Gift Guide: Well-being and Mental Health

This post may contain affiliate links. Please see my disclosure to learn more.

Well-being and mental health have become increasingly imperitive for those living life in the fast-lane. I count myself in the tally. Before switching to a slower pace, I was constantly in a state of low-grade panic. Instead of taking breaths, I was holding them in. I was literally throwing away my life force towards menial tasks that got me nowhere. I was also throwing my money around like it was free. Sound familiar?

Twas nice to finally put on my metaphorical brakes and force myself to a complete STOP. Well, if I was being truly honest, it was COVID that gave my life pause. There were a couple of weeks where I literally had nothing – no job, no responsibility, no travel plans, nowhere to go, no one to see. The stay-at-home mandate was a sudden wake up call, as well as a slight shift in perspective.

I had already been pursuing slow living, but it was still a pursuit. With me, everything is a pursuit. Even doing nothing is a pursuit. Who could blame me? Our society trains us from day one to achieve. Which competes with our wishes to be.

Anywho, we could all use some healing right now. This month, I alluded to mental health as being one of my main foci in my August Goals post. Whether you have yourself or someone else in mind, here is a gift guide for well-being and attending to our mental health.

A planner centered around gratitude and intention.
An app for meditation.
Live plants and natural surroundings (try their monthly subscription!).
Reviving products for stressed out skin.
Happy pills, but good for you (receive 10% OFF your first order with the code NUEAFF10)
The gift of good sleep (with $40 OFF a purchase of $200 or more).
Beautiful sheets that prompt a whole day in bed.
Towels worthy of a bath soak.
Pillows for sinking into and creating reading nooks (with 15% OFF using my code: debtist15) .
A beautiful new mat for an early morning routine.
Something soft for our weathered feet.
A polish whose proceeds are donated to a non-profit helping those with mental illness.

The Pursuit of Doing Nothing

This post is sponsored by Territory Design. By curating a collection of items centered around crafting a life well-lived, Territory inspires the pause needed for grounding us in our everyday living.

The pursuit of doing nothing is a dying art. Hardly do I ever encounter a human being capable of nothingness. We Americans, especially, are never not doing. We have a bad habit of seeking activity rather than pleasure. We are always looking ahead to the next thing. We are constantly in search of distraction. How many times do you automatically take a moment of stillness and use it to pull out your phone and subconsciously hit that social media icon. BOOM! Time spent, action checked off.

But are you well?

Does it behoove you, the things you cram into your schedule?

We leave the art of doing nothing to the monks, as if it is an occupation that is not worth our time. Or we make up some excuse, saying we were born this way – our personality is just not meant to sit still.

There’s a reason the monks call meditation a practice. Because even monks were not born to be doing nothing. They are human, after all, with human minds that wish to plan ahead and human hearts that wish to conquer dreams. The practice part of it is required in order to master the art of stillness. It is, even for them, a pursuit.

Many of us get uncomfortable sitting with ourselves for too long, constantly on edge should a negative thought fleet across our minds or a scary imagination flicker behind our closed eyelids. We seem to always be waiting for bad news. Why waste time thinking and worrying? Best we get up and go do something about it. DO, ACT, GO. Or so the consensus goes. There is a certain courage required to pause in the face of discomfort and keep going as if nothing was shaking you to the core. There is growth in being able to take a short-coming and process it in ways that transform you.

The pursuit of doing nothing is a challenge worthwhile. It’s not going to be easy, and certainly the world isn’t making it easier. There will be temptations thrown your way, low-hanging fruit dangling inches from your brow, but don’t be fooled. Everyone else will also be holding on to low-hanging fruit. It’s hardly special, and will always be around. You’ve got a job to do.

Look at nothingness as an opportunity. Have you ever found yourself saying, “I don’t have the time”? Doing nothing is required to create space for something new. Therefore, the pursuit of doing nothing is preemptive to moving forward. It is old-age culture that is lacking in new-age thinking. No one else around you is doing that. Everyone else is too busy to take on the opportunities, and losing them too, all at the same time.

The pursuit of doing nothing is a dying art, and we, a backwards culture. Since when did we value filling our time with useless action items that are essentially repetitive loop cycles? Get up, go to work, come home tired, eat dinner and barely see the kids, binge watch TV, go to sleep, repeat five times a week, fifty-two weeks a year, forty-five years of our life. Is this what you want to call a living?

I don’t know about you, but I am committed to pursuing doing nothing.

Territory Design’s Flecha Pillow in Cream is the perfect muse for reflection and thought, growth and discovery. For a limited time, TheDebtist readers can receive 15% OFF using the code debtist15.

Minimalism: Bathroom Routines

This post may contain affiliate links. Please see my disclosure to learn more.

If you were to walk into our tiny home right now, barge yourself up to our bathroom and pull back the shower curtain in one fell swoop, you may be shocked to find the bare-bones tub that we bathe in. The amount of products that we allow ourselves are few and far between. I never realized before that it was uncommon to house only a single bar of soap in the shower. It wasn’t until my mother-in-law stayed with us for a few weeks and commented on how “bizarre” our bathroom was that I thought to myself, “Maybe we ARE outliers.”

When I asked her why, she mentioned how most people would have products up the wazoo strewn over their bathing areas. I suppose it never occurred to me that some people have soaps, shampoos, conditioners, face moisturizers, loofahs, and whatever else (I don’t even know what else as I’ve run out of things to list). She said that most couples have his and hers products, because the beauty industry would like us to think that we need separate goods.

So we don’t own many things, and she may have stayed with us back when we were practicing zero plastic living much more stringently, hence the singular bar, but in our defense we’ve lightened up a bit on both counts since then. There are a few luxuries that we’ve afforded ourselves recently, one of which is this beautiful Japanese body scrub, which said mother-in-law gifted me for Christmas. And while the tub still usually holds only a bar of soap and this loofah hung up to dry on the shower curtain rod, we also own gifted bottles of Aesop products which we take into the tub occasionally.

I know that I may not get most people on board with me on this one, but may I pitch the idea that minimalist bath routines are the way to go? Firstly, we can reduce our environmental impact by just limiting the products that we buy. There is no need for his and hers segregation. Even though they are advertised as such, I don’t see why he and I need different products. Is that weird?

Secondly, we reduce packaging by reducing our consumption. In fact, people may find this odd, but we shampoo perhaps one to two times a week. We use the conditioner less frequently than that. We own beautiful products that were gifted to us but this miniature Aesop body soap has lasted me six months. Not because I never wash, but I don’t use it in excess. A tiny drop is good enough to bathe in. The shampoo and conditioner have also lasted us just as long, and we aren’t close to finishing. I would gander that the conditioner would last us the entire year.

Yes, they are in plastic bottles. No we are not perfect. Perhaps being gifted these and using them isn’t a sin. I like to think it’d be more eco-conscious than shipping more ethical shampoo and conditioner options across the country? I don’t know.

From a frugalist’s perspective, Aesop products are not cheap. In this case, they were free, but even if they weren’t, limiting consumption of Aesop bath products could save you more money than a person squandering Dove products on the daily. With less products to use, you can also reduce your monthly water bill. I like to shower in less than five minutes and Mike turns the water off every time he uses a bar of soap.

Phew, after this discussion, perhaps we are whackos. Just out of curiosity, how may items do you have in your bathtub?

Also, two of my favorite companies have 20% off sales on their entire site this weekend, which is sort of post related.

+ Bath towels and accessories from Parachute is 20% OFF through Monday. My favorite is this classic starter bundle in the color Bone.

+ Territory design also has 20% off everything and that is where my mother-in-law bought this body scrub.

Play Pretend: Memorial Day Weekend Staycation

This post may contain affiliate links. Please see my disclosure to learn more.

I once posted a guide to staycations less than a year ago and I find that post to be excruciatingly relevant as Memorial Day Weekend nears. I doubt many of us will be jet-setting across the globe with our families, but at the same time I would gander that many of us are tired of hunkering down at home. The trick to any staycation, of course, is to rid the self of routine. Anything that you would do on a normal weekend should be shoved under a rug, if only for the holiday weekend.

Now staycations don’t just marvelously appear out of thin air. The most successful ones require meticulous planning, should a simple chore meander its way to make a ruinous weekend. I like to plan a few activities throughout. Not so many that we can’t remain fluid, but enough to avoid the sinking feeling that all this is was a wasted holiday.

Everything you need to create a delicious weekend – as if you haven’t had enough practice this quarantine season – below.

A few tips, if I may.

Get dressed for the occasion. Even if it means you will be in your home all day long, I really do feel that getting dressed will make this time more special. Put on some earrings and shoes. Wear a nice dress if weather permits. Remember the days when you were a child playing dress-up? It’s the first step to playing pretend.
Start the day setting the tone at home. Draw back the curtains, fling open the windows, light a candle. Make the bed by straightening the sheets and fluffing the pillows. These are the first few things I do to make the home feel like someplace I want to be.
Plan time outdoors. I know this may seem a bit anti-staycation but in all honesty, cooping up all day isn’t the best thing for any of us these days. Even if it means stepping out on your tiny-home balcony in order to breathe fresh air and get some sunshine. I like to wear my bathing suit and lay out on fake grass. You may prefer to sit in a swing and drink white wine.
Set the table. Let’s face it. We are all probably eating at home. But instead of cooking up Top Ramen like we always do, why not spruce up the event? Perhaps a cheese board of your creation in the afternoon. A farmer’s market fruit bowl. Freshly baked scones for tea time. Support a local restaurant that you’ve been wanting to try for AGES. Order delivery and set the table. Pull out all the stops. Linens, your best china, and candlesticks. Set the mood for something more special than TV dinners.
Add a spa-like quality to rest. Some vacations are for adventure. Others are meant for reset. Since the former is inaccessible to many of us at the moment, I’d like to propose a relaxing staycation for all. Forget the flower petals on the bed. That will only result in more clean-up. Keep it simple. Put on silky pajamas, soak feet in herbal water, crank up the essential oil diffuser. Turn on slow jams and dim the lights.

Related posts:

Related posts:

Related posts:

Related posts: