It’s Earth Week here on the Hello!Self blog. Just like I tell my family around my birthday: It’s too big of a deal to only celebrate for one day, so let’s celebrate for the entire week! They love me for it (yeah, right), but hopefully you truly will! Check in this week for daily good life goods and notions that bow with respect to the earth, as I will be doing myself – however out of the norm (or messy) it may be. It’s going to be a fun, earth-loving, and ever-so interesting week here, so thank god you are here to experience it with me!

Let’s start where all of our days begin and where the sun finds us as it rises: in bed.

Organic Pleated Voile Duvet Cover and Shams by West Elm

Organic Sheets by Plover Organic

The Euro: 100% Natural Rubber Mattress by Lifekind

Graceful Morning bedding by Coyuchi

Organic quilts and pillow covers by Plover Organic

Unison Larch Organic Blanket and Pillow via Design Public

Can I tell you that I’ve been wanting to write a blog post title like the one I’ve just written since I was two years old. Ok, maybe three, four tops. Clearly I was a psychic child that knew blogs would exist when I was 30, and that I would write for one.

As an ocean lover who, until four months a go, had only lived in the great yet land-locked states of Iowa and Wisconsin, to be able to have such a post header be my reality is a trip. To be able to take off to the ocean on a whim to rejuvenate, splash around in the tide, meditate as the waves roll in, and take long walks along the beach is a dream come true. Needless to say, I’ll be taking part in the activity described in the Daily A!HA over and over and over again this weekend.

Adam’s parents are coming to town, so we’ll be enjoying the Pacific coast with them this time around. I can’t wait! I’ll be taking my own photos this weekend, but I wanted to share some professional ones with you as I head out.

What are you doing this weekend? May it be lovely and enjoyable! I can’t wait to see you back here next week. Cheers, friends!

(photo credit: The Ocean Lodge)

Earth Day is Thursday, April 22. Did you know it? I had to look it up myself just to be sure. I knew it had to be around the corner because I can feel and hear excitement for it growing. To honor Earth Day, and to celebrate our connection with nature, I’m kicking off an earth-inspired series of Daily A!HAs that will run through Friday, April 23.

Here is the first one! I sense the quality of life in nature.

If you get a few minutes this weekend, here’s a fun activity to do outside. Grab your kids, your pets, your friends, your spouse – whomever. It’s a sweet experience for all.

Head outside.

Pick an aspect of nature that grabs your attention. It may be a pond at a park you frequent. It may be a tree in your backyard. It may be a planting in your garden. It may be in the line of a sunbeam. Identify whatever that one aspect of nature in your world may be that is calling your name, that you just feel drawn to for whatever reason.

When you’ve identified it, cozy in up next to it. You may want to bring a blanket, a folding chair, a bleacher cushion – whatever – to make cozying up next to it possible. Or you may just love the idea of plopping down naturally – with nothing between you and the earth. Do what feels right and comfortable.

Once there and cozy, settle in and breathe. You may want to close your eyes. Keeping them open may seem more natural. Go with what feels natural. Breathe. Settle in. Focus on your breath and centering yourself. Thoughts may come and go. “What the hell am I doing?” may come and go. That’s cool. No probs. Just let those thoughts be there and move on their way. You can simply come back to the breath to re-center.

Once you feel grounded, start to sense the aliveness in the natural aspect you’ve chosen. Release your labels for it and simply experience it – as if you are experiencing it for the first time. Allow the aliveness it radiates to be experienced fully. Simply be with the natural element. Open all your senses to the experience. Experience. Feel. Sense the life that is that natural element. Allow it to share its energy with you. You may experience a deep sense of gratitude. Beautiful. Go with it.

When you feel complete with the experience, take a few deep, cleansing breaths, shake its hand, and move on with your beautiful day.

Today seems like the perfect day to own our loveliness – to see it, to feel it, to know it, to be grateful for it.

And here’s the really fun and juicy part -notice what happens within your world today as you consciously choose to focus on that which you love about yourself. Go ahead and catch the negative thoughts and tell them to take a hike today, because TODAY is the day we acknowledge our loveliness.

Here are some ways to do so:

1. Whip out the journal and list 50 ways in which you are lovely. That’s right – 50! You’ve got a million, so this should actually be easy.
2. Immerse yourself in a project that allows your natural passions, talents, creativity to flow
3. Practice exquisite self care
4. Buy or write yourself a greeting card
5. Take in the compliments you are given today – rather than deny or dismiss
6. Nourish yourself with clean, whole foods
7. Do something that makes you grin from ear to ear
8. See the good of yourself in the good of others. When you come across a way of being that you admire in another person, bring it back to yourself and acknowledge the piece of you that is already like that other person
9. Speak your truth
10. Make a 100% completely authentic decision. Step out just as you are – fully, wonderfully, uniquely
11. Allow self-deprecating humor to take a back seat today

How do you plan to acknowledge your loveliness today? Do you have any ideas to add to the list? We’d all love to hear. Just leave your lovely ideas on loveliness in the comments section. Cheers!

For today’s commentary, I’m turning it over to the beautifully written words of Geneen Roth, author of Women, Food, and God (excellent read, F.Y.I.). She’s says it best:

“Recurrent negative feelings — those that loop in the same cycles again and again without changing — are unmet knots of our past that got frozen in time for the precise reason that they were not met with kindness or acceptance.

Can you imagine how your life would have been different if each time you were feeling sad or angry as a kid an adult said to you, ‘Come here, sweetheart, tell me all about it.’ If when you were overcome with grief at your best friend’s rejection, someone said to you, ‘Oh, darling, tell me more. Tell me where you feel those feelings.Tell me how  your belly feels, your chest. I want to know every little thing. I’m here to list to you, hold you, be with you.’

All any feeling wants is to be welcomed with tenderness. It wants room to unfold. It wants to relax and tell its story.”

Welcome to spring! Allow this change in season to inspire all that you desire. Use its energy, use its freshness, use its rebirth, use its essence of rejuvenation to your benefit.

HAPPY SPRING!

(image credit: Ink and Peat)

Check out these F*R*E*E* IOU printable cards by Oh Brooke!