How to Live a Quiet Life
About a month ago, I read a blogpost about living a “quiet life” and I hadn’t really thought about how much this resonates with my own life right now.
When I think of a quiet life, I think of peace and focus and a certain kind of content feeling. When asking others about their definition of a quiet life, or what they do to help quiet the noise in their life, they said that they add more reading, gardening, or creative activities that they enjoy. They like to have a clean space full of natural light. Sometimes it’s limiting social interactions or staying away from the negative interactions and focusing more on self care to ease the loudness in their minds. I could not agree more with all of their answers.
As some of you probably know, I have been devoted to designing my life to fit my dreams and part of this, for me, requires the quiet life. This ideal can be different for everyone, but my quiet life needs inner reassurance and the ability to follow through on my aspirations without the stressful yet procrastinating nature with which I have seemed to always thrive.
As an artist, sometimes that pressure is necessary in order to create and make my mind “go to that place” of creativity and wonder, BUT leading up to this crunch-time, my mind and my soul are not in a stable place. I can identify my shortcomings through my sleep quality, my physical energy, and my need for quiet.
So how do I combat this? It’s pretty easy to figure out, but that follow-through is the toughest.
Focus on my sleep. I need about 8-9 hours of quality sleep right now in order to feel my best.
Remind myself that energy begets energy and if I’m just not feeling it that day, I’ll do yoga and not pressure myself to create.
Schedule more time for quiet whether in the mornings, out during the day, at night, or simply in the car ride home.
Being able to identify my three main principles, I’ve been able to make my own accomplishment list for the quiet life.
What does this look like and why will practicing these tasks help?
I’ll go through my list with you from morning to night and if you have any ideas to add, submit them to me!
1. Turn sound off on my alarm and allow the vibrate function to wake me up.
So have you ever had a dream where your alarm sound blended into what was going on in your dream world? Or, when you hear the sound of your alarm either in the morning or randomly throughout the day, do you cringe?
Well, C. All of the above for me.
I tried this one weekend. I charged my phone before going to bed and when I was ready to sleep, unplugged it and placed it under my pillow (fire hazard if not unplugged). The vibrate was plenty to wake me up and I wasn’t startled or in a bad mood and actually got out of bed. This helped because throughout the day we all experience tiny stressors that we don’t realize until it adds up and we reach our breaking point and suddenly a fly indoors makes us lose our minds. Every time someone presses snooze, that alarm sounding off (whether sound or vibrate) is a tiny little stressor that adds and adds into your day.
Changing your alarm to just vibrate does not completely solve this, but it helped me and when I do snooze, I do not hear that same jingle again and again. Plus, it doesn’t wake your sleep partner (as much) either.
2. Scheduling my own time and not checking messages/email/social media before 10 am.
My mornings are sacred to me. Whether I wake up and go out for a jog, or do yoga, or take it as a rest day and just have coffee and breakfast, I have had to practice not going straight to my phone. I want to be as centered as possible for myself before I allow anyone else into my day.
I keep the music as well as podcasts off until I close the door of my car to leave the apartment for the day. This physical silence allows me to rest my mind and think about my day ahead.
Setting a morning routine is extremely important for this principle, and if you need guidance in that, I offer my own practices in a personal call so feel free to schedule a call with me to talk!
3. Choose books or meditation (or gardening) over scrolling or watching the screens.
In my business, I still have to keep up with social media and connecting with others on the interwebs, but I try to limit this as much as possible in my free time. I have begun carrying a book everywhere I go again rather than depending on my phone. Books allow our minds to go into another world and imagine; social media can lead to a comparison mindset and constant (mostly negative) stimulation in the brain. The blue light is not great for us either - blue light glasses really do help and cut back on burns eyes and headaches!
This principle is especially important before sleep. Cutting out screens 1 hour before bedtime allows our brains to completely rest while we sleep and our eyes to look fresh when we wake in the morning.
4. Limit (negative) social interactions throughout the day.
I have always been a quarter friend over a penny friend. Limiting the amount of people in which I confide in and give myself to has helped to calm my own mind, lower the vast social expectations, and allow me more time to give genuine focus and undivided attention to my closest circle. With the pandemic right now, most social interactions have chilled out for most people anyway. If we spend the majority of our free time everyday catching up with several people, when are we able to catch up with ourselves? This is not say that ignoring anyone is right, but guarding your peace and your time is important. Pouring from an empty cup is just not good or possible. Do not feel guilty about allowing yourself some space.
Staying low-key and not allowing invalid/unwanted opinions on your decisions is a great way to decrease the drama in life.
5. Eat meals without the screens.
This is a double-whammy! When we focus on the food in front of us, we are able to enjoy our meal, feel more satisfied, and feed our cravings, thus not eating mindlessly or overeating throughout the day. Clearing my mind to give my meal the proper attention it deserves (I mean, it is the thing nurturing me and keeping me alive and healthy) cuts back on the unnecessary scroll and brain stimulation and gives me the chance to actually enjoy the meal I spent cooking.
6. Schedule an activity to enjoy when my day is not jiving with me how I would like.
I have a few go-tos when my day starts feeling stressful. If I’m having a tough day, week, month, year (2020) at this point, I make sure to plan to have a chef night. Chopping vegetables probably calms me the most out of anything. Having a solo coffee date and writing down some kind of plan is a close second; planning makes me feel “in control” of my life and there really is not better feeling to me than knowing what is going on. Getting lost in a book before sleeping is definitely third. If the weather is nice, I go on a walk to my favorite spot under a tree (pictured above) and that helps to reset my day.
These activities are always on my list and I make sure to fill them with quiet or some kind of background calming sound if needed (but usually no sound is my preference).
7. Declutter the space!
This goes along with the brain stimulation ideal. If we have less stuff around us, then there is less stuff for our brains to process - and we do this subconsciously without realizing anything. It is not necessarily a call for minimalism, but really do you need to have all of that stuff on your coffee table or all of those random clothes spilling out of your closet?
8. Take a break from social media.
If instagram is taking over your life, delete the app from your phone and only use your desktop/laptop to access it. I did this with Facebook at the beginning of July 2020. I vowed to stay off of Facebook for one month, deleting the app (not my page) from my phone. After a month, I checked Facebook on my laptop and have now put the app on my phone again but I’ve realized that sometimes two days go by and I have not opened the app at all.
There are times I open the app (instagram as well) only to post and then close the app, checking for notifications every once in a while, but not getting on the app to scroll. This has added such enormous peace to my life just by extending the amount of time in not touching my phone. It may not grow my Instagram by looks of engagement, but is my mental peace more important that the number of followers I have? Not a chance.
9. Do not disturb.
My dnd feature is scheduled to turn on at 9pm and off at 7am, meaning no dinging or vibrating during that time whatsoever. When a contact calls once, it goes to voicemail. The second call makes the phone ring (this is when considering emergencies). Text messages still come through, this is not airplane mode, but dnd takes away that ding. The ding drives me insane sometimes. I’ll turn on dnd during the day when I’m napping or trying to focus too. Do Not Disturb is my all-time favorite phone feature.
10. Create a space or environment just for you to be able to sit and enjoy the down-time.
This personal space needs to not be cluttered. When you go into your space, do not include your phone or food. Training your brain to relax in this area is just as important as keeping the tv out of the bedroom and not doing any work/school on your bed. Your bed is meant for sleep and rest just as your personal space is meant to be a wind-down area. When your brain connects work and productivity with your bed because that’s where you work, then your sleep will not be as quality as it could be. Place some plants or calming candles in your space to increase the relaxation vibes. Allow natural light to flow in and let this be the place for your mind to rest.
Practicing the above ideals every day has taken some effort, but now, these activities are pretty mindless to include. My self-awareness has grown and I have been able to move forward with my business without adding unnecessary stress and deadlines. I have been able to give myself more grace when it comes to “keeping up” and I focus on my timeline, not anyone else’s and that has been a life-changer over the past few months.
If you want some deeper intel and details on how I do this or help figuring out what works best for you, send me a message!