My Life Staples - Personal practices for harmony & ease
Partnering with women to design practices, rituals & habits that help to create more harmony, ease, and freedom in their lives, is kinda what I do. It’s the foundation of the STAPLE Coaching Approach.
Before I knew this was what I wanted to bring to coaching clients, I was on a personal journey to find my own staples. After spending years jumping from job to job, I realised the “satisfaction” I was seeking wasn’t at the end of the month in my paycheck, but it really was much deeper than that. I was restless and the job-hopping was only keeping me distracted from figuring out what I actually needed.
So I took myself on a solo yoga retreat to help kickstart the process of figuring out what that could be. Yes, of course I wanted to feel lighter in my body and look fresher but I really wanted to be able to find a level of engagement, passion & purpose that could sustain all the missions I’d set for myself.
So, as the name, STAPLE suggests, it all started with food for me. Trying to find a few “staples” in my diet that could help balance my energy better and keep me feeling good and well-fed. I experimented with SO many things. I mean, I feel like that’s a blog post for another time (LOL).
“Life staples” have become a central theme in my own life and in the way I coach, and even in what I’m interested in, in other women I admire. So much so, that I ask every STAPLE Session guest to close our conversations with their life staples, i.e. rituals, practices, habits, and principles that they live their lives by. I think of these as the cornerstones to living our best life & feeling our best, in life.
Food has always played a central role in my life
In my search for some staples, I found a few things that don’t agree with me & sap my energy when I overindulge; I’m looking at you white bread, dairy and sugar #sideeye.
Having a happy and satisfied physical body makes me feel like I can take over the world. So I try to feed myself with the nutrients that do make me feel good; lots of greens, water, herbal teas, whole grains, sexy fats, good quality fish, and a lekker lamb chop, at least once a week ;). I function my best in the day when I’m eating mainly plants and reserve meat for the evenings. And I maintain my sanity with great pizza and maybe a burger and (definitely) some fries, over the weekend. Because that the side of fries is just as important as the green smoothy - one feeds the soul and the other feeds the body.
I also thrive on good supplementation because I don’t believe we get enough of those very essential micro-nutrients that keep our brains firing at optimal levels & our cells rejuvenated from our food.
Feeding my body healthful supplementation, nutrition and hydration makes me feel like, at the very foundation, I am nourishing myself from the inside. And don’t get me wrong here, to me healthful means
Having an outlet to vent and express my emotions gives me clarity & helps me make better decisions
Journaling is my go-to release exercise. I've been journaling since I was 12 years old, and I truly believe that it is a window into my own soul. Writing is a therapeutic exercise for me. I feel like, it’s helped me learn through the tough and challenging times of my life. Providing me the perspective I often cannot see, until I’ve put all the emotional clutter out on the page. And it’s also helped me appreciate the good times - I get to document those exciting moments, and really revel in the highs of those moments. I’ve kept a few of my journals, and revisit them from time to time, to see how far I’ve come. Those old journals are like gold to me!
Embracing pleasure keeps me sane!
Indulging in the things that remind me to have fun and bring me enjoyment, wonder and that child-like sense of mischief help remind me that life isn’t all work, adulting, and bills. Sipping a good glass of wine (or 3!), while enjoying the sun with people I love, and some great food (always with the food, lol) is one of my favourite ways to tap into my pleasure. I’ve been blessed with wonderful family and friends who’ve become family - people whose company I genuinely enjoy & crave when I haven’t seen them in too long. Even my parents - ask anyone, I have the coolest parents! (hi mommy!). I feel really lucky to have the pleasure of wonderful relationships to add value and joy to my life.
Getting weird with the witchy stuff keeps me grounded and rooted in my mission & my intentions
Essential oil, crystals, binaural lofi beats, moon cycles, and some scented candles are my jam! I grew up catholic, going to church every Sunday, and went to a catholic primary school (yep, with the nuns and everything), so daily devotional ritual practice is ingrained in me. My ‘modern-day’ religion-agnostic version of that looks a bit strange to lots of people, but the simple lighting of a candle and burning some oil in a diffuser are some ways I bring that devotional practice back into my life. It helps me tune into my intuition, my higher self, and the divine. I also love to engage in consistent yoga practice, meditation, and prayer, to help remind me of my greater purpose on this earth and keep me close to the whispers of my soul.
I get that the way I choose to tune in is not for everyone, but I believe we are all soulful, divine beings, who have a spiritual core. And that core is as important as our bodies and our mind. We should take care of its needs too; whether we do it in weird witchy ways or through more traditional religion-based spiritual practice, is up to us.
Knowing my why is what gets me out of bed in the morning
Consistently living out my passion as a coach, writer, and strategist keeps me close to my contribution to the world and fills my cup. This is my big “why”; why I’m here on this earth at this time in life and in history. Why I’m here in this body, with this skin and specific experience.
And, not to sound melodramatic or anything, but it’s taken me a fucking lifetime to get here!
After I was retrenched in 2016, I freelanced for a while. I was trying to create a business of some kind; a way for me to be financially independent of another paycheck. By that time, I knew that’s ultimately what I wanted but I just hadn’t figured out how or why it would fulfill me. On the days I wasn’t working on client work, I would hardly get out of bed. I’d sleep till 3pm and cry most days, out of pure desperation for an answer to that why…
It was a dark time. And one I don’t usually talk about freely.
But, it became a defining moment for me. I knew until I figured out why I so desperately needed to separate my identity from a job title, and have more autonomy, I was going to remain that miserable. And, friend, that just was NOT an option.
My journey to find my life staples and the help I got through my own coaching journey are what helped me truly define that why.
A life of freedom, ease, and harmony is possible my friend. I am proof of that. Sure, I’m not 100% at the point I’d like to be - that just keeps me striving & thriving ;) But, what I do know for sure is that we have the power and permission to design the life that feels good to us. Whichever way that looks. And once we’re clear as day on WHY we want it, it’s so much easier to see it coming.xx
