Hello and welcome to The Own Your Health Podcast,
I'm Cyndi Lynne and I can't wait to
help you step into your health power.
So today we're talking about the healthy houseguest.
And I get questions related to travel and health
while you're traveling and a number of different topics.
But this one I wanted to touch on because
I am in fact going to be a houseguest
for someone for the weekend. Very often when I
talk with clients about their rituals.
And I realized from the question that
I'm probably going to do a couple
of podcasts in the future about rituals.
And when I use this team, I say a
ritual is any practice or pattern of behavior that's
regularly performed and has meaning for you.
So the intentionality about it. So this
is not used with religious connotation.
It's simply a way to recognize practices that you
do so that you are bringing meaning and adding
hopefully healthy practices that you do to your life.
So I share mine with clients,
I share my routines,
I share my rituals with them.
I help them establish rituals of their own that have
meaning and that bring meaning to their health journey.
And the question often is, do you
do all that stuff when you travel?
And really my travel is kind
of divided up into two types.
Once if traveling, my husband and I on our own, staying
in Airbnbs, yeah, I pretty much do all of it.
I bring all of it.
I take all of it.
And that actually brings up another question, and that is,
don't I feel I need a vacation from that?
Or isn't vacation a time to get away from that?
And that's a really good way for you to
start to question the rituals and the practices that
you've put in place for your health.
So I'm going to actually talk about two extremes here.
The first is, if I've put something in place that I
really believe is for my health and I really feel good
about doing it, then I want to keep doing it.
I will take my yoga mat when I travel.
I will take a shakti mat.
I will take my supplements.
I will take those things that allow
me to continue my health practices.
The other end of that spectrum, and we'll get into
an example of that later, is that if you take
things with you because you're afraid to leave them behind,
because you get anxious if you miss a day of
yoga or you get anxious if you don't have all
of your supplements perfectly lined up every day, that may
be a different kind of thing.
That may be not so much a practice for
your health, but a habit or even a compulsion
that you've gotten into that is then driving you
rather than you driving the healthy behavior.
So I talk about these two ends of the spectrum,
stuff that you can't wait to do, you're looking forward
to, you don't want to leave it behind and stuff
that you're kind of afraid to leave behind.
Or if you have forgotten a supplement, you
would get a nervous or anxious or have
to figure out how to replace it.
Two sides of the same coin.
And we want to live more towards the looking forward
to taking stuff with you, doing everything that you really
want to do for your health, even if you're traveling.
But here's the caveat.
You're okay if some of the pieces are missing
and you don't get nervous about it, you don't
get anxious about it, you can still relax.
You can say, oh, I forgot that bottle on
the, oh, I ran out of such and such.
And again, we're not talking
about critical medications here.
We're talking about your practices, your supplements,
you know, oh, my yoga mat didn't
fit this time in the suitcase.
So what am I going to do?
Use a towel?
I'll find some way to. Right.
Because these practices are for my health.
I've been at the point where if I forget
something, I don't have something, or if the supplements
aren't all laid out perfectly, it causes me anxiety.
And I've had to take a step back and say,
okay, am I doing these things to serve me or
am I just being a slave to these things?
Okay.
And I invite you to take a look at
your practices and rituals that way as well.
What am I doing for my health
and what is it that I'm doing?
Maybe just for the sake of doing, or I've
gotten so wrapped up in that I really feel
anxiety if I can't do it. Right?
We all feel better having exercised.
I won't say we all like exercise because some
days I still don't want to do it, but
I always feel really good after I've done it.
If something happens and I'm in the airport and all I
can do is walk a little or I get stuck in,
you know, driving in the car for a long time and
I can't get that exercise, do I feel a little restless?
Yes. Do I panic?
Do I feel anxiety about it? No.
Living a healthy life is about finding that balance.
Rituals can contribute to practices because they can contribute
to healthy habits because there are things that you
do a little bit more on autopilot you don't
have to make a lot of decisions about it.
You just say, okay, this is what I do.
I journal every morning, or I journal every evening
before bed or whatever it is, it takes the
thinking and decision making out of it.
It makes the process much more efficient, and
it comes to give you pleasure because you
can see your progress over time.
Okay, so let's go on to the second type of travel.
And the second type of travel is when I'm going
to be a houseguest like I am this weekend.
What is the balance between doing my thing, eating
my food, drinking the kind of coffee I like
to drink in the morning, and being a houseguest,
spending time with people you love and letting them
host you, letting them take care of you.
And this is a point at which I let
go of some of my rituals and habits.
If in this particular instance, I get up and
go for a long walk with friends, that's great.
I'm staying with family members.
If they have different morning plans, great.
If it includes includes yoga, fabulous.
If not, no big deal.
They'll make the coffee that they want to make
to serve me, and I'm fine with that.
It doesn't have to be mine.
Now, will I still take my
little package of supplements for every day?
Yes, I can do that.
With whatever food is being served.
I will go with the flow.
I may suggest a walk if we
haven't moved around much for the day.
Or I may suggest a restaurant if it has a particular kind
of food I like, or pitch in and help with food.
But I don't feel that need to control every piece
of it like I would when I was at home.
And control is even kind of a
funny word that trips people up.
I enjoy what I do.
I enjoy morning routine.
But if it changes for the next few days so
that I can enjoy being with these people and I
can make good connections and I can feel that love
and expression of someone who wants to care for me
that's ultimately probably better for my health for those three
or four days than any of my practices would be.
So I invite you to one figure out
what your rituals are, and if you don't
have rituals, stay tuned because we're going to.
I'll hook you up right.
I'm actually working on just a brief PDF
right now to kind of move you into
that mode and offer some suggestions
if you're not already enjoying having rituals at different
parts of your day. And take a look at
them and see where are they on that spectrum.
Something you super enjoy, something you're doing
because you think you should do, and
I'm never for shoulding all over yourself.
And is it something that you have to do to the
point that if you don't, you begin to feel anxiety, you
begin to feel restless, you begin to feel out of control?
Where are you and your rituals on that spectrum?
And go out, be a houseguest or host
people who have different teams than you.
Spend the time connecting, spend the time and love, spend
the time nurturing that part of your health, and then
come back to your rituals when you're done.
Our health practices are meant to serve
us, not the other way around.
So check it out, take notes, journal on it,
and let me know what you come up with.
That's all I have for this week.
So until next week, let's go out and own it.
