Doing something a little different this month and starting our monthly ritual on a Saturday so you can enjoy it for a couple of days before the rush of the work week starts (assuming your work week runs Mon - Fri). 👉 So we will start on Saturday July 18th and end on Friday July 24. Focus: Abhyanga (head to toe body oil massage from the Ayurvedic tradition). I found two helpful videos to guide us through this ritual. They present slightly different info about the ritual. This gives you options for days when you have more or less time, or when you feel like your body just wants something different that day (she knows best). 👉 A couple of quick notes: - If you have essential oils, keep them handy. I'll be including them in the ritual for one of the daily prompts. - Don't stress about getting it "perfect." We just want to give ourselves more TLC and any is better than none, in my opinion :) Choose your oil and let's go!!

Happy Wednesday and new month! I refreshed the recipes collection and everything is now in PDF format, which means you can export and use at your convenience! I also put the recipes into main categories so there's less clicking around. Start here 👉 #Lunch and Dinner ! And as a reminder the Restorative Sleep lessons were all uploaded last month, so you can work your way through it at your own pace: #😴 Introduction ❤️

I created a Book Recommendations category in this feed so we can share what we're reading and get ideas. Making time to read was one of the things I mentioned in the Restorative Sleep course because it was helpful in getting me to relax in the evenings back when sleep was a challenge. It's no surprise it helped because i had always enjoyed reading and had simply neglected it! I'm currently reading this bio which is a collection of correspondences between Anderson Cooper and his mom. I'm learning a lot about her, mostly. This is my favorite type of book to read because it's two people I really don't know much about or find particularly fascinating. So I go in with a neutral mind. We have one of those neighborhood book exchange boxes and that's where I got this. What are you reading?

Hey lovelies, I'd love to get your input for this month's ritual/practice. I've been wanting to make things lighter + more playful, and based on this thread, skin care would be something fun and different for us to explore. I also went down a little Ayurveda rabbit hole and learned that the term "sneha" holds two meanings: oil and love/affection (which explains the use of oil for so many self-care practices in Ayurveda). Anyway, I'm curious which topics or practices you all would like us to explore. Not just this month but looking ahead too. Feel free to suggest other things in the comments!

What are you feeding it? -------------------- Something I would love for us to get into in this group is skincare. Not the 39-step layering routine. But what skin care represents for you. Because for me, I see it as an important and integral part of caring for ourselves. And I want to share the picture below with you all because these two products represent "food for the skin." We often talk about eating for the skin in terms of the literal food we eat. But there's a whole other category that I think is equally valuable: face oils. Depending on which one you use, your skin is getting nutrients like: - beta carotene - vitamin E - omega fatty acids (3, 6, 9 and the lesser known, 7) Personally, I love oils because they contain nutrients and they are multi-taskers for someone like me who believes in taking exquisite care of this massive organ (but who doesn't believe it should require hours or tons of products). And the extra perk is I'm reducing the chemicals I'm exposed to every day (important for that skin microbiome that protects us in so many ways). 👉 How do you approach skin care: do you see it as separate from other forms of care? Do you have any guiding principles for skin care? P.S. the small bottle on the left is sea buckthorn seed oil.