Heartfelt but long post ahead! We appreciate you for reading it.

June of 2019 we had our first summer of self-care, and it was amazing for us. At the beginning, we were burned out from school. Physically, we were eating junk food (vegan burgers, candy, etc.), Shell had a nasty fall and hurt herself, and mentally we weren’t in a great space either. We finished our semesters at school and planned a summer that would help us get back on track. We had very little motivation to do anything, but by the end of summer we were grounded in ourselves again thanks to this summer of self-care. That summer has helped us become who we are today.

Now, due to the global pandemic, we are doing 30 Days of Self-Care for the month of April. Not only that, but we are inviting you to join us! We’re always asked what a summer of self-care looks like and how we did it, and now we will share our newest 30-day journey with you and hopefully give you ideas for your own self-care adventure!

While rest is an important part of self-care, there is a lot more to it than that. These thirty days will entail journaling, working out, time management, and productivity. The point of self-care is to evaluate where you are at now, where you want to go, and what steps you can take to get there. By the end, you should have a defined idea of your ideal life and know that you are worthy of taking the steps to achieve it.

SHELL HERE

Wow! Okay everyone, Jay and I are venturing out on a journey of self-care and we hope you join along with us. April 10th of this year will be my one-year marking/anniversary, (not sure what to call it lol) of when I had a really bad, vexing fall. This was hopefully my final fall, and it was a wake-up call to me. I was in pretty bad shape after that fall. I busted my tail bone, sprained my back and spine, had a mild concussion and could barely move. The pain was excruciating, and the worst part of it for me was that I was in the middle of training for a ½ marathon to be held in May.

Let me openly admit to you that after my fall, the words out of my mouth were, “after the marathon I will start taking care of myself better”. At the time I could barely walk; I couldn’t sleep, and my entire body was a super-hot mess, but my mindset was that I was going to complete the marathon because I couldn’t fail at that. Oh man was I mess, and my priorities were not in line. I always told my daughter that I would take care of myself so she wouldn’t have to bury another parent, and here I was failing her and myself. When I finally broke down and went to the doctor a week after my fall, it was at that appointment that I realized I needed to change my ways. He spoke of back surgery because I damaged the disks in my lower back and said that eventually I would lose the feeling in both my legs. There was my wake-up call! It was time to change my ways and find my way to a complete healing.

I have a friend who works in biomechanics and runs his own business, and I phoned him immediately after my doctor appointment asking if he could help me.  For the next month (and many months after) I dedicated myself to complete healing, and Taylor (the biomechanic) was a major part of this journey. I did everything Taylor said to do, including the daily breathing exercises. I took his advice very seriously. Little by little and week by week the pain started to subside, and I was able to move. I didn’t jump back into exercising or running like I normally would have. Instead, I started with a little yoga, working on my sleep, meditation and changed my diet. Although I was already whole-food plant-based, I was a junk food vegan as some people would call it. Before all this happened Jay and I would dabble with our diet as we came across raw vegans. I remembered how amazing I felt when we would eat a raw diet. So, I decided that while I was trying to get myself to a complete healing, I would go raw vegan. I believe everything I did helped my body slowly heal.

Jay and I decided on July 1, 2019 we would try 30 days of self-care. Our only dedication that month was to ourselves and to healing emotionally and physically. During those thirty days, we worked on our sleep, meditation, raw vegan diet, drinking plenty of water, soaking up sunshine in our pool, relaxing with movies, doing the breathing exercises Taylor showed us, reading motivational books and journaling every day. We cut out the outside world. We used Instacart, and no social media! It was blissful. Even though I was still in pain, I could feel the pain leave little by little each day. My head was clearing up, my heart was healing, and my body felt grateful that for the first time in over forty years I finally was taking care of it.

I decided that in order to have a complete healing I needed to go off all pharma, so I did. I am stubborn person and once I decide something, I do it. I would never recommend anyone follow my lead without consulting with your doctor first, so please know that. I am just sharing what I did and what worked for me. I have to admit that out of all the medications I was on, I had the worst time getting off caffeine! Going off caffeine was seriously hell and I while going through it I truly did not believe I would survive that journey. It made me realize how addicted our bodies can get to things it does not need. I survived (barely lol) but I am happy to say I am pharma free and caffeine free.

After our one month of self-care we felt so great that we continued our lifestyle and slowly let the outside world back in. We started going back to the gym after Taylor said it was okay, and we started incorporating the sauna. That was our summer of self-care and I have no regrets. My only regret is that as we slowly let the outside world back in, school was back in session, the holidays hit (which is very hard time for us), life started to get hectic and busy and we slowly lost our way.

This makes me very sad to admit to you, but we did stop some things and occasionally fell of the raw vegan lifestyle. When I say we fell off, do not misunderstand and think we ate animal products because we will never not eat vegan foods. Our vegan diet is something that we are very compassionate about. We will always be whole-food plant-based no matter what, because we truly believe in that lifestyle. What I mean when I say we fell off the wagon is that when the pandemic started, things were shutting down and we feared for our favorite vegan restaurant. So, in support of them we ordered food that we would normally do not eat because we wanted to support them. They are pretty far away, and it wasn’t like we could order salads for 7 days in advance (as we wanted to support their efforts in selling food in bulk). Maybe the logic is not there but hey, we were all panicking.

Now as the pandemic is going on and we are all stuck at home, Jay and I thought there is no better time than now for us to get back into our self-care and maintain it for a lifetime. This time around I plan to really focus on making sure I drink my water, self- discipline, working out in our amazing home gym, share our raw food recipes, focus on getting rest and learning how to balance a self-care lifestyle in a busy world. I promise to be transparent and share my portion of the journey. I can promise you that getting plenty of sleep, drinking water and self- discipline will be the most challenging parts of the next 30 days. I am committing to myself and my daughter, and for us to come out on the other side of this pandemic as a better version of us. Thanks for reading 😊  

JAY HERE!

Hi! So, our 30 Days of Self-Care wasn’t just healing for my mom, but it was healing for me too. I didn’t physically fall and hurt myself, but I was mentally messed up around this time. I had signed up for more than I could handle with Advanced musical theatre, honors high school classes, and honors college classes (yes, that’s classes plural). I was stressed out of my mind trying to do all of this, and for what? During the 30 Days of Self-Care, I learned to define exactly what I want in life, so I know the path to take.

Back when I was in all these classes, I knew I wanted to achieve greatness and do amazing things with my life. I signed up for everything with this vague idea of being amazing in my head, but that’s not really a goal. I was trying to do everything with no clear purpose in mind, and maybe that’s a part of why I struggled so much. I did all that stuff because I felt like I was supposed to, but that’s not a good reason to do anything!

Our 30 Days of Self-Care was the perfect time for me to reevaluate my life and what I really wanted to do. I had to do a lot of mental work on myself during this time. Before self-care, not only was I stressed out of my mind, but I was also no longer “checked-out” as I always say. I had felt numb for the last 3-4 years, and when I started to feel my feelings again there was a whole lot of grief, sadness, and anger. I did a lot of journaling through all of this. Some of it was actually fun, and other parts of it weren’t. I think one of the most healing things I did was write a letter to someone who made me angry and then burn it in our fire pit. Writing about all this stuff wasn’t always fun, but it paid off. I was able to work through everything I felt emotionally, which helped me feel much happier in the endgame. After dealing with all of that, I started to truly feel this cheerful, hopeful, optimistic person I always tried to be. I was back to my old happy self, but with the wisdom, knowledge, and goals of my new self.

I also wrote a lot about my image for my future. I always say I’m an old lady and a kindergartener because I’m still silly like a child but act a lot like an old lady too. There is more to that though. I also felt like an old lady because I was around for my dad’s entire cancer journey, watched him die, and then more people like my papa died. I felt like an old lady because I knew a lot of dead people, and also because I was so tired. It wasn’t the kind of tired that can be fixed with a nap. I felt like I had already lived an entire life with ups and downs, and I was ready to go into retirement. At the same time though, I’m a young lady and my life is just beginning. Before, this was an exhausting thought to me. I just went through an arduous cancer journey, and now I’m supposed to go live a whole life? That sounded so exhausting to me. After resting and journaling with our 30 Days of Self-Care though, I started to look forward to the future. Dare I say, I was excited to start my life! I was acknowledging the past, living in the present, and looking forward the future.

When I could think about the future and feel inspired, I was finally able to think about what I actually wanted to do besides “something amazing”. I was able to picture the life I want as an adult and understand how that impacts my life now. I realized I can still achieve the future I want while calmly doing things in my present to get there. What?! This was a mind-blowing idea to me. You mean I don’t have to live in a state of constant exhaustion and try to be the best in everything all at once in order to achieve my goals? Heck yeah! With this freedom, I was able to design the life I want to live now while still keeping the future in mind. The 30 Days of Self-Care changed my life. The way I was headed, I was going to be thirty years old in a life I hate but pursued because it seemed like the right thing to do. These crucial 30 Days allowed me to realize what I actually want, what I actually need to do to get there, and helped me stop freaking out about too many things

. Now I have a much more defined vision for my future and clarified what I wanted to do in my life. I want to be a performer (the goal is to work for Disneyland!), write a fiction book or two, open an animal sanctuary, and run businesses (this being one of them!) that help people better their lives. Clarifying my goals allowed me to plan my path to this ideal future. More importantly, this helped me embrace my present with a purpose. Having a plan helped me to realize I don’t have to do fifty-million things at once and be the best in everything right now. “Work smarter, not harder”. I’m actually able to enjoy my life now. Knowing exactly what I need to do allows me to live in the moment and not overdo everything.

I’m doing things every day to help me reach these goals. Our 30 Days of Self-Care helped me chill out and embrace the life that I want to live. If you feel like you’re doing too many things with no real purpose behind them, I hope our 30 Days of Self-Care will help you like it helped me. It truly was a life changing experience for me, and I hope we can give you whatever help you may be needing in your life right now.

I want to do these 30 Days of Self-Care again because life got pretty hectic with this pandemic and everything. I want to ground myself again and feel good again like I did after our last 30 Days of Self-Care. It feels like a good time to return to the basics and ground myself, so I don’t get caught up in the craziness of the world right now. I want to stay my chill, optimistic self and doing these 30 Days of Self-Care again will help me achieve that goal. I also want to focus on our raw vegan food and make new raw vegan desserts. In the craziness of life, we forget to do things we enjoy, which is sad because embracing the simple pleasures is a crucial part of living a life you can be happy with.

FINAL THOUGHTS

Our upcoming 30-Day journey won’t be perfect, nor will we proclaim it to be perfection when it comes to the 30 Days of Self-Care. But it will be honest and transparent, and hopefully fun to join along! We will post on Instagram almost daily at @jayandshellsjourney and share some fun stuff and inspiration! We hope you join us and we can laugh, cry and enjoy the journey of the coming thirty days together.

And remember, always be kind to yourself!

Aloha and gratitude,

Jay and Shell