On Thursday I spent the evening with my friend Radhika wandering in Discovery Park.
I met Radhika in my previous role I marketing at the association office of the Ymca and we connected INSTANTLY. Her energy was calm and aura was/is bright.
I have a long list of outdoor parks/hikes on my Seattle Bucket list, so Radhika and I have decided to tackle them! The goal is to get out, get some fresh air and get grounded in the middle of the week! So Thursday we ventured out to Discovery Park. The weather was a breezy sixty and sunshine.
Discovery Park is a 534 acres park on the shores of Puget Sound in the Magnolia neighborhood of Seattle, Washington. It is the city's largest public park and contains 11.81 miles of walking trails.
Sidebar: Radhika is def on my list of low maintenance high-quality friendships, and if you know me or don’t you should know I value these types of relationships.
I am an extrovert majority of the time and I’ve learned that i need a few good solid free that are opposite of me to help balance me out. I exchange and help them get out of their introverted norms.
These friends are the yin to my yang. it’s easy it’s flowing and it’s refreshing. They don’t extract a lot of energy from me but replenish and help recharge me.
Another thing: I value in friendships is “quality or quantity” In other words quantity of years doesn’t supersede the quality of the friendship for me. Some of my closest friends have been my friend for less than a year, 3 years and I have some at 20+ years. For me, it’s about the quality of our friendship. I water you, you water me and we grow together. #nurturethosewhonurtue
We walked, we talked, and embrace the lush greenery that was available to us within 10 minutes outside of the major city. The forest smelled magical., the birds were chirping and the flowers were blooming. It was sooooo refreshing and recharging. We walked about 20 minutes then landed on the beach front.
My gut instinct was to take off my shoes and as I thought it Radhika was already doing it. #kindredspirit
We talked about how healing it was to reconnect to the earth. To feel the ground, the dirt and get grounded.
On some hippe ass Jazz shit lol….
Even though we can’t imagine our lives without wearing shoes, only 20 percent of the world's population today wears them. Although in western society, shoes are necessary in certain situations, now that spring is here, and summer is on its way, there’s nothing stopping you from finding a park or beach, taking your shoes off and going for a barefoot stroll in your backyard.
For me being barefoot in nature!
Makes my steps intentional & quiets my mind
When you are walking barefoot you are very intentional with your steps, to ensure you are not stepping on thorns, rough rocks or in our case weird ass succuotion, jelly looking things on the beach lol. Awareness of what’s in front of you at this moment quiets your inner chatter and clears your mind and helps you focus on the here and now.
Free Foot Yoga
Walking barefoot strengthens and stretches the muscles, tendons, and ligaments in your feet, ankles and calves.
Reduces Stress, Anxiety & Depression.
Walking barefoot in the grass can help decrease anxiety and depression by 62 percent, and increases the levels of those feel-good endorphins. That’s the bomb! Also, some cultures believed that walking barefoot in the grass was the best cure for insomnia, and some people still swear by this. ( I am one of them!)
It’s Grounding. Literally.
“ Our bodies are made up of about 60 percent water, which is great for conducting electricity. The earth has a negative ionic charge. Going barefoot grounds our bodies to that charge. Negative Ions have been proven to detoxify, calm, reduce inflammation, synchronize your internal clocks, hormonal cycles and physiological rhythms.” - Mind Body Green
The best places to get some negative ions or energy is through your feet are by the water. Everyone knows how good it feels to be barefoot on the beach! That’s why! You are reconnecting to the earth, to your roots.
Get Back to What Matters.
To be barefoot outside doesn’t just involve your feet – the rest of you has to be outside too. You get to connect with Mother Nature all around. Feel the sunshine on your face; hear the wind in the trees. It’s easier to connect to God when you’re in touch with Nature; it’s easier to put things into perspective.
Who knew something as simple as a barefoot walk could be so good for you – mind, body and soul.
Okay anyway! lol ….Radhika and I talked about these things, and how we could literally feel our body tingling as we walked in the mud, water, and sand. After that MAGICAL moment, I disclosed to her the conflict that I was having with managing my time personally and professionally. The balance of new managing my new role, quality time with friends and networking for my personal brand. I explained how much time that it took to produce the blog, as well as BE, PRESENT within the experiences. The balance of CONTENT is KING from a marketing perspective to balancing my daily life outside of social media/ the internet. People want MORE MORE MORE. They are engaged more when you produce more. We are a content-driven society I get it.
To be 100 the mindful yogi in me struggles with that. We spend so much time capturing moments for the ‘gram, snapchat, or looking at whatever one else is doing, we aren’t enjoying the PRESENT moment. I know I’m guilty of it. We all are. I try to intentionally put my phone up after or a certain timeframe with friends. It’s hard. I feel like I am missing shit. #FOMO
But my PET PEEVE is watching people at a dinner all on their phone. * rolls eye*
LET’S TALK TO EACH OTHER LIKE IT’S 1993!
I was hanging with a friend the other night and it was so refreshing for him to say
“ Okay, let’s put our phones up now.”
Yessss yesss yesss let’s do that! Old fashion gets to know each other, how’s your day, life shit.
I’ve found in these 3 months of blogging that weekly blog updates /content is a FULL-time commitment and my life has been consumed with getting content for “ the blog, the blog the blog” at EVERY dinner and activity. The blog is hella cool, and I LOVE sharing my stories and adventures with you guys! I’ve gotten great feedback and LOTS of support.
( thank you thank you!)
However, being PRESENT in my adventures and with my friends and family is VERY important. DO IT FOR THE STORY is for the story, but not just for the blog story. It is for the story to create mindful memories with the folks I enjoy kicking it with.
It took 6 years for me to produce this blog because I didn’t want to be consumed by the content or produce pretentious shit that wasn’t authentic to me. I caught myself slipping in the content world wind, stressing slightly, overthinking and I had to check myself before I wrecked myself this week. BE yourself. Work is busy, life is busy, where can you trim, what can you do differently to release some pressure in some areas.
The blog is meant to compliment my life not consume it. It’s meant to share my stories and your stories and create dialogue and community with others.
With all that being said, I will be adjusting the post flow to make sure that I am being intentional with my stories and to be present in my daily/weekly interactions.
I’ll share post biweekly’ish and if I’m traveling we may take mindful breaks and I post when I return.
This is my shit so I do what I want! Haha - but for real tho lol :)
I will also stop overbooking my calendar and allow space for relaxing walks in parks, or to share cozy cocktails and/or meals with people who feel like sunlight. Who recharge me and don’t drain me. I will be intentional with my time and energy.
I will protect my magic, set boundaries, create some balance and be present with my folks.
Key takeaways this week:
Be Present. Put ya phone away sometimes.
Let folks check for you. They won't if they can see EVERYTHING on IG and snap lol.
Nurture those who Nurture.
Go play in nature! Go barefoot and reconnect to the earth on some hippie shit. You’ll thank me later. Get Grounded.
Set boundaries. Protect your magic and your energy.
Be intentional with your time and energy.
That’s all I got for yall this week!
Thank you so much for reading and supporting me! I truly appreciate all the love and words of affirmation (that’s my love language yall lol)
I am new to this, but I am TRUE to this and TRUE to being my authentic self in these. Yall leave comments, shoot me an email, texts, DMs or whatever to tell me what you want more of, what you like, and what you not really feeling!
Cheers,
Jasmine Rashae