5 Ways To De-stress From Your Chaotic Life

 

Creating a balance isn’t always ideal— especially when work or school or family life is overwhelming and prominent. We can’t always control our circumstances, but we can control our stress levels with some life hacks to put some ease back into our normal, filled day. Being a college student, who works and has a full class load with extracurriculars, I don’t have an overabundance of time for some R&R, so here are some of the tricks I use to destress whenever I’m about to lose my marbles.

 

1. About a year ago, I started to try something new whenever I had a rough day or needed a pick-me-up and that was Meditation, eventually it just became part of my everyday routine. It leaves me feeling at peace and uplifted, no matter my situation. To get a great meditation app, download the Deepak and Oprah 21-Day Meditation Experience or if you are in Fort Myers/Naples area, there are Drop-In Meditation classes  but once you make this part of your everyday, the “big” stressers don’t seem so big and bad.
2.  Yoga. Hear me out, yoga is by no means easy, but you don’t have to be good, flexible, or athletic to enjoy it. I started going to yoga on Fort Myers Beach, and loved the environment and relaxation I got from it. So even though I can’t make to the beach every Saturday morning for yoga, I find time to do it at home with my yoga mat from T.J.Maxx.  Some great apps I use are– Yoga Studio and Daily Yoga and also if you want more information on the best Yoga apps, Healthline is a great resource.
3. Making time to focus on your health and being active is so important. When I work out, everything else is put on hold and I get to focus on me and where I’m at. If you don’t have time for a gym, download The Handstand App for fitness plans and workouts. If you can join a gym, I go to LA Fitness and really enjoy the equipment and classes, and I’m also a fan of Crunch Gym. However, I do want to start going to my University’s gym FGCU more to workout, so see if your school has one so you can swing by after studying or class!
4. Cooking isn’t always my speciality, but it’s something I’m working on. I’m always finding recipes I want to make and I get most inspired from foodie blogs. Anyways, as basic as it sounds, I google yummy food that is also healthy and started making some of those: Healthy Yummy Food and one of my favorite Food Blogger’s site called Daily Dose of Pepper   or you can be like me, and like to bake. In that case, I love Baking with Blondie  and anything chocolate, so of course, here’s some delicious recipes to take your mind off of anything else: Chocolate Heaven
5. Lastly, when I’m stressed or having a less than fabulous day, I try to find some distraction. Something that isn’t work or tedious or overwhelming, so what’s better than online shopping….. not much. I like to keep a budget, so I don’t recommend doing this everyday, but here are some of my favorites to bring you a little bit of happiness. For jewelry: Gem and Company For clothing: Thirty One Boutique and Henri Girl.

Let’s continue to be GirlBosses, who find peace in the midsts of all the chaos. You’ve got this and you are capable!

xo, Ash

 

 

 

 

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When Life Gives You Lemons, Count Your Blessings

As humans, we crave a sense of control, and with that in mind, we create these plans, goals, and ideas that will help us create the life we want with the people we love, doing what we want and how we want to do it. We get caught up in our expectations, and lose sight of our realities and the guidance from a higher power, but oh how I am grateful certain things didn’t turn out the way I desperately wanted them to at some point.

Everything in life has an opportunity cost. When choosing to attend a certain University, the greatest alternative given up is attending another at that point in time or when deciding to date someone, your most valued alternative given up is staying single or have a trade-off of dating someone else or meeting someone new. So you make rational decisions that you believe will add value to your life, but although we have great intentions, it doesn’t always mean we will have great outcomes. Good intentions does not always mean good results.

That’s when life hands you metaphorical lemons, and those lemons don’t make life very peachy.

Those disappointments or abrupt changes in “our plans” can at often times deter us from pursuing certain avenues or trying again after failed attempts, but we shouldn’t look at our revised plan as a setback. It’s a new direction for us to explore, and indulge in, even if we can’t see it clearly at the time.

You have to trust the process and trust in yourself to be enough and deserving of greatness, love, experience, beauty, and all that goodness.

So for me, when things don’t go the way I intended, I have to remind myself, “I can’t control the universe. That’s not my job!”

This is the part where I count my blessings, not once, but twice, while I adapt to the new path on my journey. It’s a beautiful process, bumps and bruises included. Each experience— good, bad, ugly, and everywhere in between— really is a gift that we get to grow and learn from while getting one step closer to where we are meant to be.

So when life hands you lemons, you should count your blessings while making your new reality work for you.

Learn To Love Again

A few years ago, I got into a relationship and quickly fell without really knowing what I was getting myself into and although it came to an end quite sometime now, I am able to reflect on that experience. I’m so thankful for the gifts and lessons I’ve acquired from the good and bad times. I faced a lot of fears and overcame many obstacles, and even though I chose to say goodbye, I am a better person because of this relationship.

I recognized the fact that I have divorced parents and at the time, none of my friends had a serious relationship in their lives, but I decided to go wherever my heart were to lead me and to not let my head always get the best of me.

The highs were breathtaking and beautiful, but I valued the relationship even more when things got didn’t go smoothly and it got real and we had to face the fact that nobody is perfect and it can’t always be rainbows and butterflies. The lows taught me how to be vulnerable, how to be forgiving, and how to be committed.

 

From early on, I had never been the girl to have a boyfriend or want anything super serious and it all came down to I didn’t have anyone in my life I wanted to go through hard times with until I realized life is worth taking risks, especially when it comes to love.

I always assumed I was better on my own because being isolated means I wouldn’t get hurt and I wouldn’t be let down and disappointed, but now I realize that was letting the fear of commitment win.

John 4:18: “There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect with love.”

Love and commitment are compliments (economics major, I can’t help it) and you can’t have one without the other. When we let God lead, He will lead us to the one who holds the key to our hearts, but we live in a society where cheating is almost acceptable, having a side chick is laughed at and expected, and commitment isn’t a given.

When I say ‘I love you’, it’s a promise to be there for you, to support you, to honor and respect you, and to be by your side when the waters get rough, but love comes and goes, and is often said before you actually grasp it’s magnitude (been there, done that). It’s one thing to say the words and it’s another to show actions that prove what you are saying because actions speak volumes.

We acquire many imperfections over the years and we have our faults that we carry into relationships, and who are we to expect our significant other to be flawless? God teaches forgiveness and when love is at the center of your relationship and there is genuine remorse, there is no point on being bitter or resentful to one another.

When you forgive, you set yourself free from unsettling feelings and then you can continue bettering your commitment to one another.

Basically, you should find someone you’d love to goof around with and grow with for the rest of your life.