking something up in a book. I’m holding a pen in my mouth (I like to take notes) and while you can’t see it, I’ve got my computer open in front of me on a stand streaming a lecture. And my baby is like…6 weeks old.

None of this was anything I HAD to do. I planned for my maternity leave and pre-wrote emails and posts and had my VA helping me out on social media and with my groups. I LOVE learning and was taking this time to soak up more info, make the most of my time off, and geek out.

Something in me had deep FOMO (Fear Of Missing Out) and was not ok with simply BEING.

My husband took this photo and showed it to me with a joking smile. I laughed back.

I looked at it later and cried.

I had forgotten l’arte di non fare niente: the Italian saying for The Art of Doing Nothing. Hell, I even wrote a blog post about it once. And it was high time to tap into it again.

I wasn’t about to waste this precious time in my life with my new baby on catching up with my FOMO needs. I am so grateful my husband took this picture because it was a big ol’ bitch slap in the face about how present I was being in my life.I was doing cool shizzle, going to cool places, experiencing the miracle of birth and life…learning a TON too! Yet while all these are good things, it was too much.

Here’s the deal: you can earn more money – with ease – and have more yummy stuff – with ease – and do tons of amazing things, be location independent…

But in the end,

Freedom Is a Feeling (tweet this)

And for me, that feeling is supported by simplicity as well.

No matter what your life looks like on the outside – whether it is one filled with travels, adventures, financial abundance, location independence, or none of the above, if you don’t FEEL free, you aren’t.

photoThat’s why meditation and cleanses and spiritual practice are such an important part of my life. I constantly need to cultivate that inner freedom. Freedom from my own sh*t.

Many of you know about my Full-On 365 blog, where after another cancer scare I committed to living Full-On EVERY DAY for a year. It literally transformed my life.

So I stand before you today, fully aware of my need to bring back simplicity and presence into my life, and am committing to a deep process of simplification for the next year.

365lpgLet’s call it Simplify 365, shall we? 😉

I’ll be entering into simplification like I’ve never seen it before. Letting go of things, people, thoughts, and experiences that no longer serve me. I will get rid of many of my nice things – not because they are bad, but because I don’t want to have to take care of them anymore. And I will definitely chuck my not-so-nice things.

I will practice saying, “No” to all that doesn’t create flow and joy in my life. I will reign in my finances so that I understand them and they are easy to assess instead of not paying attention to things simply because it’s never been a big problem (the not knowing creates mental chaos that I need to undo!). I’ll lay out my crap in front of you so you can know that it IS possible to have true simple freedom too. For me, that’s the point of writing about it, after all.

I’ll be blogging about my journey regularly, sharing what Simplification goal I’ll set for that day or week or month, and let you know how I’m doing – my challenges, my successes, my embarrassing truths.

I’ll be using lots of tools as I learn more about how to simplify life: blogs and tips from masters of this art that have been practicing this consistently for years, books, interviews with Simplification masters…and YOU all, who I am sure have lots to offer me on this journey as well.

vulnerabilityBrené Brown inspired me to do this even more authentically when she said, “Vulnerability is the birthplace of innovation, creativity and change.” I’m bankin’ on it!

So feel free to join me on this latest adventure. Maybe it will inspire you to even join me with each challenge I set before myself – or create your own!

My first step? Getting rid of some of my nice things that take up too much energy:

I’m selling my condo in Telluride. At the base of the ski lift. Right on the river. On the top floor. In a crappy real estate market. Ouch. Stay-tuned to see how that goes…

Share your tips or challenges with simplification below – I can tell I’m going to appreciate any help and camaraderie I can get!

Stop Feeling Regret For The Mistakes You Made – a Freedom Junkie Guide

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Sometimes my brain freakin’ amazes me – in an annoying kind of way. Like, how can I go from writing my ecstatic post about all the epic shizzle I manifested in the last year, all the way to feeling guilty that I didn’t manifest a badass life sooner!?

I finally learned how to take off those “shit-colored glasses” (as my friend and client, Rivkah Wood, likes to say) and I think, “Oh wow! Look at this creative and wonderful life! The possibilities are endless! I can’t wait to everyone else to figure this out! Oh, and before I get too happy, let’s not forget all the ways I totally fucked up.”

Smack down!

Sometime in the last 48 hours, I began running through the many times I had hurt others in my life. It started with a seemingly remote situation when I was a kid and came home late because I was out with friends, only to find my cat killing my favorite pet hamster (I could have stopped it if I was home! And now I can only see her looking into my eyes as her last breath left her…). I know that sounds stupid to some, but I feel terribly guilty about that.

Then there was the time I was 16 and yelled at my dad even though he was having an acute schizophrenic episode (talk about proving his delusions!); the time my mom came all the way to visit me in the middle of winter and I treated her curtly and was, well, kind of mean because I was chronically sleep-deprived…and she cried; When I was a teen and I didn’t look my grandmother in the eyes and tell her how much I loved her before she died because, well, I didn’t know she was going to die that day, but I was also so freaked out about seeing her so sick and frail, and my boyfriend was waiting outside, and I thought I could come back later…

I remembered the time I “wasted” while figuring all this relationship stuff out, like when in my 20s and 30s and I was so unclear about what I wanted that I made really bad relationship decisions and totally broke hearts – things that I seemingly could have avoided if I had known better.

I feel guilty that I didn’t figure out detoxing and superfoods, the evils of big agriculture and the beauty of organics sooner – thinking about how maybe I could have prevented my cancers altogether, or felt more vibrant during more of my life, or cooked my family healthier meals…

Why didn’t I keep up my yoga practice longer when I discovered it at 18 years old? Why didn’t I keep up my meditation practice earlier, even when I knew how much my time in Nepal and India had radically changed my worldviews and how I related with others (as early as 19 years old!)?

Ahhhhh! Stop it already!

The reality is, it wasn’t DESPITE these screw ups that I learned to live full-on. It was BECAUSE OF them. Had I not made these mistakes, I think I may not have moved with such earnest towards personal and spiritual growth.

In Buddhism there are 7 realms (BTW they have a Hell realm too). One of the realms is the God realm. Everything is awesome. Everyone is beautiful, there are flowers and shit everywhere (the cool kind of “shit”), food is scrumptuous, people are in perfect health and live a LONG time (like, a bazillion years), and they have the luxury of time to play music, do yoga, have sex, do whatever you want!

“Kind of like California,” one Tibetan Lama said to me.

There is no pain and suffering…until dying begins. Then, after millenia go by in bliss, things are all perfect and they’re sniffing their flowers and being like, “Oh, this smells sooooo good!” and then all of a sudden, the flower starts to smell off…the flower wilts. Its color fades. The leaves droop. Now it smells like moldy socks. Things around them start to decay (all things are impermanent, after all). Their bodies get old. They feel aches and pains…and this shizzle goes on for a hella long time because time is soooooooo drawn out for them. It really, really sucks because they are slowly, slowly dying – and dying is their first experience of suffering. It overwhelms them.

We all die, and for the people in the God realm, dying for them is even more excruciating – mentally and physically. This is because they have never experienced suffering before, and therefore it is that much more … devastating. It brings people in the God realms to their knees, and beyond.

The human realm is considered ideal because we have the ability to use our suffering for growth, and to be acutely aware of the different aspects of reality, to use our senses and our mental faculties to transcend our limited perspectives and experiences. There are other reasons, but I won’t go into an “Intro To Realms” course here.

Bottom line is: Sometimes I made some big mistakes that could have been prevented. I. Know. That.

They happened..we all have them. We also have to have compassion for ourselves. We are all doing the best we can in any given moment.

I have been graced with the experience of taking off the shit-colored glasses and seeing the beauty and possibility and absolutely creative miracle of this world with clearer vision.

The world looks much, much better without them on. And yes, as a result, I can now also clearly see where things could have been done differently before. AND..

I am not going to let myself feel regrets for those mistakes.

If I didn’t learn from them, if I didn’t grow, THEN they would be mistakes worth regretting. But now that I have been through the fire and risen from the ashes  – again and again – I call them human mistakes.

I am sorry for anyone I hurt, any pain or suffering of another being that I could have helped to prevent. And I promise to never, ever do it again.

“Trying” not to do it again is bullshit, by the way. As Yoda says, “Do, or do not. There is no ‘try.'”

AND I will strive to improve the JOY, LOVE, and FREEDOM of all I come into contact with. That is the true Freedom Junkie way.

Deal? Can I stop feeling fucking guilty now? Alright already!

Now take off those shit-colored glasses and be happy. Really happy. You earned it, Badass!

Note: Ana Verzone is a Thrive Maximizer + Boredom Slayer + Mindset Alchemist. With her tribe of Freedom Junkies™ she helps passionate women awaken their lives of freedom, adventure and purpose with confidence, clarity, and focused action – from their cells to their spirit. Her monthly Ziji Up! eZine goes out to thousands of subscribers. If you are ready to take your life and your world to the next level, you can learn more about her coaching programs, schedule a free Strategy Session, and download her FREE Getting Clear Guide by visiting www,AnaVerzone.com

Do You Feel a Call to Adventure?

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“A ship is safe in harbor, but that’s not what ships are built for.” ~ William Shedd

One of the classic stages of the Hero’s Journey is the Call to Adventure, where a person stops living an average life, the separation from society and life as you know it begins, and shit starts to get interesting. And check this out: it’s not just meant for Luke Skywalker. This journey is meant for you as well.

You are not here on this planet to be bored, to sit in front of a TV watching other people living epic lives. You are not meant to be wasting moments of your precious life slaving away for someone else’s dreams. You are not meant to spend all your time indoors safe and cozy and totally comfortable in an insulated lil’ life. Au contraire, mon amie.

Sorry to break it to ya, but you are a ship built for adventure, and if you’re in harbor, you’re going to hear this calling pretty damn soon – if you haven’t already.

What does this “call” sound like? Well, according to Joseph Campbell, it’s like a phone ringing. Isn’t that convenient?

heros_journey4_8462Unfortunately, it’s not always what I’ve noticed. Sometimes this call is a bit – ahem – less pleasant than a ringtone. Sometimes, this call to adventure manifests as full-blown panic attacks, night sweats, low-level anxiety that has you feeling things are not as they should be…a restlessness that can’t be verbalized that has you feeling you are not living your life to the fullest…but you don’t know what else you’re supposed to do.

That’s what I’ve seen it feel like – in myself, in my clients, and even in movies! There’s this flick I totally stumbled upon called Wanted, with Angelina Jolie and James McAvoy, and this guy has panic attacks and medicates himself to keep them under control…but you end up learning that it stems from the fact that he isn’t living his purpose, which is as a gifted badass spiritual assassin of sorts. He had all these superpowers pent up inside, and they were telling him to let them the hell out – in the form of anxiety.

You can see this stage in every epic story, like the Star Wars series (in particular, Empire Strikes Back – my favorite!), the Matrix, Lord of the Rings…but what we forget is that ALL of us – yes, all of us mere mortals – are called to undertake the Hero’s Journey.

Have you been hearing this call but ignoring it? Or have you heard it and taken action? The Separation that occurs with the Call to Adventure can be kind of nerve-racking, to say the least. But the coolest part is knowing that it feels that way because things are about to change – for the better. You leaving harbor is always, always better – because THAT is what you are built for.

I’d love for you to share your thoughts about the Call to Adventure, Separation, and what YOUR ship is going to do once it leaves harbor below. I read all of it, so know I’ll respond to you!

Why Do-Overs Kick Ass

Fotolia_6075754_Subscription_L-200x133Regrets are brutal. They are energy vampires. Happiness slayers. Joy slammers.

The thing is – we wake up every day with the potential to start over! That cliché about “today is a new day” is totally true…even though you may want to throw rotten veggies at someone saying it to you in the moment. Here’s why:

When we feel regret about something – your last relationship, your birth experience, how you handled your last argument with your partner or friend – we can stay open to a time and space that feels similar to that moment/resonates with that moment. Then, we can see that moment of resonance with the past as an opportunity to create a new one. As my colleague, Dr. Claudia Welch, says, “That new space/time makes the old new again, and we are then allowed to have a ‘do-over.'” Really? Yes.

For example, I think about how lately I’ve been leaning more into my morning ritual, and making sure I prioritize it so that I start the day off fresh and inspired and grounded. This helps me feel at ease with all the mornings that I wasted away with lazily sleeping in (which, BTW, is perfectly fine if it doesn’t bother you or throw off your day!), gluten or wine hangovers, or ruminating about all my worries. I am making up for those big time, because my NEW mornings are infused with freakin’ magic, peeps. My mornings, even before a day filled with ho-hum errands, are started with epic spiritual refining and tuning-in.

I’ve been working with many of my clients in developing these morning rituals as well, and they are reporting massive results – more energy, more creativity, more groundedness, more juicy living. You see, mornings are energetically in alignment with the beginnings of our lives, and with every other new day in the past, so we can harness that and create a new experience and oust the regrets – every morning! In Ayurveda, this is particularly true, and this philosophy or health places a big emphasis on moments and transitions throughout the day. Each moment, each day, is so full of potential for changing how we experience life.

Think of how you start your days. Do you wake up at the last minute so you are rushing out of the house and spilling your tea or coffee everywhere? Do you lie in bed for minutes or hours putting off shit you need to get done? Do you feel foggy and sluggish because of eating unhealthfully or living a less-than-healthy lifestyle? You can indeed do it differently in the morning. And really, when you honor and reshape your mornings to a ritual that serves you best, you can honor and reshape your early life experiences too! Like childhood, birth, or other powerful beginnings like giving birth, starting a new stage in life, starting a new relationship. Cool, eh?

In Tibetan Buddhism there is a four-step formula for making amends with a regret (also applicable to apologizing). It involves:

  • recognize that either there was an experience you regret having had, or that perhaps you did something wrong – or let’s take the judgment out of it and change “wrong” to “something you weren’t so proud of”
  • sit with the feeling of remorse and regret so that you don’t half-ass it and have it lingering sneakily behind you for months or years. Feel it fully, knowing you can release it.
  • move into a place of compassion for yourself (and the person you’ve harmed if it is applicable). Notice the whole “compassion for yourself” part! Don’t skip over that! In fact, start with it.
  • then, set the intention that you won’t do it again and take a positive action. So if you stole something, you could give something away when you saw someone in need. If you hurt someone with aggressive language, you can more openly and quickly forgive someone for the same infraction and send them loving kindness.

The new moments that resonate with the old are perfect opportunities for taking this new, positive action.

But get this: not only is every day a new day, but every MOMENT is fertile with opportunity to create something new. Whatcha think about that?

What about the rest of your day? Do you spend your free time perusing other people’s successes and feeling bad about where you are at? Do you go to bed checking your email and thinking about all the shizzle you have to get done tomorrow? Do you say “I’m sorry” just for speaking or taking up space or asking for advice or help? These are all energy suckers!

You can instead examine why you are apologizing. You can examine why you are obsessed about everything you have to do tomorrow (what’s the story you tell yourself about what happens, or who it means you are, if you don’t get everything done?). You can examine why you are jealous about someone else’s success and are focusing on that instead of creating your own. Often the motivator is some kind of regret, and we just need to stop that living-in-the-past shizzle if we are going to move forward with a life of freedom! Create a NEW way of approaching things when those feeling come up.

If you regret something and it is taking over your mind, choose RIGHT NOW to do something to offset it. And when you find a moment that resonates particularly powerfully with a regret, make a strong intention that how you handle it will help you release the old regret.

Do-overs kick ass. Share with me how you are going to do-over something soon – or a way in which  you have already – by commenting below!

End Overwhelm. Slow is Sexy!

meditationgrass-200x133“Stop the glorification of busy” ~ Anonymous viral internet quote (ironically)

Let’s get this straight – you can kick ass, rock your life, have big adventures, AND know how to take it slow, savoring every moment.

In fact, if you haven’t figured it out yet, you’re going to need to learn, or else you’ll burn out before you ever get to truly enjoy the fruits of your blood sweat and tears.

Trust me – I’ve been on the fast train a whole lot, whether it was jetting around to 22 countries a year or practically living in the hospital delivering babies because I thought it was the coolest thing ever (it IS pretty cool;). I love to stay up late and create, and I love to dance and sweat under the full moon until the sun rises.

But I can’t keep it up forever. Especially now that I’m 40, and life demands more from me than in previous life stages – in a good way!

If you’re only in your 20s, don’t waive this off as something to think about “later.” Trust me: you need to get this now too. And better sooner than later, because that way you’ll be able to rock it more fully for longer!

Let’s take a look at the woman many people admire these days: She gets up at 5am and runs 6 miles before work, power-houses it at the Corporation whilst slugging down her green juice, squeezing in a lunchtime yoga session and munching down a salad, then comes home after an hour in traffic, makes dinner, pounds out a presentation for the deadline, and hits the sack at 11pm, thoughts spinning about the next day and feeling happy, healthy, and strong, albeit exhausted.

Or if that isn’t your style, maybe you admire the woman who is on the vagabond road, perpetually traveling and adventuring and making the most of every moment, never sleeping in the same place for more than one night, not having an address or even cookware because she doesn’t have a kitchen. Or a home. Or a consistent community. But man, she is doing cool shit. And drinking whisky while she’s at it. Her motto? Sleep when you die. And she is obsessed with never, ever missing out. On anything. FOMO (Fear of Missing Out) to the wazoo0ith degree. Yes, I made that word up.

Oh wait – that was me for few decades…

In any event, I bet these scenarios seem pretty sexy to a lot of you. This kind of sexiness sells. You’ve seen the corporate version of these “high-energy” women in TV shows like Grey’s Anatomy, Private Practice, Bones, and The Good Wife. Angelina Jolie is a role model for many young women, and manages to look hot, save the world, fly a plane, and have too many kids for me to remember. And spend a ton of time in Africa and other exotic continents between sex scenes.

Go go go and WIN! It’s what our society admires – having it all. At full speed ahead. And there’s nothing wrong with that, per se

The problem is, this isn’t sustainable. And that’s OK too – it doesn’t need to be sustainable. For the most part, if you take care of yourself, you are able to handle bursts of manic creativity and adventure. But the operative phrases are “if you take care of yourself” and “bursts” (not years of it).

I know women like the ones described above, and obviously I’ve lived like that too. And guess what? It catches up. You get a bunch of colds. You feel “foggy-headed,” or groggy. You have less energy and are constantly tired. You feel like you’re always “fighting off something.”

Or maybe you really let it get out of control and you get an auto-immune disease. You become bitchy. You gain weight, become an emotional eater. Or you lose too much weight. Feel chronic pain. Your hormones get out of whack. You act impatient. You have digestive problems and feel bloated and fart a lot. You have trouble sleeping. Your skin breaks out. And if you wait until menopause to get this figured out, this “transition” will particularly kick your ass.

Or in my case, maybe you get cancer. Twice, because you didn’t figure it out the first time.

For those of you who have been following me for awhile, you may remember the posts in my FullOn365 blog. There, after a second cancer snafoozle, I aspired to live every day Full On for an entire year. You’d think it was an exhausting year full of adventure after adventure. But an important lesson was that it became more about being fully present, fully IN whatever it was that I was doing, that made things feel FULL ON. It was less about what I was doing and more about how I was being – capiche?

Can you really have it all? Well, it depends what you mean. I believe you can have it all – just maybe not all at the same time.

So how can you have it all and balance it so you don’t burn out?

Here are 6 Tips for Ending Overwhelm:

1) Balance out having it all by prioritizing what is most important to you.

We need to be clear about what we want and what’s important to us: get clear about what’s important. If you haven’t yet, download my free Ultimate Getting Clear Guide from my website – the form to receive it is in the sidebar. It’s a great place to start! Also, check out this article I wrote on how to prioritize.

If we want to travel the world and save up for a house, which is the most pressing desire right now? Choose that. You can have the other as well, just maybe in a bit. And in the meantime, you can create a situation where you can try to make money WHILE traveling the world and have your cake and eat it too. But if you travel and spend, the fact that you aren’t saving for your house will wear at you in the back of your mind and eventually lead to overwhelm, exhaustion, and low self-esteem.

2) Address your highest priorities FIRST in your day.

If you know that to stay healthy and sane you need to sleep 8 hours, meditate for at least 10 minutes, and get in 20 minutes of yoga at a minimum, you better be dammed sure you schedule everything ELSE around those three things. As the article here describes, its nice to have 3-5 very clear things that you make as your priorities each day. They don’t have to just be self-care things either. They can be a passion project or a hobby.

Hint: at least a few of those things should be self-care though;)

3) Use your best energy time-of-day for yourself.

That means that if your best energy is in the morning, you do your self-care practices in the morning. If you are at your best in the evening, you make sure to do something lovely for yourself then too. Your work and caring for other people also flow well when you are in your energetic “zone,” but you need to prioritize yourself as well during this time. YOU deserve your best first. This will pay off in the end, so you don’t half-ass meeting your soul’s needs – or the needs of those you care about.

4) Make yourself go to bed early. You need it to replenish your energy – even if it feels like you don’t.

By that I mean early enough to feel refreshed the next day – whatever that is for you. If you don’t wake up feeling alert and awake, you’re not resting enough (or you need to detox, but that’s another topic we’ll address as we get closer to our next cleanse). Unless you are one of those Tibetan monks who can enter Stage IV deep sleep while meditating and remaining alert of your surroundings, you do need to sleep, gorgeous. Seven to eight hours a night. Sorry;)

5) Take naps if you need to so that don’t need stimulants later in day.

Sleeping enough will also help with this. You can get in a 20-min power nap at lunch for in that afternoon slump between 2-5pm if you have to.

Being tired in our culture is funny. If we’re hungry we’ll eat, if we’re thirsty we’ll drink, but if we’re tired we wonder, “What’s wrong?” Nothing’s wrong! You simply need to rest. “I can’t nap!” you may think. Well, if you’re tired. Simply lie down because that alone helps your body rejuvenate.

6) Avoid decision overload. Create routines!

This can, and will be, a blogpost in and of itself. We make so many decisions – like 30 decisions in only 5-10 seconds of being on Internet. Where do I click, where do I scan the page, which article do I pay attention to, how do I close that popup? Just look at the decisions we make around food and how often we think about and plan for meals and snacks – let alone making decisions around what the people who will be eating with us will need!

Having routines decreases the number of decisions we have to make. Simplify your menus, have a regular bedtime, create a morning routine that is non-negotiable (for the most part;)

People who make good decisions formulate life so they have to make fewer of them. They set up routines and clear boundaries and have clarity about what they want – and don’t want.

Hint: Make decisions after breakfast and lunch because decisions use so much energy and glucose that we actually make better decisions after having eaten.

OK, peeps! That’s 6 tips for now. Let me know below what works for you to help end overwhelm. The more tools we can have – and share – the better!

 

Want more? Sign up for my free Jedi Juice call this month: Slow is Sexy – End Your Overwhelm and the Glorification of Busy

Urban Wellness Club – enrollment opens in November for 2019!

Next Enrollment Opens Fall 2019!

What’s all the fuss about?

If you’re anything like me, you’ve been frustrated at knowing that you need to make certain changes to achieve your ultimate level of wellness, but it can seem overwhelming to put it all into action.

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  • You know what you could be eating to be more healthfully.
  • You know you should be moving your body more
  • You know you need to stop your toxic thinking and get out of your own way
  • You know your body can heal itself if you just gave it what it needed to do it’s job
  • You know you are destined to feel energetic, confident, and freakin’ inspiring to others.
  • Yet all that is pretty hard to do when you are busy…or easily distracted…or too tired…or too much of any of the myriad reasons we have for putting off the important things in our lives.

You don’t need the Urban Wellness Club because you are clueless or because you are lazy.

You need it because you are a mindful, health-conscious woman who has a life you’d rather not spend wasting on researching the internet for the right answers.

You need what every successful wellness warrior has:

  • a sisterhood of support and community
  • simple tips you can implement right away, and help weed through all the overwhelming information
  • ongoing inspiration to keep you motivated and excited about your wellness and lifestyle (boredom is such a buzzkill…)
  • a Holistic Coach for reliable info, inspiring updates, and no-B.S. accountability
  • and some badass science to help you trust in your decisions

It’s these things that will help you take the steps necessary to catapult your health and wellness to the next level, and to introduce you to new and exciting topics to keep you motivated and stimulated to continue on with your wellness path!

That’s where the Urban Wellness Club comes in.

…But hey, you’re going to have to hang in there a bit…

Stay tuned while we update the program for 2019 – it’s gonna be fan-freakin’-tastic!

12 Things More Important Than Being in the Best Shape of Your Life

Fotolia_8429735_Subscription_L-194x130You know when people are about to turn 30, or 40 (or 50 for that matter), and they say, “This year, I want to be in the best shape of my life!”? I know I said it when I was turning 30…

What is that about, anyway?

It seems like many people with that goal are trying to prove they aren’t getting older. In hindsight, I probably need to admit that’s what I was doing. Like, “See! It’s just years! But really I am traveling BACK in time to back when I was in better shape than I am now…but even better than that, ya know?”

So they end up striving for – and maybe even achieving – that level of fitness. People can definitely achieve that goal – Supah Fit {Older-But-Improved} Badass. I remember a coach at a public school in Menlo Park, CA who ran a mile for every year of his life on his birthday. Yes, that means he ran further as he got older, and that guy was up to 62 miles or something when I last heard. That just seems mean – to your body.

But then what? What happens one you’ve arrived at that goal, if you ever do? Usually people aren’t able to sustain it at that level. It takes effort of epic proportions to travel back in time. And they are still 30, 40 or 50 anyway. In the end, you do get older, and your body can only take so many miles before your knees hurt, carry so many packs before your back aches or your muscles get strained. It’s part of this being-born-in-a-body thing. There’s only so much we can do. Sigh…

Having said that, you can feel great as you get older. That is a given, and it’s why I do yoga and move and treat my body well. But it seems that it really shouldn’t be about being in the best shape OF YOUR LIFE.

I heard humans may soon live to 120 or something. That means people will be playing this game in their 70s at some point. Seriously, peeps?

I understand the desire to have a fire lit under you to get in shape if you’ve let things slide. Most people move less when they are older because there are more things they have to do than go out and adventure and move – like clean the gutters, call insurance companies, mail packages, drive the kids to soccer practice or go to work and be inside for 1/3 of the day. In our earlier years we could play a lot more, and that kept us in better shape by default. Plus with increased stress we eat like crap and our body stores fat more easily, which doesn’t help the situation of not moving much.

BUT, if you’re one of those who wants to be in the best shape of your life, I challenge you to look at that goal from a different angle. For most, it doesn’t seem filled with much self love. It seems filled with criticism of who they are right now. That whomever they are right now is not enough.

And that is bad juju. Again, I am not saying to NOT have that goal, but rather I ask that you really look at the motivation behind it, because if you don’t have the self-love and self-ACCEPTANCE yet, nothing is going to make you feel better about yourself in a sustainable way.

Anywhooo…I almost fell into that trap. Hell, I used to be a climbing guide. I have that complex every freakin’ YEAR!

I actually had the time to achieve the best-shape-of-my-life goal this year. I only work 1/2 the year. And I live in Alaska where adventures and workouts – and the adrenaline freaks who egg you on – abound. But then guess what? I realized that turning 40 meant more to me than being in the best shape of my life. And I gave myself permission to feel that way.

I realized I have earned the wisdom to let go of all the crap that used to hold me back (yes, even after ALL this work, I still manage to get in my own way sometimes;), AND I earned the wisdom to want the things that will TRULY make me happy. Not just those things that prove I can travel back in time and beyond and have some mega-bod.

[typography font=”Cantarell” size=”24″ size_format=”px” color=”#ff00ff”]Here is what I’ve learned to want more than that[/typography] , because these things give me more FREEDOM – and that is what we’re all on this blog for, right?

1. Total love and acceptance of our body and of our being, who you truly are, the woman you’ve become, the mistakes you’ve made and the love you have shared. Your bitch-slap mode. All of it. Acceptance does not mean settling, though! (More on that another time) Letting go of guilt and Saying “No” falls under this as well. Guilt is a big freakin’ waste of time! Trust me. Don’t even argue. And when you can say “No” as part of loving yourself, no guilt is necessary. In fact, saying “No” helps you be more available and present to the things that really matter to you – like the people you love. So when you say no, it means you have more energy to say “Yes!” to something else.

2. Clarity and Ditching “Maybe.” If it isn’t a “Hell Yes!” it’s a “Hell No!” One of my coaches taught me this a LONG time ago. While it can be easy to turn away from things that obviously suck, it is much harder to walk away from a “Maybe.” Like a “maybe” relationship, or a job that “isn’t horrible,” for example. When we have clarity, what is a Hell Yes! to us becomes more obvious, as well as the Hell Nos! This makes decisions easier to make, and it is much more easy to flow into being in alignment in all parts of your life: your values, goals and dreams, the environment you are in, your career, your relationships…they are congruent with one another. This life alignment is what contributes to total and full happiness! And it starts with knowing what to say “Yes” to, and what to say “No” to.

3. Forgiveness Superpowers. The ability to forgive is so freeing! It pisses me off when I can’t forgive someone whom I know is truly sorry. This is a skill worth cultivating during your entire lifetime.

4. Low tolerance for toxicity  – Don’t put up with toxic people, places, thoughts, emotions, and things. I move away from these things more easily now.

5. Prioritizing my values and the people I love – and let the rest of life work its way around what is really important to me. When you prioritize the top 5-6 things that are truly important to you, you WILL have time for them all. Life will fall into place around it (read my blopost here about how to do this and why it’s completely true – I shizzle you not)

6. Healthy and passionate sex life. What can I say. It’s the glue that holds things together when the going gets tough. And when I don’t have that, I am in a very, very bad mood.

7. Connect with other people’s hearts, because otherwise I am pretty bored. I can go for a few months of just paying attention to myself, but eventually, I have to light up someone else’s life so that they can see how amazing it is to be ALIVE. Connecting with people authentically is a great way to light them up. Which brings me to my next point:

8. Authenticity as a mantra. This is me, baby. What you see is what you get. If I didn’t say I’m pissed at you, I’m not. If I say I am annoyed, you better believe it. If I say I love you, I mean it. I don’t throw that “love” phrase around. It means that in that moment, a huge welling up of love is happening, and I have to tell you or I just might explode. This authenticity means I cry easily sometimes. Well, a lot, actually. It means I cry when something is gorgeous, when something is devastating, when something is incredibly moving and blows my freakin’ mind. It means I laugh loudly and fully and you may want to wear earplugs. It means I am most honest with myself. (To get your Authenticity on, check out this month’s Jedi-Juice call).

9. Adventure and Freedom. Daily. I get bored otherwise. I can tolerate it coming every other day, but daily is ideal. That’s one of the reasons my soul mate is so amazing. He is pretty good at having adventures every day – big or small, inner or outer adventure – doesn’t matter to me. Just don’t let me get bored! And keep me excited and stimulated. Traveling is pretty good at fulfilling this need for me too;) And forget about having to ask permission to do things all the time. I want control over my time, money, and energy. I – like you – am a bona fide Freedom Junkie.

10. Movement and playing outside. More than being in the best shape of my life, I want to move. Move a lot. Play a lot. Move and play outside in the mountains, preferably. Move my body all sorts of ways, like when I do yoga, or do #6, or see a trail leading to somewhere new and I just need to peep around the corner…

11. Love fully, live compassionately. I sleep better that way. Live each day wanting others to be utterly ecstatic, and free from whatever is causing them suffering. Living compassionately means giving other the people the benefit of the doubt, even when it might be more convenient to chalking things up to them being an asshole. Trying to be joyful – instead of jealous – when someone manifests abundance in their life. This is part of becoming truly happy.

12. Healthy food and air and water and home. Because when I don’t have those things, I don’t have the energy to create all the things I’ve already mentioned above. It’s not about health – it’s about what health allows you to do! And be;)

Being fit is still important to me (that photo is me at 40! Heading off to climb the highest peak in Mongolia). But when I look at the milestone year of turning 40, it is not the utmost important thing on my list. And I certainly don’t feel the need to be more fit that when I was climbing mountains in the Himalayas. I’ve got some other mountains to climb.

If you still want to be in the best shape of your life, go right on ahead! I still exercise regularly and eat well and cleanse and work on my stress level … all that jazz. Just be sure to add some of the things I mentioned that may have resonated with you too, OK? It will be more…graceful that way. And be sure to love, LOve, LOVE who you are RIGHT NOW, no matter what. That’s the place to start.

What have you found to become more – and less – important to you as you’ve gotten older? Pray do tell below…

 

How to Make Sure You Don’t EVER Have The Top 5 Regrets of the Dying

This is not a morbid discussion. Au contraire, mon amie – this is about LIVING fully, living with so much juice that you go to bed thinking, with a smile on your face, “If I died right now, I would have no regrets.” And you sleep wickedly well so you could have another awesome day tomorrow. This topic is far from being about death. It is about living life Full On.

I had a big wake-up call when I was diagnosed with cancer – twice. It made me rethink my priorities, assess my life, and dive into my soul to do some deep work. The clarity I received around having death approach me a little too close for comfort was exquisite. However, no matter how scary cancer might have been – and still is in many ways – it is nothing compared to actually dying, especially knowing you are dying. It also means that the clarity received while knowing you are dying is that much more vivid. And we should pay attention to that.

It’s not uncommon in Tibetan Buddhism to hear that we are all dying, actually – the process starts immediately after we are born. None of us know when we will die – we just know for sure that we will, no matter how much green juice we drink, or how mach safety gear we wear when we are out playing our extreme sports, or how many risky things we avoid. Still, it is often easy to forget about this (or ignore it).

As a society, we often avoid thinking about death so that we can pretend it won’t happen to us. We may think that by thinking about it, it will happen sooner. Or that if we don’t think about it, it won’t happen. Or that if we think about it, we’ll get all sad and depressed.

The goal of reflecting on death is NOT to get all nihilistic and say, “So what’s the point?” But in case you DO head down that path, the POINT, my dear badass, is to remember that this life is precious life, so we must live it balls-out, full on, with wild abandon, and honoring your heart and soul, celebrating this preciousness with others.

The goal of reflecting on the Top 5 Regrets of the Dying is to realize that THESE are the issues that become most important to you when you review your life, your accomplishments, your challenges. Take it from the people who have gone there – to death and beyond – and don’t wait to start addressing these things now.

In one of my last posts, I spoke about how change is a Universal Law. That totally applies here. Change – and its counterpart, impermanence – is the only constant. The only thing we know is that things change and don’t last, including us! So we need to use this realization NOT to bog us down, but to motivate us to get off our ass and head outside to gaze at the moon, and hell, howl at it while you’re at it!

The Top 5 Regrets of the Dying were recorded by Bronnie Ware, a palliative care nurse in Australia. She cared for people in the last 3 months of their lives, and suffice it to say, making more money, climbing Mount Everest, or having a threesome were NOT on the list. Look over these regrets and know that you want to do things differently right NOW, so you don’t have to worry about these.

1. I wish I’d had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me.

:: Freedom Junkie Antidote: Cultivate your Ziji (= radiant inner confidence!). Follow your dreams, GO FOR IT! Take care of your body so you are healthy enough to fulfill your dreams. It’s not about health – it’s about what health allows you to DO. Get clear about what is important to you and exactly how you want your life to be. If you don’t know where to start, download my free eBook, “The Freedom Junkie’s Ultimate Guide to Getting Clear” (you can find the form on the sidebar). When you are clear about what you want, it is much easier to cultivate the courage to do what it takes to get it;)

2. I wish I hadn’t worked so hard.

:: Freedom Junkie Antidote: This is most common with the breadwinners of a household. Make the time so you don’t miss your kid’s birthdays, milestones, and the precious smaller moments. Instead of saving up your vacation time for “one day, ” or worse yet, hoarding your vacation time for when you “might” get sick someday, take time to enjoy life! I love Tim Ferriss’ idea of taking mini-retirements and not waiting until you are 65+ to have any fun. Re-think about how you can simplify your life so you have more TIME instead of more STUFF. And when you have that time, use it to develop quality memories and experiences!

3. I wish I’d had the courage to express my feelings.

:: Freedom Junkie Antidote: Don’t suck it up just so you don’t rock the boat. If you don’t honor your needs, you will end up bitter and resentful and tolerating things instead of actively creating your life. While it isn’t useful to complain or bring people down, it is powerful to ask for what you want, make requests, and express yourself in a healthy way. Only then can others know what may be going on for you, and those who truly care about you will step up. Those who don’t? Move on.

4. I wish I had stayed in touch with my friends.

:: Freedom Junkie Antidote: We are social beings, and people with a strong sense of community are happier AND live longer. We all know how wonderful it feels to be acknowledged for who we are, and it can sometimes be easy to forget how good it feels to honor OTHERS in our lives that have given us so much. We can often think about how important it is to forgive people and to not hold grudges. However, it is just as – if not more – important that we let others know how much they mean to us. Stay in touch with your tribe, and let them know {frequently} what they mean to you. Make the time to be with them and love on them.

5. I wish that I had let myself be happier.

:: Freedom Junkie Antidote: I am going to say something rather controversial (so what’s new, right?). Check this out: Happiness is a Choice. If you’re in a  funk, you can choose to be happy like THAT ** dramatic SNAP**  I’m not saying you “should” do that. I am a huge fan of letting crappy feelings wash over me so I can move through them sooner. What I am referring to here is making a choice to be happy when sitting in the funk no longer serves you. Don’t be attached to old patterns and habits that lead to your suffering. Don’t be afraid of change – look towards it fiercely! Lean into your joy and your dreams. If you are a pessimist, learn how to be optimistic (you can actually do this!). Don’t worry about looking cool or that being too easy to please is the sign of a dork or simpleton. Be THRILLED at things that are new and good. Clap. Dance! Howl. Twirl! Skip. Yeehaw! Feel your happiness fully. It’s the coolest – and sexiest – thing ever.

I know that because you are a part of the Freedom Junkie tribe, you will look over these 5 things and take some action around them. But what your own personal regrets?

What is one of your biggest regrets right now?

What’s one thing you can do to help release it?

If you want some help with this, schedule a free strategy session with me ASAP and let’s get you unstuck. Pronto.

Happy But Can’t Stop Worrying About When the Other Shoe Will Drop?

Fotolia_8597771_Subscription_L-133x200Yeah, I know that feeling. You are definitely not alone. Let me share with you a Universal Truth (for realz – a Universal Truth!) that will chance your whole perspective about this whole worrying-when-life-is-awesome thing.

But first – what the hell does that phrase mean anyway? Did shoes used to drop out of the sky for no reason when you were happy?

I actually looked it up. It seems to stem from a very old story about a traveler who would drop his shoe loudly on the floor when taking it off, thus waking the person sleeping in the room below him. Then, the person below would lie away annoyed and waiting for the other shoe to drop so he could release his anxiety and fall back asleep. Apparently the traveler was not so nice and would lay the second shoe down gently knowing it would keep the other guy awake as he waited for the other shoe to drop. How sinister!

In any event, the point is we have a tendency to think something bad will happen when things are going really well. You’re in love, you are enjoying your job, you are feeling healthy and fit, you look freakin’ awesome in those new jeans, and you think, “Shit, I’m feeling so good. But this isn’t going to last…”

And you’re probably right about that.

I say this NOT to buzzkill you, but to remind you of the truth that the only constant in this world is CHANGE! Nothing stays the same. When you feel blissed-out like, “Wow today was AMAZEBALLS!,” you will eventually have a day where you feel more like, “Eh, today was just alright.”

The cool thing is the converse is also true. When you feel awful, the world does light up again. Nothing EVER stays the same. EVER.

Ultimately, I think we feel this “waiting for the other shoe to drop thing” because we know the Truth of the Universe – that things are constantly changing – yet we get attached to wanting them NOT to change.

That’s where the suffering starts. When we get attached to what’s going on expecting it not to change.

The suffering that comes along with attachment and thinking it is possible for things to never change happens in regards to good feeling and bad feelings.

It happens when we are in the depths of despair and get even more depressed thinking that we may always feel this way and can’t find a way out.

It also happens when we are attached to feeling good, hoping it will never end – and then get even more bummed when it does.

Here’s the thing – even though things change, we don’t have to get all nihilistic about it. This is not a reason to say to yourself, “Ah what the hell. Why bother enjoying this awesomeness? It’s not going to last.” Nor is it a reason to perseverate on when things are going to change.

The solution to this issue of waiting for the other shoe to drop is to be in the present moment. To stay in the now. When you start worrying about when the bad thing is going to happen, tell yourself, “Whoa, Nellie! Is there a shoe on my head? No! So I am going to stay fully present in this moment and enjoy it. Enjoy it fully!”

Ask yourself, “What is going on RIGHT NOW?” Oh! Check it out! I’m feeling good!

The more you are able to be fully present with yummy juicy feelings, the more you are able to stretch them out in time, perceive them as lasting longer in that Einsteinian-time-warping kind of way. And who knows – it may be a REALLY long time before that feeling changes, so there’s no need to brush it aside with worry. If things are bound to change, you might as well have an awesome time while they are amazeballs, RIGHT?

And if you’re feeling down, know that this too will change. ‘Tis the law of the Universe, yo!

Please do share below about your experiences with the fear that shoes will start falling when you’re happy. I always read and respond! And I want my tribe to get REALLY good at enjoying life’s juiciness when it’s going on;)

Freedom Junkie Tips for How to Stay Healthy On the Road

The secret of your future is hidden in your daily routine. ~ Mike Murdock

If you’ve been reading my previous blog posts, you may know that when I returned from over two months in Africa this past winter, I felt – well – gross. I felt soft and squishy, low-energy, bloated, stopped up, and quite irritable.

I arrived back to the states utterly spent, and not in the I’ve-climbed-a-mountain-and-earned-my-gluten-free-beer kind of way. It was more like a, “Holy shizzle, my body hates me” kind of way.

I had spent tons of time on my butt (literally) riding on trains and in the back of pickup trucks and on painful plywood benches for hours on end. The parts of Africa I was visiting on this latest trip had minimal access to veggies and fruit, and I found mostly gluten and potatoes to eat. I had to treat my water with nasty chemicals if there wasn’t plastic water bottles (yuck!) to purchase, and drank a cold African beer (or three) daily to take the edge off the rough travel.

It wasn’t appropriate for me to hike by myself in many areas, let alone go running (my “exercise” of choice) when it was either 40 degrees Celsius or when I’d be prey for the lions. We got in some peak climbs and hikes, but as you know – it’s not what we do once in awhile that brings us health – it’s what we do daily.

Every day, amigos. It’s our habits and what we do every day that counts.

I had brought with me my greens powder, which saved my cells and kept my bowels a-movin’ on this trip. I also had digestive enzymes with me. But my body could only take so much before manifesting things like a rounder belly, softer muscles, less energy, a grumpy attitude, and jet lag that lasted an entire month.

We did amazing things and had epic adventures – that’s for sure (read here for blogposts about gorillas (primate and human kind) and other adventures there). But if you’re anything like me (which if you’re human, you are), then you need some basic things like exercise/movement and quality food to feel good in the long run.

And if you travel to places like I do, you know that most places you will be staying in won’t have gyms, and many cultures you are visiting don’t take kindly to westerners running around in skimpy clothes, profusely sweating on purpose – especially if you are a woman.

As I planned our next adventure to Mongolia, where we’ll be able to be more active while packrafting, hiking and the like, I came up with some ways to avoid coming back feeling like crud. I know better than to think that travel in a developing country won’t tax my body just because it’s not Africa, and just because we’ll be more active.

Yes, I did know a lot of these things before our recent trip, but apparently I forgot – or didn’t take the time to prepare more health-related things – because, well, I do stupid things like that sometimes;)

Here are my tips for healthy travel – and this applies for dirtbag  and budget travel trips where you are mostly camping and hosteling, as well as for those of you traveling a bit more on the plush side.

Note: I do mention specific products because inevitably I get a slew of emails asking which ones I prefer myself. So I’m just going to tell you up front! But do know that there are lots of options out there. These are simply the ones I have personal experience with. You should experiment with what works best for you too! And if you think of things not mentioned here, please add them in the comment below and keep us all in the loop.

[typography font=”Cantarell” size=”24″ size_format=”px” color=”#e31ce3″]20 Freedom Junkie ® Tips for Staying Healthy on the Road[/typography]

1. Pack a Greens Powder. This is super important. When traveling to developing countries or on a busy itinerary, eating fresh vegetablesgreenvibrancecan be challenging, or even sketchy. Bring a container of it – enough for a serving or two a day – in something lightweight like a plastic tub with screw top, or a bomber ziploc bag that you can also double-bag for security. I like Green Vibrance, and Hungry For Change has also come out with one that seems healthy too. Kris Carr raves about Amazing Grasses. They all taste…questionable, but I consider them medicinal anyway;)

While it looks questionable in a plastic baggie, I’ve never had problems with it at customs or at security.

2. Bring Digestive Enzymes. To go lighter weight, I like the Advanced Enzyme System by Rainbow Light because you only need to take one capsule with a meal (as opposed to two or three of the less-potent brands). I also like Advanced Enzyme Optima because it has probiotics and enzymes in one. These will help your digestive tract stay healthier and you’ll feel less bloated and gassy eating strange foods. Maybe;)

While Probiotics are awesome, it is admittedly hard to keep them cool enough while traveling. Ones that need refrigeration are out of the question, but even the ones that can survive room temperature won’t be able to survive the temps you may encounter on your travels – like when you have to put your bag in the back of the pickup under the blazing sun for 10 hours.

3. Have an exercise routine you can do in the space that a yoga mat would take up. This doesn’t mean you’d necessarily need a yoga mat (read further for more options), but it means you need to be able to move in limited space. That way you know you’ll be able to exercise between the two beds in your room, or on that small patch of poop-free grass near your camp.

Even if you will be doing some hiking or other activity on your trip, unless it is full-on expeditioning, you will likely be missing out on some major muscle groups, so it’s nice to have a daily full-body routine you can do no matter what. If I had to pick one, I’d say a flow type of yoga. But on longer trips, I also like to add in a few more creative things.

A good way to do this if you want to mix things up is to have workouts downloaded onto your iPhone or iPad/reader, which saves weight. Yes, even DVDs add up!

I prefer to have some options that don’t require WiFi or other internet access since that is still hard to come by most places I go. Some programs I’ve tried out and think would work well are:

P90X – The P90X-Fitness-Guide90-day program is about $130, and the optional iPhone App is about $4. Get to know the DVD workout before you go on your trip, then bring your iPhone with you for a varied workout every day. I like to travel lightly, so I wouldn’t personally bring the DVDs. However, if you are simply doing a weekend trip, the DVDs may not cramp your style at all!

Yoga Audios I downloaded these six classes from Baron Baptiste’s site and found them to be decent for not requiring internet access to watch them. There are single class audios you can purchase as well.

Yoga Journal just came out with digital video and audio downloads as well. I haven’t tried them, but Yoga Journal is pretty solid as a company and the instructors on many of the items are awesome.

If you have access to wifi/internet, try:

YogaGlo Has videos of real live classes from Santa Monica, and Jason Crandall apparently has a great travel yoga sequence posted as well!

My Yoga Online Classes from various studios around the country

Yoga Vibes Lots of Vinyasa classes

Those are just a few. Explore and see which you vibe on better. The ones above are the ones I’ve tried and liked. If you have more suggestions, please share them with the tribe below!

4. Did I say to pack light? Yes, pack light. My husband is king at this. In 2011 he went to West Africa a few weeks before I met up with him there, and when I dropped him off at the airport he had a small black nylon satchel, and that was it. It weighed maybe 5 pounds, and most of that was the Lonely Planet book. I followed after him with my own 8lbs (I get 3 extra pound for girlie stuff;), and I believe our shelter and small kitchen setup was about 4lbs on top of that. The pic of my pack is below, which weighed 12 pounds total.

my light pack for months in Africa
my light pack, sufficient for months in Africa

It makes the biggest difference, especially on hard travel days. Your Freedom Junkie back will love you for it, and when you are hot and sticky, nothing can bum you out more than having to schlep through a polluted town with a big ass bag on your back. And try running after a departing bus, or squeezing onto the back of a pickup with 20 other people with a beast on your back. Not fun.

And you’ll look funny.

It is much easier the lighter you can go. You’ll fit in more with the locals too, as they tend to also pack lightly, and you’ll be much happier in the long run. Plus, you won’t be as disheartened when you realize your guest house is 1 mile further than where you had the truck drop you off.

My friend Roman Dial, a lightweight guru, has been said to espouse three rules of lightweight packing:

  • need less. And I mean “need.” We all think we need things, but when you’re huffing it up a hill on a sweltering day after you’ve had diarrhea, you’re going to wonder if you really needed that hardcover novel.
  • share (even toothbrushes if you’re getting serious, yo!)
  • utilize technology (like titanium pots and pans, lightweight and high-tech clothing, dehydrated food)

And in that order.

sheltersystemthumbfCheck out Hyperlight Mountain Gear as well, which I think makes totally epic lightweight gear. Shazaam! Their shelters are amazingly light. Remember that you compromise durability with such extremely lightweight gear, so you must be vigilant about taking care of your shizzle.

One thing to keep in mind is that uber-light travel is much easier in warm paces (like West Africa). If you’re traveling to colder climates, use Roman’s guidelines above and do your best. When I worked as an Instructor for Outward Bound’s Alpine Mountaineering courses, I knew some instructors who could get their packs down to 35-40lbs, and that was with 10 days of food, a climbing harness, light alpine climbing rack (rock), helmet, cold-weather clothing, and other types of more extreme gear. I think the best I got was 50lbs…again, girlie-stuff allotment.

Or a need complex…

My friend Gordy says, “We pack for our insecurities.” Yup.

5. ToeSox and Yoga Paws These are AWESOME! I’ve tested them out and can vouch for these two brands. I like the Yoga Paws toesoxgripht_bathany_balancefor hands and the ToeSox for feet. The ToeSox with stripes are super-cute, and that helps me motivate;) You can do yoga on an indoor floor, outdoor hard floor surface, or a rock slab and have less risk for slippage. They wouldn’t be fun to use in dirt or grass, so just go bare for those.

6. Yoga mat? Again, because I am a lightweight kind of Freedom Junkie, I like to ix-nay the yoga mat. Hence, the items I mentioned in #5.

However, I had one lightweight mat recommended to me that I’ve used at home as a tester: the Manduka eKo Superlite Travel Mat. I dig it. It isn’t very padded (because it’s lightweight!),  but it is sticky. It still weighs 2lbs, so for me that is too much to take on a long-term trip. But I’ll be bringing this for weekend/week-long trips for sure! It folds up like a sweater.

7. Make requests for vegetables (or other specific foods) ahead of time. If you are staying at a guest house without veggies on the menu, you can ask the cook if they can please serve up some yummy greens for your next meal. Often they won’t buy vegetables without knowing someone will eat them because without refrigeration, they will go bad quickly. But if you make a request ahead of them, they just might be able to run to the market and grab you some yummy pumpkin greens!

Sometimes you’ll have to plan ahead for market days if you really want this to happen. I did really want this to happen, so I got the local market schedules wherever we went to try and find out when we could make special food requests. If we’d been offered only rubbery chicken for days, I’d ask ahead of time to please get some fish for us – then I’d eat fish as much as I could until we set off for gluten and potato and rubber chicken land again.

Don’t be afraid to ask for something not on the menu!

8. Nutrition Shakes and snacks. As you all know, I am a whole-foods advocate. However, when I am on the road, I find myself faced with poor food options a LOT, whether that is because of tight travel schedules, remoteness of location, or myriad other reasons.

When I am on a shorter trip, I like to bring along one nutrition shake a day/every other day for the times when I think I’ll end up eating crap just because I can’t find something healthier. I like Shakeology for their vegan version and for supplementing for workouts, and Isagenix for taste and as a more filling shake (this shake hands down tastes better). Both have super foods in them and are of excellent quality. Plus, they are better for you than potato chips, sistah!

Ideally, you can also pack some healthy snack like nuts and bars. While on longer trips, hauling snacks from home isn’t practical except for a few treats, but for shorter trips, they can be a lifesaver.

9. Handheld/small blender. This is obviously for those without baggage weight concerns. If you know you’ll be in a magic-bullet-blender-lrghotel near a grocery store – like the last conference I went to inMUSH Atlanta that was a block from Whole Foods – you can make your own smoothies in the hotel room. Be sure to pack the container in which you’ll be blending things too (lightweight is possible!). Toss in some greens powder that you brought along, and voila!

The Magic Bullet Blender is awesome, and Mush, the manual baby food processor from Boon, is smaller and comes highly recommended by the ladies in my Spring Superfoods Cleanse for mixing up your own simple shakes and smoothies (not for chopping, but for mashing up softer things and blending powders). MUSH doesn’t require electricity, but the Bullet does.

10. Natural bug spray and loose clothing. The natural stuff doesn’t work as well as DEET, but you won’t get cancer from it. Nuff said. Heinous bugs? Cover up with loose clothing and a mosquito head net (wear it over a rimmed hat to keep it off your face). That way you don’t have to use any kind of spray. This is my preferred way to deal with the bugs.

The best top is a tight-knit long-sleeve button down men’s shirts. I say men’s shirts because women’s are often too tight and the mosquitoes will bite through them. I buy my “bug shirts,” as I like to call them, from thrift shops. They can be found in uber-groovy colors;)

Note: If you are using the evil DEET juice,  be sure to use it on top of your clothes and never on your skin, and if you touch it, immediately wash your hands.

11. Go to the local market and buy yummy food – bring them back to the hotel/hostel/guesthouse IMG_0445and cook them up on your own, or ask the cook to make them up for you. If you’re going to eat raw, wash your veggies in a hydrogen peroxide mix or iodized water to avoid nasty stomach bugs.

12. Minimize the alcohol intake. Dehydration, excess simple sugars, hangovers that only beer from developing countries can muster… it isn’t worth it to be excessive on a regular basis.

13. Hydrate hydrate hydrate! This is also the antidote to #12. Drink lots of water when you can. Remember to pack your own water bottle (just make sure it’s empty before going through security) so you don’t have to rely on cabin service to hydrate! I like Ecovessel’s filtration water bottle to help me feel better about drinking tapwater no matter where I am – and it works for giardia and cryptosporidium too! Sawyer makes more hard-core filters.

14. Search out local yoga studios where you’re at. Just because you can’t go to class in your hometown doesn’t mean you can’t check out a new place!

15. Walk. Move. A lot. Like I said earlier, it’s the daily things we do that count, Freedom Junkies. Take every opportunity you can to walk, walk, walk. This means wearing comfortable and lightweight shoes while you travel. As long as I’m not mountaineering, I generally travel with a pair of flip flops  and a pair of lightweight running/approach shoes. It’s nice to have the lightweight flip flops to change into after the end of a long day, or to keep feet cool when it’s hot. I have historically brought Chacos or something, but these days they are so heavy, I have moved to my present combo.

I like Salomon’s Speedcross shoes as well as Brooks Pure Grit ultra-lightweight running shoes. They won’t hold up for long trips on gnarly trails, but both have lasted me months on the road while doing some hiking as well.

I bring one of those with a pair of flip flops. I dig Keen’s flip flops for the extra toe protection, which has TOTALLY SAVED ME from tetanus so many times! I know I can buy cheap flip flops overseas, but they have broken on me a bunch, and instead I can bring light ones with some semblance of arch support too.

If you know you won’t be hiking much and that you’ll be relatively warm, Chacos are still a good bet for a one-shoe option. Wear them with socks when it gets chilly or for some extra foot protection. Socks will also keep your feet from stinking in them sooner than later.

16. Stretch in the morning. This will help your back to stay supple and not cramp up on the long and awkward plan/train/automobile/camel/donkey rides you’ll be partaking in. It will loosen up your body, and the mind tends to follow. If you can add a bit of meditation into the mix, you’re golden!

17. Pack a resistance band. I especially do this when I think I’ll be relying on P90X for my daily workout, because there is a lot of resistancebandsweight/resistance work. You can do most all of the P0-X workouts and any other resistance/weight exercises you like with a resistance band, which is lightweight and portable! If you don’t have one, you can create your own “resistance” by flexing your muscles AS IF you had a weight in your hand. Try it and do a bicep curl right now like you are trying to arm wrestle Popeye – it works better than nothing! I like Black Mountain Products’ resistance bands.

18. Get adequate sleep. This is huge. The body repairs itself when you sleep, and if you aren’t sleeping, you aren’t repairing and restoring. It WILL catch up. Plan rest days and lounging around days. I ALWAYS bring earplugs because SO MANY PLACES in the world seem to have talkative nocturnal dogs or early-rising roosters. An eye mask is also nice if you think you’ll be needing to sleep past sunrise a lot.

19. Wash you hands. This is the #1 way to prevent getting sick. I travel with a small bottle of hand sanitizer as well, which is super helpful when you don’t have access to clean water, or if water is scarce. Wash before eating, every time. This will dramatically cut down your risk for getting parasites, colds, the flu and other annoying bugs that cramp your style.

20. Plan a few days when you are NOT moving locations. Be strategic about where you place these – use them wisely, like after two weeks of daily galavanting across the country, or after a full three days of just getting to your destination. In our nearly three months of travel in Africa last year, Thai and I stayed at a place in Malawi for 3 full nights. Whoa! Other than the time we spent working at the refugee camp in Uganda, that was the longest we stayed ANYWHERE, and boy, did I absolutely relish taking out my toiletries knowing I wouldn’t have to repack them for three days, and sleeping in because there wasn’t a bus to catch.

I understand that when there is limited time, we can tend to want to Go! Go! Go! and not stay in any one place for too long, lest we miss out on something cool (read more about being a Freedom Junkie with FOMO here). But you will certainly miss out on something cool if you’re pissy and grumpy because you’re burned out.

Remember that no matter what top 20 make it onto your list, the best thing you can do for your health is to FEEL GOOD. So take a moment to ask yourself, “What could I do right now that would help me feel better?” Then get on it!

Those are my top 20, and there are MANY more! So please do share below and let the tribe in on your healthy travel tips and secrets.

Note: Ana Verzone (Neff)  is a personal life coach, guide and Freedom Junkie ® She helps passionate people awaken their lives of freedom, adventure and purpose. Her monthly Ziji Up! eZine goes out to hundreds of subscribers. Her blog posts stem from her commitment to live full-on, every day, for 365 days in a row – which she just couldn’t stop. If you are ready to take your life and your world to the next level, you can learn more about her coaching programs and download her FREE Getting Clear Guide by visiting Anaverzone.com

* Just so ya know: the links for P90X and Shakeology take you to my coaching site for them because you can get them both for less there than if you go direct to beachbody.com. For full disclosure, yes, if you order through me, I may get some sushi money. But you certainly don’t have to use that site to make your purchase – just to save;) Also, I never affiliate myself with something I think sucks. Ever.