Article Summary:

1. Focusing on wellness without feeling self-indulgent
2. Incorporating the healing powers of creativity
3. Improving our mental health through nutritious cooking
4. Being mothered by nature (even inside the house!)

Checking In:

How are you doing?

No seriously, how are you doing?

Disclaimer: It’s okay if your answer is long-winded and complicated. It’s also okay if all you can muster is a speechless-sigh, a strained smile or the “shoulder-shrug” emoji.

For us, it’s been an emotional rollercoaster personally and professionally. There have been some really wonderful days, some really confusing days, and some really, really bad days.

Four weeks of quarantine has been exhausting at times:

• Compulsive sanitizing and cleaning
• Making big decisions based on no available guarantees
• Social isolation creating a constant sense of disorientation
• Having an existential crisis every time we see another “Breaking News” notification

A Quick Exercise:

We’ve been observing and recording our feelings daily, and finding that we’ve been happy and sad and grieved and angry and relieved and guilty for feeling relieved and then at peace again because sometimes, we’ve had to accept our emotions and forgive them for being so absurdly exquisite. Much like our marketing work, we’ve found that solutions are really quite meaningless unless you can name the exact problem that is causing you distress in the first place. So, take a moment, and name the problems you are feeling right now. Be real with yourself.

Here are a couple of our favourite sources for these kinds of prompts:

1. Laura Hughes
2. Alex Elle
3. To Be Magnetic

The Difficult Decision of Optimism:

So, yes, we’ve had our moments. It hasn’t been all inspirational quotes and flowers. And yet, like so many of you, we find ourselves surviving, and sometimes feeling stronger than we have in a while (maybe even pre-Corona time).

It’s okay if “optimism” is the only thing getting you through the day, or if it feels like way too big an ask right now. However, something we’ve found helpful has been to find some optimism in the little things: the reasons to smile, a desire to plan for tomorrow (tomorrow meaning literally 24 hours from now…not the abstract “future”), to put on clothes in the morning, or decide to feel healthy and safe despite a world of reasons why we could feel unwell and unsafe.

We’ve been trying to turn the limits put on us during this time of the Covid 19 quarantine into opportunities. As they say,

Our 4 Quarantine Routines:

We’ve had a community of people (and probably some social media algorithms) introducing us to activities, exercises and healthy habits that have been making a big difference in our “quarantine routines.” We wanted to share them with you wanted to invite more goodness into your life these days.

Take them, use them and share them with others. And we’d love to hear any of the routines that have been keeping your head above the water during the Covid-19 pandemic.

With love and good wishes,

Julia and Val xo

1. “Feeling Safe and Grounded in Your Body”

We came across this brilliant phrase in a meditation recently. Thanks to a friend, we have discovered one of the most valuable wellness techniques we’ve ever experienced – TAPPING MEDITATION. Seriously, if you’ve ever wanted to make meditation a part of your lifestyle but have found it hard to stay focused (ie. not fall asleep) or feel the benefits immediately, we highly recommend searching “Tapping Solutions” in your app store and reducing the stress in your body right away!

Also, in case you missed this in our Instagram post, the Down Dog app is offering free access to their yoga classes until May! This is our favourite yoga app because if you’re having a hard day, you can just do a quick little 10-minute pick-me-up class, and stay in savasana as long as you want and still check “yoga” off on the list of things you promised yourself you’d do today.

2. Creative Healing

We would be lying to you if we didn’t confess that our screen time has increased as of late. We also decided that we weren’t going to have a full-throttle shame storm over it. So, we’ve integrated TV time with a few creative tasks to keep our hands busy and still experience the stress-relieving benefits of crafting. Thanks to Pinterest, skilled local experts, creative friends and grandmas, we’ve taken up some traditional crafting projects, like embroidery, puzzles, sewing and good old-fashioned doodling.

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3. Good Food = Good Mood

We love this quote from Rachel Kelly. It’s been guiding us through a lot of our food choices lately!

Although we were really intentional about not buying more than we needed for a couple weeks time span, we did get really creative trying to create some new recipes with leftover ingredients we had! It’s gotten us re-thinking how often we order take-out and whether we can get this creative on a regular basis with help from some of our favourite food experts: Oh She Glows, Joy the Baker and The Minimalist Baker.

4. Being Mothered by Nature

You know you’re going through a stressful emotional time when the first teeny-tiny sprout in your terracotta pot initiates a full melt-down.

It’s an indoor greenhouse over here at the Crafted house these days thanks to some help from House Plant Club and their delightful book, How to Raise a Plant and Make It Love You Back. Thank goodness we had the impulse to do an early spring visit to The Watering Can in Vineland before all this started because now we have a house full of snake plants, succulents, monsteras, and little seedlings. Every window has plants in it and waking up every morning to a new sprout is like witnessing a miracle and rebirth and faith that we’ll survive these chaotic times and sit down to enjoy a salad grown in our garden.

Conclusion:

Thanks for joining us! Stay tuned for more updates on business, writing and storytelling.