Holistic Living is Soft Living

What Does Soft Living Mean To You?

It seems that soft living is all the buzz now? As well as femininity, traditional, and slow living. If I had to analyze why, my gut feeling is telling me that we are all tired and trying to find a way to escape or rest from our reality. It seems the more technology and access we have, the busier we become. When before we thought technology would help us work smart, work less, and have more free time. So here we are trying to be more soft in a hard world.

 In this article I will dive into techniques and strategies that might help you achieve incorporating some softness in your life, that is practical, realistic, sustainable, and obtainable. Soft living can be tailored to your liking and personalized using some universal coping mechanisms and holistic living that focuses on mental and physical well-being, enforcing your boundaries, and living intentionally.

Mental and Physical Well-being

Mental and Physical Well-being is something that can be broken down into your mind, body, and spirit. We must first acknowledge that your mindset many times manifests itself in your life and your behavior. These behaviors and decisions you make decide the quality of your life. There are some experiences we might not have control of, but how we respond or receive an event makes a world of difference. This is when emotional intelligence and coping strategies are vital for sound mental well-being.

What is emotional intelligence? Emotional intelligence has been defined, by Peter Salovey and John Mayer, as “the ability to monitor one’s own and other people’s emotions, to discriminate between different emotions and label them appropriately, and to use emotional information to guide thinking and behavior”. When you learn to understand yourself and others, you can communicate in a positive way, which will lead to better relationships with others and yourself as well as help resolve conflicts effectively.

How can you develop emotional intelligence?

The main component of having emotional intelligence is understanding yourself and the core of who you are and your emotions and accepting those emotions and processing them. Communication is key to emotional intelligence but it’s how you communicate and deliver your message that matters the most.

Skills To Emotional Intelligence

Self-Awareness: Understanding the core to your emotions and processing them. Your ability to manage core feelings such as anger, sadness, fear, and joy often depends on the quality and consistency of your early life emotional experiences. Ex, I know I do not like being perceived as unintelligent because as a child I was put in speech class and that made me feel isolated and less than my classmates. You must understand the core of why some things are your insecurities.

Self-Regulation: Processing your own thoughts before acting or behaving. Controlling your impulsive feelings and managing them. Having the ability to adapt to changes and taking initiative in healthy ways. Given yourself time to process your own inner dialogue or responses, especially in times of stress or high anxiety. Ex, you can’t just slap someone in the mouth if they say something rude to you, that will cause a lot of trouble for you and is violent. Even if that’s your first instinct or thought.  Trust me I know!

Empathy/Social Skills/Relationship Management: Your ability to recognize emotions, motives and behaviors in others and picking up on social cues. Understanding people’s concerns and feelings. The ability to be comfortable socially with others and communicating clearly and concise.

When you start evaluating your emotions as well as others. Then learn how to process those feelings and clearly communicate that with others, as well as yourself. You can create a more peaceful, harmonious and sound life and mind. Emotional intelligence will help you manage stress as well as communicate with others. This is an important trait to have, and many times needed to live a quality life.

Your Physical Well Being:

Our body is our life source. What we do to our bodies and what we put in our bodies determines the effectiveness of our life source. The three main components we need that is vital for our physical well-being is food/water, sleep and movement. I tell my parents many times its best to invest our money on healthier foods instead of allowing the hospitals and pharmaceutical companies take all our money. They love that! We have to think about ways we can maintain are health or prevent illness to the best of our capabilities.

I am not perfect when it comes to diet, but I am mindful. I also need to stress that rest is important, and we need it for our bodies to be to regenerate and heal, and the third component is movement. I will briefly discuss what healthy eating is and what movement I think is beneficial. You don’t see my saying exercise because what our body needs is movement.  I also want to advise you consult with your primary care before making any sudden changes to your diet or exercise. Some conditions such as diabetes is very specific diets that need to be followed.

Healthy Eating:

I don’t believe in diets or extreme meal preparing or too much thinking when it comes to eating. I personally don’t find that enjoyable or sustainable. I also don’t see anyone maintaining diets for the long term. I do understand using these diets temporally but not long term. What I believe is more practical and sustainable is understanding portion control as well as what is healthy to eat and what is not. I eat food that are healthy, but I also eat unhealthy food. I try to be mindful about and make sure the unhealthy foods I eat are a small percentage of my diet.

Whole food is gold! It is more straight forward than you think. Eating food that are actual vegetables. Keep these veggies in your refrigerator and eating them as most of your meals as well as the protein of your choice. Think colorful fruits and veggies the more the better. Also don’t forget to add your protein of you choice.

That can be chicken, beef, pork, poultry etc. If you are a vegetarian you can get make sure to add tofu,beans,mushrooms,tempeh,seeds,almonds,potatoes,oats,yogurt,avacado etc to your diet. I am not a vegetarian, I advise do more research.

There is a quote out there if it came out the grass like that or ground its better to eat. Avoid eating foods that processed or in packages and labels. If you do try not eating them a lot and have it as a treat or snack occasionally.The more veggies and whole food you eat the better you will feel physically. I have a deep addiction with sugar, so I know it is easier said than done. But I try to balance that out by mostly eating whole foods. I do not like eating out too much because I don’t get control many aspects of what is being prepared. I keep it simple when I cook. Such as fresh veggies, rice or some type of carb and protein. The more simple my meals are the easier it is for me to keep it consistent.

Movement: Some people go to the gym and weight train or take classes but that’s not the only way to get movement. The body just needs some movement. I believe 30 minutes a day is sufficient. So that could be a daily walk at the park, that could a gym membership, bike riding, dance class, swimming, workout in the house, weight training with some dumbbells. What matters most is that you are moving your body, get aerobic and anaerobic exercise as well as stretching.  Please exercise to the ability of your body age and consult with your primary care. Anaerobic exercise is a little more rigorous.

·       jumping or jumping rope.

·       sprinting.

·       high-intensity interval training (HIIT)

·       biking.

This might have seemed like a lot but the conclusion is that our bodies thrive best with rest, rich and nutritious foods that are well-balanced whole foods and our bodies need movement to obtain a healthy and strong body.

I want to conclude with you all that soft living for me is building systems, coping mechanisms and working on multiple parts of my well being. Which, I believe is our mind, body, and sprit. The more aligned we are with these components the better life we will be able to live. It will not be easy but like any goals having a plan and strategy will help you reach them or at least get closer to your goal.

My goal for soft living is being able to manage my life that is fulfilling,joyful and peaceful no matter what situation I am. I have an array of coping mechanisms, systems and techniques I use in my life. In future blog post we will dive into more topics in detail. I believe working with your mind, body and spirit is the foundation and essential to holistic living, whatever label you might call it.