5 Rituals to Add to Your Self-Care Summer Bucket List

The pandemic era of isolation has forced many of us to spend more time with ourselves than ever. Along the way, it has reshaped our approach to health and wellbeing, and emphasized the value of daily expressions of self-care. But times of great crisis lead to great innovation, as history has shown us repeatedly. And activities that began as a means to help people cope have since evolved into more permanent self-care practices that will be carried into the new “normal.”

So, to ensure self-care remains a top priority this summer, we brought together the most trusted experts in the world of wellness–doctors, dermatologists, nutritionists, and small business owners–for our Self-Care Summit presented by Ketel One Botanical. 

The expansive day of programming included roundtable conversations, live workouts and expert workshops covering everything from the clean beauty revolution to radical authenticity and living true to your values, to everything you never knew about your pelvic floor and much, much more. Remi Ishizuka and Nate Pontious closed the day with an epic HIIT Homebodies workout.

ICYMI, we captured the highlights from our Self-Care Summit presented by Ketel One Botanical, to distill them into 5 self-care rituals you can create for yourself at home. Now, more than ever, self-care is essential. Keep scrolling to kickstart your own self-care summer!

(Psst… If reading this is giving you serious FOMO, join Create & Cultivate Membership to get unlimited access to all of our Digital Self-Care Summit content, including video recordings of every panel and workshop download in C&C history.) 

Experience a Movement, Breathwork and Meditation Session

Start your day with a movement, breathwork, and meditation session with Julianne Hough’s new platform, KINRGY, a new kind of fitness platform, uniquely designed to engage the mind, body and soul. KINRGY invites participants to connect with themselves through three expressions of energy: Movement to connect with your physical body, Breathwork to stimulate your brain and nervous system, and activating your Imagination to create possibility and inspire you to make your dreams a reality. This powerful combination creates the optimal state for deep, energetic awareness and transformation to strengthen your body, connect to your dreams and give you more energy!

Join a 45-Minute HIIT Workout

Founded by Remi Ishizuka and Nate Pontious during California’s lockdown, Homebodies is a one-of-a-kind at-home workout program and community focused on building healthy, strong, resilient bodies. With minimal equipment, each workout is designed around functionality, strength, mobility and motor control. The best part? No two workouts are the same. Each Homebodies workout is totally unique, so you won’t get bored, and the consistency will bring you incredible results, however that looks for you.

Celebrate Everyday Moments with Ketel One Botanical

Whether sipping beach or poolside, hosting and entertaining friends with a backyard barbeque, tailgating or having a dinner party, Ketel One Botanical is the perfect way to elevate any occasion.

The best way to enjoy Ketel One Botanical is with the signature ‘Botanical Spritz’ cocktail. All you need is: your Ketel One Botanical varietal of choice, soda water and a fresh fruit or herb garnish. Serve it in a wine glass over ice and voila, you have a delicious, fresh tasting cocktail that’s sure to please.

And now, you can take your Spritz experience on-the-go with the Ketel One Botanical Vodka Spritz, the bubbly, bright, and portable canned version of the Botanical Spritz cocktail.  

All the varietals, Grapefruit & Rose, Cucumber & Mint, and Peach & Orange Blossom are distilled with real botanicals and infused with natural fruit essences. Did we mention that there are no carbs, no sugar, and no artificial sweeteners and only 73 calories per serving? 

Get your pack of Ketel One Botanical Vodka Spritzes or the classic Ketel One Botanical bottles now, available on Drizly. Use the code BOTANICAL in the app for a small gift. Valid for new users only.

Cheers!

Start a Gratitude Journal

As a former radio host and entertainment reporter for Access Hollywood, E! News and MTV, Liz Hernandez built a career on words, and her latest chapter as the founder of WORDAFUL is no exception. Realizing how our thoughts and words from yesterday are what make up our lives today, WORDAFUL is a new form of storytelling that emphasizes our connection to the power of words. A gratitude journal is a simple yet powerful tool to begin transforming our inner dialogue, which in turn can help cultivate more meaningful relationships and lives.

Clean Up Your Beauty Routine

Self-care, in part, includes cutting toxic things out of your life–including toxic ingredients in your beauty and skincare products. In the current climate of the beauty industry, ‘clean’ can take on different meanings, but the one thing we can all agree on is that beauty products should be good for you and your skin (and make you feel great!). Not sure where to begin? Check out WLDKAT’s unconventional ingredients, Kulfi Beauty’s iconic eyeliner, this summer staple from Megababe and this smoky vetiver body oil from Noto Botanicals. 

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Please drink responsibly. Please do not forward this message to anyone under 21. 

 KETEL ONE BOTANICAL.  Made With Vodka Distilled With Real Botanicals And Infused With Natural Flavors. 30% Alc/Vol. © Double Eagle Brands, B.V.  Imported by Ketel One USA, Aliso Viejo, CA. Avg Analysis Per 1.5 oz.: 73 Cals, 0g Carbs, 0g Protein, 0g Fat. 

 KETEL ONE BOTANICAL Vodka Spritz.  Made With Vodka, Botanicals, Natural Flavors, And Sparkling Water.  3.6% Alc/Vol. © Double Eagle Brands, B.V.  Ketel One Botanical Spritz, Indianapolis, IN. Avg Analysis Per 12 fl. oz.: 73 Cals, 0g Carbs, 0g Protein, 0g Fat.

How To Meditate At Work When It All Becomes Too Much

We've all felt stressed the F out at work, and that's probably never going to change—sorry. But rather than sulking into your anxious state of mind, why not try and get your zen on like all of the wellness bloggers you follow? Believe it or not, you can get in your zone at work and not feel like the workday took you down. Here's how to chill and stay chill at work when your inbox looks like it's at a million. 

Practice Breathing Exercises 

As basic as breathing exercises may sound, they're a huge help when it comes to relieving stress. Taking deep breaths slows down your heart rate and helps reduce the sense of anxiety. Getting your stress under control is one way to improve your health, and breathing exercises can help get you there. Hillary Clinton even used alternate nostril breathing as a way to cope with getting through the 2016 election. Hey, if it’s good enough for a presidential candidate, it’s good enough for us.

Plug In Your Headphones

It’s obviously not chill to blast any audio from your work computer, especially if you don’t have your own office. For us desk babes, headphones are heaven sent when it comes to meditating.  When you get to squeeze in some downtime, take advantage of pre-recorded meditation sessions from YouTube and some binaural beats. You’ll get in a meditation session at your desk or zone out to some chill tunes without anyone around you getting disturbed.

Download An App 

Stepping out for lunch today? Download a meditation app such as Head Space or Calm and get your moment of zen. These guided meditations are right in the palm of your hand and are great for the times you’re able to get outside and catch some fresh air. Look out for meditations that help kickstart your creative juices and productivity so that you can kill the rest of the workday. The best part about these is that they’re usually short, and you won’t face the guilt of being away from your desk for too long.

Try Team Meditation

Get your fellow boss ladies (and guys!) involved in your meditation. It’s honestly something we can all benefit from and will help everyone get their work done more effectively. Book the biggest conference room you can find, preferably in the middle of the workday, and play a guided meditation out loud for you all to follow. If you live in a larger city, there are plenty of meditating professionals who work with companies all of the time. Grab an expert to come along and show you and your coworkers the best way to stay balanced and refreshed in your office.

By: Andrea Navarro

 

MORE FROM OUR BLOG

Hey Lauren: How Do I Become My True Self and True Brand?

"Hey, Lauren" is our new bi-monthly column from licensed psychologist Dr. Lauren Hazzouri.  Dr. Hazzouri is a TV show host and founder at Hazzouri Psychology, where she’s carved out a successful niche treating women who are psychologically healthy—but trying hard and not getting satisfaction in various aspects of their lives. Through her life experience and training, Lauren’s developed a program that allows women to live meaningful lives and feel fulfilled doing it. Lauren is founder of HeyLauren.com, a project for women, where she provides evidence-based insights on job stress, relationship woes and everything in between. 

photo credit: Tory Williams

Hey Lauren,

How do we become ourselves and build a brand simultaneously?

Thanks,

The IG Generation  

To do this discussion justice, let’s start with a short ( and necessary!) psych lesson. According to Carl Jung, Swiss psychiatrist and psychotherapist who founded analytic psychology, in order to become whole individuals, we’ve got to strike a balance among our personas, our egos, and our true selves. The persona, a mask we create and wear in public, is an expression of our egos—how we wish to see ourselves and for others to see us. The persona is not a problem, nor is the ego; they’re both necessary! The problem arises when we identify too much with one, allowing our personas to become our identities. When that happens, our true selves have little room for growth. The result is that we feel stuck and discontented, having a hard time integrating and becoming our whole selves. 

BUT HEADS UP! WE BRAND OUR PERSONAS. 

Much like identifying too much with persona, mistaking our brand identity for our true selves puts our personal individuation at risk. In short, individuation is a process of self-discovery and is said to be necessary in our quest for purpose and meaning in life. The answer is NOT to shy away from personal branding. Instead, to stay on track to true self while building a brand, a dose of objectivity is key. Your personal brand is merely a means to connect self and society. So, do your damnedest to keep your brand values in line with who you really are. This way, you’ll be sure to keep the discomfort that comes with cognitive dissonance at bay, and growth in one area won’t compete with growth in the other. 

The process of building a brand and the process of becoming your true self look very different. Think about it—building is defined as constructing something, while becoming is defined as passing into a state. Believe me!—I know. Taking action is much easier for most of us than being passive. At times, the action is in the inaction. It’s easier to practice with the end-goal in mind. Remember—the reason you’re building your brand in the first place is in an effort to make your mark on the world—to meet your life’s purpose. Research on individuation tells us that you’re going to have to get acquainted with your true self first. 

Therefore, creating an environment where your true self can emerge is necessary. 

HERE'S HOW!

START WITH CHARACTER  

On the path to becoming your true self, it’s important that you begin to act more like the wind and less like a weather vane. A ( not-so-easy!) way to do that is to hone your character through a steadfast commitment to: Honesty: Be honest with yourself and others, regardless of the consequences; Accountability: Always do what you say you’re going to do—no excuses!; Responsibility: Respond, don’t react to your environment; Integrity: Do the right thing—even when nobody’s looking! 

SPEAK UP

Say what you mean, mean what you say, don’t say it mean. People pleasing is deceitful. You think you're being so nice. Agreeing when you don't agree, being okay with whatever when you're really not is stealing.

"Say what you mean, mean what you say, don’t say it mean."

Tweet this. 

Social interaction—and that includes social media—benefits us in that it provides opportunities for us to learn about ourselves by comparing and contrasting opinions and viewpoints and allowing others to do the same. You're not only stealing a growth opportunity from you, but also from your followers, too. The path to true self requires courage.

TAKE NOTE OF YOUR HOT SPOTS

Having insecurities is part of the human condition, which is not only fine but expected! Beware of how your experiences and insecurities shape your perception. We have the tendency to morph into what people seem to like or dislike. Losing our way is rarely the result of accurate information coming in. Instead, it’s how we view the information coming in. In order to reach the ultimate destination ( your true self!), it’s important that you dismiss what feels like negative feedback by getting familiar with the irrational thoughts that perpetuate insecurity. Bottom line—look out for triggers! Monitor your thoughts. And remember, respond don’t react. 

EMBRACE THE FULL PACKAGE 

We all have many aspects to our personalities. Recognize and foster each one. A lot of times, it seems that personal branding leads women to pigeon-holing themselves into certain personas. We have a tendency to pick and choose aspects of ourselves that are seemingly more marketable and less likely to increase vulnerability. Your personal brand ( and personal growth!) can only be a success is you recognize and celebrate all that makes you, you. 

JOURNAL IT (WITH PEN AND PAPER) 

Becoming our true selves is a life-long process. There are no short-cuts, and there’s no easier, softer way. Journaling is the enemy of confusion. I recommend you journal for 20 minutes a day. The health benefits of putting pen to paper cannot be overstated. Even better, writing accesses the left hemisphere—the rational part!— of your brain. In an effort to combat outside influences, write down your thoughts. This way, you’ll be sure to take the lead from the part of you that responds with grace, rather than reacts in fear. 

"Journaling is the enemy of confusion."

Tweet this. 

Following these several tips is a part of a foolproof plan to grow personally and professionally simultaneously—a true win-win. Brand that!

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Dr. Lauren’s on a mission to bring psychology to the public. She contributes to a variety of online publications, provides candid talks to women’s organizations across the country, and was recently cited in Forbes.  

Dr. Lauren is the 2016 recipient of The Psychology in the Media Award from The Pennsylvania Psychological Association and is a member of The American Psychological Association. For more from Lauren, visit @dr_lauren  and sign up for her weekly newsletter at HeyLauren.com.

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