New Year, New You, No Resolutions 2020 Member Challenge Group
Week One
Alright, Members, here we go! Here is week one of our mini challenge group for 2020. Enjoy!
New Year’s Intentions Mini Challenge Group Introductory Video
In this video Julie will discuss:
Description of Mini Challenge group
Nurture whole-selves to cultivate and grow
Why New Year’s Resolutions do not work
Change is too big
Requires a lifestyle change
Resolution is too vague and/or has not clear plan
Quick fix cannot last
Goals are too abstract or far away
Requires too much willpower
Focus is on a problem and not on ourselves
Action Steps for this Week!!
Write down goals and put them away
Set small daily intentions for the here and now
Intentions you can do today
Intentions you can embrace on a more daily basis (to ultimately meet and sustain/grow your goals)
Intentions are flexible and adaptable to your day
Intentions are the steps toward lasting lifestyle change
Post your daily intentions to the group for feedback and support--you can do this every day, or even multiple times per day
Week Two
This week we are going to focus on the Attitude and starting to rewire our brains toward greater positivity. Whatever goals you are working to achieve, whatever changes you would like to make, you will hit bumps. Having skills to maintain a more positive attitude and to shift a negative one will only help you set and meet your intentions, persist when it gets hard, and ultimately make the changes you want to make!
Included here is the video that explains everything, and an outline to help you remember! Enjoy!
Week Two: Attitude
Review of Goals vs Intentions
Work to find the correct size of the intention through experimentation
If too big, break it down
If too small and can do more, step it up a bit
Break intentions down into small steps and know that they are flexible, adaptable when they don’t “fit” where you thought they would
Throughout the process be kind to yourself!
Attitude
Work on maintaining as much positivity as possible
Attitude is a combination of mental root (our thoughts) and emotional root (our feelings)
Due to survival instincts our brain is hard-wired to be critical which makes us vulnerable to negative thinking
We can use two simple daily practices to override this thinking for greater peace and happiness
Gratitude Practice
Some of the many benefits of a daily gratitude practice include:
Increased optimism
More physically active
Reduced anxiety and depression
Increased sense of self-worth
For adolescents: lessens chance of being bullied and becoming victims of suicide
Affirmation Practice
Some of the many benefits of a daily affirmation practice include:
Decreased stress
Decreased rumination
Healthier eating
Broader self-concept
Helps maintain self-integrity
Action Steps!
Try to do these first thing in the morning but any time is ok!
Gratitude: Write down three things you feel grateful for once a day
Affirmation: Complete the writing prompt, “I am…..” once a day. Its ok to fake it ‘til you make it:-)
Intentions: continue setting daily intention
POST to the group. We would love to hear from you!
Week Three Challenge
Review and Continue
Week One: Setting Intentions
Week Two: Gratitude and Affirmation Journal and “I am”… followed by something positive
Introduction of a mindfulness practice
Discussion of Dan Harris and Jon Kabat-Zinn and their research and experiences
This practice has some of the following benefits:
Increased self-compassion
Reduced anxiety
Better mood management as you can be less reactive
Better stress resilience
Reduced stress response
Find a time and a place daily to try to meditate
Start with 5-10 minutes a day during a convenient time when you will not be interrupted
A place with minimal distraction
Make sure you are comfortable (but alert without falling asleep)
Use guided meditations: on our website roots-first.com
Or use an app: Calm, Insight Timer or Headspace
If you are unable to access technology for a meditation focus on the breath
Be kind to yourself as this can be challenging in the beginning
Post to the group any successes, comments or frustrations. We love hearing from you.
Week 4 Challenge: Reflect
This week we are going to reflect on what we've done in the past 3 weeks. Let's review:
We've begun working with intentions and have started setting daily intentions.
We've begun to rewrite the brain toward greater positivity and self-love through daily gratitude and affirmation practice.
We've begun a daily meditation practice, 5-15 minutes per day, using a guided meditation.
This week please reflect, and journal, on the following questions:
Have you adopted any, or all, of these practices into your daily life?
If so, what have you observed? What have you noticed in terms of benefits, if any yet? What frustrations or struggles are you having?
If no, why not? What is getting in your way? What are the obstacles: time, resistance, interest, motivation, other?
If you need to go back and see the previous challenges, they are all in the group FB feed, so simply scroll down and watch them again. They are also posted on the member page of the website, so you can find them there.
Share with the group your reflections and insights!
Week Five Challenge
Review and Continue
Week One: Setting Intentions
Week Two: Gratitude and Affirmation Journal
Week Three: Mindfulness Practice
Week Four: Reflect
Introduction of Environmental Root
Discussion of internal and external chaos as these two are interacting constantly
What can best support practices introduced so far is maintaining your elements of your environment:
Immediate surroundings: house, office, car, storage areas and how organized or chaotic these areas are
Schedule: how balanced is it between “have-to’s” and “want to’s” and how much is for you and how much is for others
Technology: how it effects us internally
This week’s challenge:
Look at your surroundings- does your space add tension? If so, find time to do some organizing and relieve some stress
Check you schedule- how hectic is it? What can be reorganized if necessary to make it more efficient and balanced?
Observe the use of technology in the home- how much is it being used? Track phone use and social media use and observe why you are using it in the moment.
Post to the group any successes, comments or frustrations. We love hearing from you.
Week 6 Challenge
This week we are going to start to look at the Physical root, which is about our physical bodies. The physical root has 4 components to it:
Nutrition: the fuel we put into our bodies
Movement: exercise or any way we move our bodies
Sleep/Rest: the amount and quality of our sleep
Vices: the things we use to get through our day such as caffeine, alcohol, sugar, nicotine, and even our electronic devices
We often go through our busy lives without a lot of awareness about where we are in each of these categories.
The challenge this week is to start to pay attention to where you are in each category. Keep a journal or log and track
what foods you eat each day and how you feel after you eat
what vices to use each day and how you feel right after you use it/the, and several hours later
what time you go to bed, what time you wake up and your quality of sleep
what movement or exercise you engage in and how you feel
In the following weeks we will delve into each of these areas one at a time, this awareness is the first step.
As always, we would love to hear from you here!
Week 7 Challenge
Last week we asked you to observe your current habits and practices, preferably through a log or journal, in 4 areas related to the physical root:
Nutrition
Vices
Movement
Rest, or Sleep
Hopefully through this process you've observed some patterns. Some of these may be working great, others may benefit from some adjustments.
Beginning this week, we are going to look at each of the 4 components of the physical root more closely. This week we will focus on Sleep/Rest
We are starting here because this is often one of the most overlooked aspects of our physical beings. Very few of us are getting enough sleep, and very few of us are getting consistently good restorative sleep.
Things to think about with sleep
Most people need 7-9 hours per night
Sleep is required for physical and mental recovery and integration
Body's detoxification process (the Janitor) occurs during deep sleep, between hours of 10pm and 2am
To maximize the detox process, best to stop eating by 6:30-7pm, and be in bed early enough to fall asleep before 10pm
Determine when you need to walk up and count backwards the number of hours you need for sleep, aim to be asleep by that time
Best to go to sleep and wake up at the same, or close to the same, times each day (your body gets into the routine/habit and remembers)
Planning for good sleep starts during the day
Best window for eating is 10am-2pm. It is permissible to eat before and after, but bulk of caloric intake is best during this window (the Cook)
Plan to fall asleep by a certain time beginning several hours prior to that time by preparing the body for sleep
Turn off devices/tv/stimulating input
Reduce caffeine, alcohol, sugar and other substances that disrupt sleep
Avoid conversations and stimuli (i.e. the news) that might agitate you
Dim lights in the house
Consider relaxation practices such as gentle yoga, yoga Nidra, meditation, hot bath, drinking warm milk or calming latte/tea
Action Steps
Keep track of your sleep this week: what time you go to bed and wake up, what you do to prepare for sleep, etc. Keep track of how it helps/works or doesn’t. Identify what changes you need to make and begin to take small steps toward making them. Work on getting better sleep!
Report back to the community on how it's going, as always we love to hear from you!
Week 8 Challenge
Hopefully you're continuing to incorporate practices such as gratitude, affirmation, and mindfulness into your daily lives on at least a somewhat consistent basis. And hopefully last week you took some of the tips about sleep and have been able to improve your sleep so you are getting more restorative sleep.
This week we will focus on movement, or as some like to call it, exercise.
We all know that there are so many health, and mental health benefits to moving our bodies.
physical health is improved by exercise in a myriad of ways
sleep can be improved by exercise
exercise can help you manage fatigue when you don't get enough sleep
mental health is improved by exercise
depression can be reduced and/or alleviated
some studies suggest exercise works as well as antidepressant medication for some people
stress and anxiety are reduced by exercise
attention and concentration can be improved
If you already have a consistent exercise routine that you enjoy and can stick to, great! Keep doing what you're doing.
If like many people, however, you don't really like to exercise, let's just focus on movement.
find an activity, any activity, that gets your moving your body at least a little bit, that you enjoy or can at least tolerate
really get creative and think about what you like to do--walk, hike, dance, play, swim, a class, etc.--and commit to doing it
start small, some movement is better than no movement, so even starting with 5-10 minutes a day can help
As always, we love to hear from you so let us know how it's going!
Week 9 Challenge
We apologize for the late posting for this challenge! Life has been busy with lots going on--elections, pandemics, hopefully the end of cold and flu season, etc. It's been harder to keep our heads above water lately! But what a great time to be focusing on our physical and mental health, yes? While the media predicts our upcoming physical illnesses and contributes to our anxiety and depression, let's continue to work toward health and wholeness on all of our human levels.
Friday afternoon may not be the best time to attend to this, but at least you know it's here when you can get to it 🙂
The past few weeks have been focused on our physical bodies. Hopefully you've taken some time to observe and do a little inventory on your nutrition, use of vices, movement habits, and sleep. And hopefully you've been able to make a few manageable changes to sleep better and get your bodies moving! Keep rolling with that while this week we look at nutrition!
Our emphasis on nutrition is to look at what you're doing now, work to become more mindful of what you are putting into your bodies, and shift your midset a bit from thinking about food just as food to thinking about the fuel and nutrients your body needs.
As you become aware of what. you are doing that may not be working as well as it could be, you can identify some changes to make.
We have some guidelines in making changes
Try to avoid thinking about what you need to cut out, restrict, or stop eating. This starts us off with a negative mindset about restriction, which leaves us feeling deprived and even resentful. We are far less likely to sustain changes that leave us feeling this way.
Instead, look at your nutrition and decide what health fuel your body needs and what you can ADD to your daily intake. Perhaps you need more vegetables (most if not all of us do), or more lean protein, or something else.
Look for where you can add or substitute these healthier fuels. You may find that as you add healthier foods, the less healthy foods become less frequent in your intake.
Whenever you need to cut something out or reduce it--most of us can probably benefit from reducing our sugar, starch, carbohydrate, and unhealthy fats for example--look for substitutions. Don't just deprive yourself of something you enjoy, try to find something healthier that you can also enjoy.
Your challenge this week is to make at least one nutritional change. Add something healthy to your diet, perhaps substitute or replace something you can let go of easily with something healthy. Watch the video for more information!
And as always...keep practicing gratitude, affirmation, and mindfulness, and keep sharing with the group!
Week 10 Challenge
Ok so I have the wrong week number again this week, I apologize! But since that really isn't the point, let's move on, yes?
This week we would like to take a moment to gently remind you just how important it is at this moment in time to really be attending to your health.
The first weeks of the challenge group focused on practices such as gratitude, affirmation, and mindfulness, all of which have strong implications for physical health as well as mental health. If you have not adopted any of these practices, please consider doing so now. They can only help promote your health and wellness at a time when you really do want to be doing anything and everything you can to remain healthy. Revisit the videos and challenges either here in this feed, or on the website roots-first.com
In the past few weeks, we have been focusing on the physical body and on developing healthy habits related to sleep, movement, and nutrition. Once again, these are crucial things to be attending to if you want to keep your body healthy. Make sure you are doing what you can to get good restorative sleep, fuel your body with healthy and nutritious food, and get out and move. While now is a good time to avoid places like gyms and other indoor facilities, it is still possible to keep moving. Consider at-home activities and use resources such as YouTube, apps, dvd's, etc. or get outside for walks, runs, bike rides, hikes, etc. Fresh air is good, just keep yourself in places where people are not congregating and you can maintain a distance of about 6 feet from others.
Finally, this week is about vices. Vices are things that can actually harm our health, so at this point in time it becomes even more important to pay attention to our use of them. Hopefully you were able to do some inventory and look a bit at your habits, your use of things like caffeine, alcohol, sugar, nicotine, other drugs, and screens. If you haven't don't so, spend a little time reflecting a bit on your use of these things: how often, how much, why, how you feel after, etc.
The big challenge for this week is to look for areas that may benefit from change, and to begin to make some changes. At Roots First we tend to advocate for adding healthy things and substituting healthy things when you need to restrict less healthy things. The goal is always to minimize the feeling of restriction and deprivation. This is not completely avoidable when you make a change to one of your vices, you are likely to feel somewhat restricted and/or deprived. This is where substitution can become helpful. Look for healthier alternatives or activities that you can use/do to help you reduce or eliminate a particular vice.
The good news is that as you do reduce or eliminate vices, over time you begin to notice how much better you feel, and this feeling better can be very motivating.
So take the challenge! Make a change.
And as always, we would love to hear from you here in the group.
Weekly Challenge! Week 11
We are almost done with our 2020 Challenge group! We will wrap it up next week.
Integration
Over the past 10 weeks we have focused on a variety of practices, strategies and ideas that can strengthen our roots. Developing these roots will hold us more firmly to the ground so that we are able to rise up and become our best selves. With deep reaching roots to anchor us we can withstand the forces of all life’s challenges.
This week's challenge is integration. Choose what root(s) practices have served you best and have made you feel connected and grounded. It can be difficult to maintain all the practices on a daily basis. We all struggle with consistency. Giving ourselves time to take care of us, can be a tricky daily balance. Make sure you choose the practices that best resonate with you and can fit into your life as seamlessly as possible. Actually doing the practice will be the most helpful right now. Hopefully you have seen and felt the benefits and you have already begun to integrate some of them. Somehow maybe they have been woven into your daily routines! Over time, once they get fully “bundled” into your routine, new ones can be added.
We have challenged you with participating in:
An affirmation practice
A gratitude practice
A meditation practice
Increasing or planning a movement practice
Looking more carefully at sleep, vices, and nutrition
Developing a spirituality and greater connection routine
Looking at what social connection means in the midst of our new normal
Please fill us in on how pulling it all together in these challenging times is working for you. Be safe and be well.