My 3 Self-Care Practices for Our Open-Ended Challenge!

My 3 Self-Care Practices for Our Open-Ended Challenge!

Gorgeous Mama, selfcare

If you haven’t heard about our “Open-Ended” Self Care Challenge, head over to this article to understand the crucial difference between how most challenges are set up…and how we’re going to do ours! (p.s. it makes ALL the difference!)

In this post, I’ll share what my Self Care Practices will be for the challenge and give you a link to a one-page printout to keep us on track for our 30 days!

Now, it probably shouldn’t be a surprise just days after the sugar-soaked holiday of Easter that I’m bringing some CLEANSING foods into my April Open-Ended Self Care challenge.

Over the years I’ve refined my own philosophy around nutrition and nourishment…but still, one of the most powerful principles remains to FOCUS ON THE GOOD…and let the crap get crowded out.

This means that instead of setting myself to take things OUT of my diet, I focus on bringing GOOD INTO my diet.

So Practice #1 for my April Open-Ended Challenge is to eat a minimum of 5 servings of veggies a day. 

Keepin’ it simple, mamas.  

Now with each practice you decide on, be sure to work through 2 things:

1. The specific daily goal you are going for and

2. What you need to accomplish that goal.

So instead of just saying I wanted to eat more veggies, I specifically challenged myself to eat 5 servings of veggies a day for the month of April.

And here’s what I need to accomplish that goal:

I. I need a basic daily meal plan that will get me there without having to think too much every day. 

2. I need the veggies in the house – so I need to be sure to know how much I need to get from the store every week or few days.

Here’s my game plan:

Most days I’ll do my best to follow this simple plan:

1. Coconut Milk Veggie Stir-Fry or Veggie Puree Soup for breakfast.

These two are favorite dishes of mine – and I truly love having them for breakfast. As long as I have them made and ready to heat – having them for breakfast is easy.

Each of these meals easily gets me 2-3 servings of veggies right off the bat. 

2. Mid-morning smoothie.

I don’t love green smoothies in the morning but I do love them as a mid-morning snack. So I’ll plan to bring in a green smoothie around 10:00am on days I’m feeling hungry then. 

A green smoothie gives me at least 1 (sometimes 2) servings of veggies.

3. Raw veggie snack plate for after-school / homework time.

When I prepare a simple cut fruit and veggie snack plate for the homework hour everyone is much happier all around. I’ll bolster this snack plate for the family and do my best to get at least 2 servings of veggies in during this time.

If I follow these three guidelines alone, I’ll easily meet the 5 serving goal.

Which means I’ll have a lot of buffer room if I miss one of these options.

We always have 1-2 veggies with our dinner as well, so I’m hoping this is a pretty realistic plan and that most days I’ll get even more than 5 servings in! 

Whether or not you make veggie-eating one of your April Self Care practices…I’d love you to have the bonus cookbook I created for my Cleanse Your Life course as my gift.

This is packed with delicious, simple to make veggie-rich recipes. The recipes I mentioned above are all inside (plus a lot more!)

Click here for the Cleanse Your Life Bonus Cookbook!

 


Self Care Practice #2 = Drink Herbal Tea Every Day

I feel better when I drink herbal teas.

Just like getting out in nature, breathing in essential oils and having green plants in my home – there is a lightness, a freshness that I get when I bring in botanical and herbal supports.

I also love that I’m hydrating while nourishing and feeding my body nutrients and phytochemicals that make it feel happy and good.

Springtime has me wanting to choose teas that help with the excess mucus that comes with increased pollen in the air.

Here are three of my favorite blends (from Mountain Rose Herbs)…and I enjoy them both hot and cold.

1. Fairytale Tea: a blend of calendula flowers, red clover, spearmint, lavender, lemon balm, and more. 

2. Seasons of Discontent Tea: a blend specifically for allergy season that includes nettle leaf, fennel seed, lemongrass, spearmint leaf, bee pollen, and more.

3. Women’s Balancing Tea: a blend of peppermint leaf, nettle leaf, raspberry leaf, ginger root, dandelion leaf, oatstraw, horsetail, and more.

I’ll do my best to brew in a large mason jar iced herbal tea before bedtime so I have some ready first thing in the morning. But making a pot of tea throughout the day is simple enough as well.


Self Care Practice #3 = Journaling

I’ve journaled for decades now and it helps me on so many levels. But I haven’t been doing it regularly of late and I’ve begun to notice its absence.

Part of what journaling does for me is to clean out the stuck parts so there’s room for flow in my inner space.

When I journal regularly my prayer time is different, my meditation time is different, my conversations are different, my creativity and inspiration are different, I feel the impact of journaling in a lot of ways in my life.

And while I would like to make early morning journaling a regular practice in my life again- for this challenge I’m going to simply set the goal of 10 minutes of journaling daily.

I’ll still try to get back into the early morning swing of things…but if I don’t wake up in time I can still get this practice in during the day or evening.


That’s it, mamas!

For me my daily challenge includes:

1. Eat 5 servings of veggies

2. Drink at least 1 large mug of herbal tea

3. Journal for 10 minutes

Those are my 3 practices…now what are YOURS?

You do know that writing them out is HUGELY effective- and so is sharing them with a supportive community? And if you need a supportive, smart, loving, grace-filled community- WellGrounded Life is the place for you ~ come join us on our FB page! 🙂


The final thing I want to leave you with is a simple print out that can take us all throughout our month together.

At first, this page may seem a little strange…so let me explain.

Last year, in my Replenish 365 program, I was talking to my mamas about the concept of open-ended challenges.

And one of the women in the program loved the concept so much she wanted to blend its philosophy with a visual way of seeing and celebrating her progress.

So she created a simple zentangle design and said she was going to color in one section for every day that she accomplished her goals.

IMG_2002How brilliant, yes?!

So for our challenge I wanted to borrow her super creative idea and sketch our own “April Challenge Flower” so that we could color in one section for every practice we do each day.

There are 90 open sections in this design.

You’ll see most “petals” have three sections…but a handful have two sections or one section- in case we have a 2 practice or 1 practice day.

Click here to download the Self Care Flower print-out!

You can choose to see how much of the flower is filled up in 30 days…OR you can simply keep going on your challenge until the whole flower is filled – whether that takes you 30 days or longer! Your choice!

I hope it supports you not only for this challenge but for many more in the future as you keep the momentum going.


So let’s do a quick recap.

1. Name your 3 Self-Care Practices and corresponding Daily Goals for the 30 Day Challenge.

2. Print out your Open-Ended Challenge Flower Page and fill in your start date and your practices.

3. Hop over to our WellGrounded Life FB page and share what your practices are for support and encouragement.

4. Keep connected throughout April to let us all know how you are doing!

 

Cheering you on,

 

Lisa Grace Byrne

 

 

 


 

1. What’s your first self care practice?

2. Is your goal specific and reasonable to achieve every day?

3. Make sure you think through what your game plan is to make it part of your days (do you need to make time in your schedule, order anything special, make sure materials are ready, ect?)

Let me know over on the WellGrounded Life FB page…it’s been so much fun seeing everyone share over there. We’re better together!

Much love, always,

 

Lisa Grace Byrne

 

p.s. Here’s the download link again for those veggie recipes I mentioned earlier!

 


 


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