In the Northern Hemisphere the full moon of The Spring Equinox and the Holiday Ostara corresponds with signs of the ground beginning to thaw during the Spring. Farmers begin to prepare and impatiently wait for the arrival of Spring to plant their crops, all while looking to their livestock to keep an eye on the mothers that are about to give birth to the babies of Spring.
The Worm Moon is the full moon that happens on the date closest to the Spring Equinox and the holiday Ostara. This is the moon that told our ancestors who lived off the land that the earth was beginning to thaw and that planting season would be coming soon. The most common signs of The Spring Full Moon are the ground warming enough for worms to come out of the dirt, snow crust from thawing and refreezing in the same day, crows cawing to signal the end of winter, and sap loosening in the trees like the ground thawing. This moon also served as a signal of the end of winter to the settlers.
Growing up on a Mid-Western farm, this was an exciting time. The snow was thawing, the Sun finally began peeking back through the clouds, and the day began to get longer and warmer. Every year we looked forward to those unseasonably warm days that began occurring as the Winter neared its end. Even now we still look forward to those warm days that allow us to get back outside and be with nature, even if its only for a few hours a day.
This week I want you to focus on thinking about 3 things you are grateful for before getting out of bed each morning.
It’s so important to have a daily practice of gratitude, especially if you are struggling with anxiety, depression or PTSD. This is a practice that can completely change your mental state around 180° from a horrendous outlook to an inspiring beautiful outlook. Make sure to say the 3 things you are grateful for out loud or write them down in a journal. By developing the daily practice of gratitude you get to be reminded of the good in your life and spark joy for yourself which is another important practice that I’ll be talking about soon, subscribe so you don’t miss my thoughts on how to spark joy for yourself.
Start by saying “thank you,” its a lot easier when you’re groggy and rubbing the sleep out of your eyes to say “thank you for this bed, thank you for this home to sleep in, and thank you for today.” Once you’ve gotten into the habit of saying thank you in the morning, start saying “I’m grateful for…” and let the inspiration come. Sometimes I’m grateful for the same three things, three days in a row. But other times there are little sparks of joy that I remember from yesterday or even further back that I recall and show my gratitude for.
Today I woke up feeling down, which I think is due to a dip in my natural hormones. So my gratitude practice looked like this:
I’m grateful for feeling down this morning BECAUSE its a reminder of how things were before and how far I’ve come in my mental health journey.
I’m grateful for dual kitty snuggles last night! Zoya & Olena slept on both sides of my feet alllllllll night. Just like movie cats.
I’m grateful that my husband is understanding when I am feeling depressed and down.
I can’t believe its been five years since I started this practice, and like everyone, I ebbed and flowed with the frequency of my gratitude practice. No one is perfect. But recently I found this gratitude practice again. I first found the Five Minute Journal in the Fall of 2014 and started writing down 3 things I was grateful for every morning before I got out of bed. My husband and I even got into the practice of sharing those 3 things we were grateful for each morning before getting out of bed too.
Its no secret that positive people are happy people. But its not always easy to be happy every single day because life happens. Give yourself the best chance and a huge head start on your daily happiness by adopting the practice of thankfulness. Since I’ve found my way back to the Five Minute Journal and practicing thinking about 3 things I’m grateful for before getting out of bed each morning, I’ve re-discovered their digital app version of the journal. And honestly, I’ve been loving it. I love seeing the inspirational quote each time I load the app, and I also have been taking a photo of myself each time I fill out the journal, which has been really fun to look back at, to see just how awake I was each morning. Here is the app on android and apple. *this post is not sponsored*
Things to Remember:
You might forget, and that’s okay. The important part is to do the gratitude work the moment you realized you forgot to.
Since I have started this practice, I’ve found that I have a much happier and gracious outlook on my life, even when there are bad days. Being consciously grateful first thing in the morning helps me prime and set my thoughts for the day onto a more positive path than just waking up and rolling out of bed.
Today I’m going to show you how I make sure I’m on track with my goals for each Lunar Month with the Full Moon Check In, which marks mid cycle of the moon.
This is my journal spread for the 3rd Lunar cycle of the year. This is how I fill out the entire spread up to the full moon. First, on the new moon, I start by setting my goal for the lunar cycle which is, “My intention is to stay grounded and respect my flux and my flow.”
Then I write a feeling based intention on each lunar phase either in the morning or in the evening by the light of the moon. On each full moon I do a mid moon check in to see if I am still on track with my original goal from the new moon. First I think about what I have succeeded in and then reflect on what I’ll improve.
To finish my Full Moon Check In, I’m writing out my feeling based intention for the full moon, “On this full moon I release that which is no longer serving me and that prevents me from manifesting my intentions. I am strong.”
Now that we have completed this journaling prompt we can go ahead and bring our Full Moon Check In Practice to a close.
This week I want you to focus on practicing mindfulness and paying attention to the present moment.
Being mindful is about being aware from moment to moment of your feelings, thoughts, and how it feels to be in your skin. Practicing mindfulness in your daily life helps to boost your focus, lessen your stress, increase your memory and amplify your cognitive abilities. It can also help with depression and sleep.
Oh Man! Do I need this one today! Today I’m feeling really scattered and feel a headache coming on. I’m also feeling a bit annoyed because I feel like I’m always getting interrupted just when I sit down to start something. Even though that’s not true. Today I’ll be using this is my mantra “Practice Mindfulness & Pay Attention To The Present Moment,” and “I am here, I am present, I am mindful.” along with the 3 things I do when I don’t have time for self care. Lets face it… no one has time for self care on a Monday morning… ugh… the worst day of the work week…
By developing the practice of mindfulness and paying attention to the present moment you get keyed into a better awareness that is going to give you insight into why you’re feeling what you’re feeling.
By developing the skill of mindfulness you get to take a mini vacation any time you want! You get this mini vacay by stepping outside of your present situation (whether good, bad, or normal) and get to look at it from a birds eye view. With this practice you will learn to remove yourself from any situation and most importantly learn to develop and hone your analytical skills to better understand what is or isn’t going on.
By replacing a mindless cog existence that is just going through the motions with practicing mindfulness and paying attention to the present moment, you are gaining awareness.
Start by setting a reminder on your phone to check in and practice mindfulness by paying attention to the present moment. This is the easiest habit to build because you are relying on someone else to remind you to check in and be present A.K.A. your phone.
Level this up by using a trigger as reminder to practice mindfulness and pay attention to the present moment.
This is a more difficult habit to build, especially because you have to remember what the trigger is and what you’re supposed to do in the first place. But there is a way to move forward. Try first leaving yourself a sticky note that says “Practice Mindfulness and pay attention to the present moment,” and put that sticky note on something that you grab for multiple times during the day. I like to put trigger notes on my coffee or tea mug, water bottle, and pen case. This will give you the opportunity to develop your mindfulness and self check in practice. Each time you grab for whatever your trigger item or action is, take a moment to check in and practice this new habit.
In my personal experience I have found that it was really really easy to use phone reminders for new trigger habits. The difficult part about this practice for me was after seeing the trigger note, to actually stop and practice my new habit. I never felt like I had enough time until I realized that I have to make time for the new habits that I want to build that support me being the person who I truly am and want to be.
Things to Remember:
Phone reminders are easiest when it comes to supporting your mindfulness and awareness practice.
Level it up with sticky notes as the trigger to remind you to build this new habit.
Being present lets you make sure you are being the person who you truly want to be.
Building new habits, especially mindfulness habits are not easy, but you have a choice and have taken the first step by clicking on this Weekly Spirituality Tip.
By developing the Practice of Mindfulness & Paying Attention To The Present Moment, I have found that I feel more in control of my life, my choices, and who I want to be. By stopping the mindless cog existence and practicing this I feel present and more able to help others.
Recently I had a day where I woke up really late due to poor sleep and had to dash off to work immediately after I woke up without taking time to care for myself. The thing that sucked about this was that morning was an off morning. I knew it the second I opened my eyes. That day was not going to go well, I could already tell that I was in a deteriorating mental and emotional state.
And this isn’t some woo woo spidey senses thing, that there is something off in the multiverse, like I could see the future. It was my intuition paired with my self care practices that enable me to manage my mental health. Those alarm bells were going off.
I knew that there wasn’t anything wrong, I wasn’t upset about anything, nothing was bothering me, nothing had happened. There literally was not anything wrong. So what gives?!
That day was a day that I woke up knowing how to manage my depression. And the thing is, I didn’t realize that until a few days later. I looked back at the day realizing that I had no time for self care on a day that I needed it most, yet I was able to build it into a busy day that beat the hell out of me.
So what did I do when I had no time at all for self care? It use to be that I fell apart, the day went to shit, I couldn’t work at all, I berated myself, anxiety would creep in, and depression would grip me and send me down into a very deep, very dark hole that I wasn’t able to crawl out of. But this day was different, and the best part for me was that I didn’t even need to think about doing these things, it was just automatic. And the kicker is that I don’t normally do these things, like, ever.
This goes without saying, but step zero is take your meds (if you’re on them). There are there to support you.
PHYSICAL
1. put lotion on after washing your hands (every damn time)
I have really dry skin and should have been doing this anyway, even though I don’t. But for some reason on this day I was craving a scent that I turn to when I’m feeling stressed. I reached for the black chamomile lotion from Bath & Body Works and BONUS: its a beautifully inspiring bottle to look at if you like stars, the night sky, the moon, and constellations.
Without thinking I put it right next to the soap so I’d see it every time I washed my hands that day. This was a little act of kindness that my intuition showed my physical body on a really stressful day.
MENTAL & EMOTIONAL
2. estimate how long each task will take (and use a timer)
Looking at my task list for work this day was really overwhelming. My mind was telling me that I needed self care ASAP! I wasn’t ready to face the work, I felt vulnerable, and unprotected (some days criticism gets you before it even gets TO you). So I took a look at my list and began to prioritize like I normally do, with the addition of estimating how long it would take each task to get done or how much time I would be able to devote to it that day.
Honestly I did this at first thinking that I would time everything out so I could take an extended break for the much needed self care zen hour that I missed that morning. But after l looking at my list I knew that it just wasn’t going to happen that day. There was no way, at all, that I was going to be able to build in time to take care of myself.
Putting a time limit on each task calmed my frazzled overwhelmed mind. This was the first moment of the day where I felt like things might turn out okay at the end of the day. Knowing that I only had so much time AND using a timer to keep myself accountable gave me a better work ethic that day and took away my guilt of needing to finish a task before I could work on another that was equally as important and had the same deadline. The awesome part about taking care of my mental and emotional health this way by reducing stress and creating a plan was that I found at the end of the day I actually got everything done. EVERYTHING! And that made me feel totally accomplished and lifted my mental and emotional state as the day went on. It really is true that you will take as much time to get something done as the time you allow for it, no matter how long or short that amount of time is.
SOUL & SPIRITUAL
3. afternoon tea break around 2:00 PM (use a phone reminder)
At this point of my day, I knew that if I didn’t take a break, that I was going to break. Here is where I consciously made the decision to stop and smell the roses, or tea in this case. I picked a tea that got me excited and that I knew without a doubt that I would enjoy, no matter what. Do you ever have those days where your favorite tea or coffee just isn’t cutting it? I was not about to take that chance this day.
The ritual of selecting, smelling the sachet, warming the water, and making the tea is what made this a spiritual act for me. And the art of tea drinking, cozying into a chair, looking outside, and feeling the warmth of the mug while it was cupped in my hands is what made it a soulful experience for me. Viewing preparing tea for myself as a ritual made me feel connected to the acts that make my soul bright and happy. Being spiritual doesn’t have to be a religious experience, it can be as simple as doing something that makes your heart light and makes you feel connected to something outside of yourself, like making a cup of tea. The soul connection for me in this tea ritual was feeling the warmth of the tea reach down into my bones to warm and heal my weary bones and soul this day.
How does this connect us to our Spirituality?
Taking care of my physical body was subconscious, taking care of my mental & emotional state seemed to be “accidentally on purpose,” and taking care of my soul was on purpose. It took my realizing that something was wrong, that woke my inner self up and said “hey we need some extra help today,” that put me on the path to (eventually) consciously finding little micro moments in the day where I was able to practice self care and really take care of myself on what could have been a day lost.
What did I learn?
My intuition has got my back, she knows whats going on buried inside my mind & body. I know that she’s going to be there for me because she’s my true self, my inner self, my spirit, and my soul. She is what connects me to my spirituality & spiritual body because she knows what I need mentally, emotionally, physically, and soulfully.
This wouldn’t have happened for me even a year ago. My mental health was so out of balance, that my inner self was huddled in a corner not knowing what to do, just letting that negative harmful voice of depression rage on like a violent angry person. Realizing this has made me extremely grateful and humbled. I finally have my life back in balance and my true self back on board ready to take care of me on the bad days that creep up every once in awhile. And its not just us with anxiety, depression or other mental illnesses, we all have bad days and could use a little mind body and soul TLC.
What are you doing to connect to your Spirituality?
This week I want you to focus on leaning into your yoga practice.
By developing the practice of leaning into your yoga practice you get to familiarize yourself with your body and with your physical edge. You will also learn to trust your body, which is part of knowing your soul, true self and inner self.
Whether your yoga practice is spiritual or purely health and exercise related, you can gain mountains of benefits from yoga as a daily practice.
Start by sitting your ass down on that mat! This can be a hard habit to build if you haven’t carved out the time for your yoga practice, especially with everyone holding being “busy” in high regard. But there is a way to move forward. Try rolling out your mat next to your bed so that every morning you have to walk across your yoga mat.
If you can’t get yourself out of bed, just literally roll out of bed onto the floor and sit cross legged in silence for a few minutes while your brain focuses on your breathing and the sounds around you. What can you hear? Then slowly ease into your first yoga position.
Now that you’re on the mat, get it OUT of your head that you need to follow a full yoga routine every single time. When I started practicing yoga regularly, I began by getting acquainted with the poses.
Could I do this pose?
How in the heck do I get into this pose?
Then I learned the sequence and disregarded holding each position for a certain amount of time. My focus was doing the pose correctly and memorizing the sequence, it didn’t matter how long I held each pose.
My number one goal was to be able to do yoga outside in nature without headphones, which means I had to memorize the sequence I wanted to do. I am at a point in my yoga practice where I have sequences memorized and now I am focusing on breath and holding the position.
In my personal experience I have found that it was MUCH easier to get myself TO the mat if I took the time to roll it out the night before. The difficult part for me was getting to the mat at the end of the day when my will power was depleted, so I moved it to the beginning.
If you’re still have trouble finding time to lean into your yoga practice, try the bathroom trigger method. Every time you go to the bathroom hold a yoga pose or move through a quick sun salutation as you exit the bathroom. Don’t worry about how long it is, just get your body moving and stretching.
This is going to remind your brain and your body why you started your yoga practice in the first place. And hopefully plant the seed for your next yoga session on the mat.
Things to Remember:
1. There’s no such thing as being bad at yoga.
2. Meditation is yoga!
3. Stretching counts too!
By developing the practice of leaning into my yoga practice and letting my body guide me, I have found that I feel more energy and loose & flowy in my body. I also feel strong depending on the type of yoga practice. By stopping the excuses and scheduling my yoga time I feel more balanced in my life and more calm in my mind. The practice of leaning into my yoga practice has given my mind a new type of stability when I am not actually in my yoga practice, but in the rest of my day working and engaging with others.
This month I was inspired by the Oscar Wilde quote, “A Dreamer is one who can only find her way by moonlight.” I think it fits really well with my “lunar life” and all of my evening appointments. I don’t know what it is about my schedule, but it seems like I’m just working away the day like a busy bee and then at night I come to life. Does anyone else feel like that?
I’m starting off with the sun and the moon flipped in the sky. I realized that most of my appointments are in the evening and only a few other appointments during the day, so I wanted to keep the bulk of this monthly spread lunar and in the night sky.
Next I fill in each of the lunar phases, its been really awesome that this year so far the lunar months pretty much line right up with the calendar months, its made journaling so much easier for me. And its also made me feel like my soulful lunar self is in alignment with my work life.
Next I’m adding grass on the “day” side to visually break up the week. Also on the day side I’m adding in my weekly coffee chats and a few birthdays this month. The constellations on the lunar side are for each Sunday to mark my Improvisation Class. And on Wednesday evenings I have Yoga & Ayurveda Class which is marked by this little downward dog yoga pose symbol.
And on the 20th, there is no yoga class which is why I drew in a meditating figure. And on the 21st I have some leaves sprouting up for Spring. On the next page I have my Spring Goals, Action Plan, and Trackers.
The next page is my Letters to the Universe. I use this section as a place to say thank you for the things that have come into my life, show gratitude for the good and bad, or use it as a place to vent or write out my emotions if anxiety has gripped me, which is what happened last month. I had a bit of a melt down and used this section as if I was writing a letter to a friend telling them about what happened and how I wanted it to change.
I’m leaving the next page blank for now because I will be coming back to it with a special Journal With Me video to go along with my 52 Journaling Prompts to Connect Deeper To Your Spirituality. Make sure you subscribe so you don’t miss that video.
On the opposite page I’m setting up my hopes and goals for the 3rd lunar cycle. This is the page that I use to work out my mantras for the lunar month. The theme for this cycle is “tend to your soul.” I have a section for the challenges I’ll face, my goals, how I’m going to do it and down at the bottom, my little plant tracker. I fill in a leaf each day that I say my mantras, which is usually in the morning with my coffee.
I was also inspired this month by a beautiful pin that I have seen on pinterest for years. Its a fortune teller cootie catcher from elementary school. Comment down below if you remember those little guys! I use to tell my friends fortunes this way all the time when I was little. This layout is also a bit like a bullet journal dutch door. Follow me on Pinterest for journaling inspo.
inspo for my March BUJO Plan With Me – Lunar & Spiritual Journaling
On the inside of the fortune teller I’m putting a feeling based intention journaling prompt that I’ll be filling out on the morning of each moon phase. If you want to see how I use this spread check out my 3rd Moon Lunar Goal Setting Video.
I’m using the constellations this month as dividers between each section for the moon phases. On the outside of this fortune teller dutch door are the dates of each moon phase and a corresponding element that I drew in with a silver sharpie. I’ve also combined this spread with my Mid Moon Check In and my 3rd Lunar Review that I fill out at the end of each moon cycle.
The very last page of my monthly BUJO set up is the Unravel Your Month from Susannah Conway. Let me know in the comments if you’d like me to dive a little deeper into how I use the Unravel Your Month.
And now that I’ve completed this month’s set up, I can go ahead and bring this March Plan With Me Lunar & Spiritual Journaling practice to a close.
This week I want you to focus on re-energizing your surroundings.
By developing the recurring practice of re-energizing your surroundings you get to keep your mind active and engaged. You also learn to flex your creative muscles by concocting ways to make changes in your space and in your mindset.
Start by switching things up with what you have. Each day try something different, light a scented candle, clean your space, use a room spray, rearrange your space, change the lighting in your space, add a plant, or try adding a jar of rocks that you’ve collected.
In my personal experience I have found that it was also very very important to change my information diet. By changing the blogs you read, the news you receive, and of course change your Facebook feed (or your social media drug of choice) you start to shift the lens through which you view the world. This can shift in the positive or negative.
The difficult part for me was realizing in the first place what was bothering me on the internet and in real life. Once I realized that I was feeling stressed or strained, I used that feeling as a signal to take a moment and assess what was going on. I was trying to dive deeper and get in touch with my true self, inner self, & soul. Once I was there, it began to be really easy to identify what needed to stay and what needed to go.
In my digital life, I have retooled and purged my Facebook feeds many times over the past five years and have finally arrived at a balance that keeps me informed and inspired, instead of jealous and feeding (unknowingly) off the drama.
In my real life environment, I am constantly changing things around. I change our paintings and decor with every season. Fortunately we have been gifted many paintings from our families. We have a pretty minimal style when it comes to decor, so its really easy for us to switch things around in a matter of minutes.
If I feel like things are getting stale with the decor that we have, I like to create my own art and pop it into some frames that we already have hanging up. I like to make abstract works with paint, my own graphic design posters on the computer, my own hand lettering of quotes that I find inspiring, and my own nature photographs.
Things to Remember:
1. Purge the accounts and pages that you follow on social media and keep only the most supportive & healthily inspiring content.
2. Frame your own art!
3. You don’t have to spend a dime, just move around what you already have.
By developing the practice of re-energizing my surroundings I have found that I feel more inspired and more alive. It feels like my environment (digital & in real life) is evolving with me and changing with the seasons.
Remember, “Change Your Environment, Change Your Life.”
Usually New Year’s Resolutions turn out to be “set it and forget it,” which sadly doesn’t get us anywhere close to achieving our goals. It also shows the world and ourselves that we are not intentional about our own intentions. Which when you think about it, is pretty disrespectful to yourself. Would you want to be with someone who just keeps on giving you empty promises year after year?
Fortunately correcting the “set it and forget it” mindset can be done! Here is how you can adopt a positive action oriented mindset for your intentions, so that by the end of the year you are looking back and feeling excited about what you have accomplished.
STEP ZERO
Before we get to Step 1, we need to do Step ZERO, which is changing the “deadline” of your goal to a “celebration marker.” Got it? Cool, now we can move on to Step 1.
1. Give Yourself An Achievable Marker
The first step to taking action is making an easy choice that is not overwhelming in any way. We want this first choice you make to be inside of your comfort zone. So, lets set this deadline celebration marker for 6 months from now and put it down in the calendar.
2. Schedule Backwards
The second step is determining the best way to take action on your intention with your calendar. Which is reverse engineering your intentions by planning your schedule backwards from your deadline celebration marker. I want you to schedule out those intentions, by breaking it down from monthly, weekly, to daily actions you can take to walk yourself to your deadline celebration marker.
3. Refine & Pull Out The Weeds
The third step is all about refining your lifestyle to let your intentions grow uninhibitedly. It’s now time to break out the garden hoe and cultivate those seeds of intention that have been germinating in your mind. Prepare yourself and your lifestyle to achieve this intention and make it to your deadline celebration marker. Tend to the soil (your life) around those seeds and pluck out any weeds that have sprung up. These weeds are the distractions & road blocks that are keeping you from establishing strong intentional roots. Dig deep into the reasons why you want to achieve this intention as you pull out the weeds that have undoubtedly sprung up.
In the end there is no set it and forget it Roundup Weed Killer when it comes to taking action and cultivating the seeds of your intentions. There is just good old fashion weed pulling by hand that gets you moving and aligns you with your intentions. When we get down in the dirt and pull those weeds we are accepting ownership of our intention to grow our goals. Which in turn aligns you with your spirit, who is already waiting at the celebration marker for you, because they can already see that you’ve made it! This conscious practice of setting action oriented goals connects us to our aspirations and shows us the way forward by allowing us to be the creators of our own path, which is a powerful feeling.
things to remember….
1. Give Yourself and achievable marker 2. Schedule Backwards 3. Refine & Pull Out The Weeds.
Don’t know where to start? Begin with Research. Then Brainstorm and Choose Your Focus. You can also get feedback from others in the real or online who have achieved what you’re striving for. Don’t be afraid to ask, everyone loves to give advice! Just eat the fish and spit out the bones (AKA take what nourishes your spirit and leave the rest behind).
Get out there and take action and cultivate the seeds of your intentions!
