Why I decided to live intentionally

Who am I? Who do I want to be?

I started this blog because I realized I wasn’t living truthfully and honestly to my authentic self. I had spent the majority of my early twenties traveling around to new places. I thought that was the only way I saw my future. Of course travel is something I am passionate about, but writing travel blogs, unless about my own lived experiences, felt more like a chore to me. Writing tips for travelers felt more like work to me than writing about literally anything else. But, I’ve always been passionate about writing, and being in awe with all that is around me. I’ve had a pen and a camera in my hand for as long as I can remember. I always wanted to record and capture every moment. This is something I’ve been thinking about a lot as I go through my personal journey. Through this journey, i've been connecting with my inner child and figuring out what truly makes my soul happy. One of the ways I decided to connect with my inner child in an attempt to heal a little from my childhood trauma, was going back to watch videos from middle and high school. I discovered a lot about myself, and kept asking myself - WHY did I take so many videos of every little thing? What was the purpose of this? I guess I didn’t want to forget anything, and I wanted to capture the genuine moments that I had with my friends and throughout my life so that it wouldn’t be lost. No matter what I was going through in life, this is something I had always done because there was always something beautiful to capture.

What I also realized by connecting with my past self was how I always rushed through things to get to the future and I always dwelled on the past. Like many others, I was always thinking about what came next. I would think back and say “why didn’t I do this then.” I watched a video of myself at 14 saying "I wish I could just be a little kid again." I rarely lived in the present moment. Throughout the pandemic, I had more time in my life to slow down and figure out what it meant to be a kid again. I wanted to do everything with a purpose, and live a little more authentically to my true self. If I was feeling creative, I made art. If I was feeling nostalgic, I wrote a penpal letter to a friend. If I was feeling sad, I let myself rest and feel rather than distract myself. If I had a bad day, I treated myself to good food and wine. I made sure that what I did was with good intentions and while living presently in all of those things that made me feel better.

At the start of the pandemic, I discovered that I thrive on routine. Perhaps it’s because of the way I grew up or maybe it’s the only way I can have control over my anxious mind, but with this realization, I started to build small habits and worked on them each day.

This is not a band-aid solution for me. This is months of dedicated self-work while allowing myself to feel and fall and make mistakes. This is doing everything with intention and purpose so that slowly and carefully I can create the life I want to live tomorrow, and stop worrying about why I didn’t do it all yesterday.

When did I make this discovery?

On April 18th 2020, I had my first panic attack in a very long time. I was FaceTiming my best friend and I completely broke down. It seemed that everyone around me wasn’t having a hard time adjusting to quarantine and work from home life. I was comparing how I felt to all of the other people around me. Of course, on the surface, everyone seems fine. I had no idea what other people were going through and what was going on inside of their heads or outside of what I saw on social media. Since then, I have been working on making myself feel better. I took several long breaks from social media because it was contributing to my poor mental health, and I started doing things for me. I have to give a lot of credit to my best friend for pointing out to me how much we all thrive on a routine and that is probably what I was needing. I signed up for virtual kickboxing the next day. Building a conscious routine, staying active, and building good habits really helpef me. Since I wasn’t traveling, I realized how much I wanted to write about other things rather than write about places I traveled to in the past. You will still find blogs about travel here, but you’ll also find writings about all things that interest me while I’m on this conscious and slow journey of my life.

So what exactly is Intentional Living?

Intentional Living is quite literally what it sounds like. Living life intentionally. Meaning you have good understanding of your beliefs and values and actively try to live in line with that. Rather than living life passively - everything is done with a purpose, with intention, with value.

One of my overarching goals of 2021 was to better my mind, body, and spirit. At the beginning of 2021, I started going to therapy and it’s the first time I’m noticing patterns, past trauma, and how deep my anxieties are attached to this need to be perfect. With intentional living, I learned to not treat my healing process like a chore and that it doesn't have to look like everyone else's. I allow myself to feel and I do what intuitively feels right. I try catch myself in my negative thought patterns, and of course, I allow myself to rest and have bad days. Physically, I am trying to stay active because I know it keeps me less anxious and makes me feel more grounded. Spiritually, I’m exploring deeper my pantheistic views and worshipping all that which makes life beautiful - from the trees, to the changes of seasons, to the sun and the moon, to the cycles that we move through.

Apart from mind, body, and spirit - I would say the last important thing here is heart. How do I love and how do I show others I care? What do I value and what makes me feel connected to those values? For me, it can be making things for others, making things from scratch, communicating effectively, telling people I miss them and why, living sustainably so I can take care of and worship nature even more, all while exploring this world with an open mind and heart.

Intentional Living looks different for everyone, but this is what it looks like for me.

Where am I going with this?

I want to share with the world my passions in hopes that maybe it will make others want to live more authentically. That’s truly the only purpose of this blog. I want to provide real stories, real experiences, and be 100% truthfully, intentionally, and authentically myself. I will no longer be hiding any part of my life out of fear of judgement, and I will not be curating this “perfect” looking lifestyle.

So why is this important?

I think everyone deserves to break free of bad habits, learn to slow down, and just fully experience the world around them. I think if we can make conscious decisions on how we want to live, and start actually doing it, we can start to feel more free.