Creating a Personal Wellness Sanctuary

Your physical environment is a reflection of your internal state. Hoarding your emotions in the form of food, clothes, books, endless hours gaming or watching Netflix? You may be in denial but your body knows. You are likely trying to regulate your nervous system, and you are doing the best you currently know because you were not taught emotional hygiene. There was a time in my life I didn’t know better either. You can create support systems with a personal wellness sanctuary. What I’m proposing doesn’t have to cost you a dollar. It requires choosing your habits intentionally.

You are responsible for your environment. Your environment affects your nervous system, which governs everything else. If you want to optimise health, scale your business, achieve peak physical performance, improve your relationship, feel joy and peace, start with your self. Turn your home into a wellness sanctuary using rituals which lead towards living a life in alignment with Kathy O’s 7 Pillars to Wellness. Good health is in the fundamentals which regulate your nervous system:

Nutrition

Eat real food. What is real food? Anything that grows on a tree, shrub, in the ground or was once swimming or running around. With few exceptions such as eggs. Ensure your household only brings in real food. The pantry is for staples, spices and supplements*. Not processed foods. Most of your food is in the fridge.

Simplify to amplify. Standardise meals, create an online shopping list for 1 week and 2 weeks. Decide what day you will order food and what day you will meal prep. Boil up a batch of chicken for lunch sandwiches and salads, roast vegetables, cut up and store fruit, grate carrot, boil eggs and leave them in the shell up to a week in the fridge. Make healthy easy and accessible.

*always seek advice from a qualified professional when deciding on a supplement regime.

Movement

When I was in a stagnant relationship, I stopped dancing randomly throughout the day. Ceasing to do this over the 2year relationship resulted in my own stagnation, decreased my overall momentum in life, increased stress and tension in my body, as well as between the two of us. I learnt to keep moving, keep growing, keep dancing on my own. Movement is the single most effective way to complete the stress cycle. I learnt to love myself more.

How are you adding movement to your day? How do you remind yourself to move? Put the foam roller somewhere you can see it. Declutter and create space to stretch, move, dance, do star jumps. Get blood pumping and suddenly you’ll feel like going for that walk. Create a playlist to signal movement. Get the standing desk and walking treadmill. Charge your phone in the bathroom so you have to get up to turn off the alarm and go for that morning walk. Set a reminder for your after-dinner walk. Make a rule that you only watch Netflix when you’re on the stepper. Create pacts with yourself that will lead you to the outcomes you desire. Set yourself tiny challenges to move more. Movement is all about intentionality. The body will only do what the mind directs it towards. What do you want?

Sleep

Declare the bedroom a technology free zone. Get rid of the phone, tv, laptop. Put a book on your bedside table. Get yourself a bedside table. Get a journal. Gratitude, successes, intentions, diary. Try each and see which works best for you. The bedroom is for sleep and sex, not stress.

Optimising The Stress Response

Regulating your nervous system begins with creating a safe space and giving yourself permission to feel. Stress is a given, processing stress is a skill. If you are feeling flat, you’re likely burnt-out and require support healing and preventing this pattern from reoccurring. The body is first to know and last to let go. Creating a wellness sanctuary in your home using the 7 pillars will help.

Light Therapy

Make sure you get morning, afternoon and evening sunlight. Each serve a different purpose in regulating your sleep cycle and hormones. Dim lights, use candles, get a few red-light nightlights. Be intentional about your screentime, use blue light blocking glasses for late night work. Plan your movie nights, send voice notes and bring back the quick phone call.

Mindset

Dominate the internal chatter. Create a wellness sanctuary within your own mind. We all have an internal voice. I often purposely make it external. I have completely changed the way I speak to myself, and the way I allow others to speak to me. “Speak to me like you’re speaking to someone you love” is written on my mirror. I also use and teach clients ‘Rose, Thorn, Bud, Reframe’.

Rose: What is something you are celebrating yourself for today, something that brought you joy?

Thorn: What challenge did you face today?

Bud: What are you looking forward to tomorrow/ this week?

Reframe: That thorn you mentioned, what did you learn from it? How has it helped you grow?

The reframe is a reminder that we will and are allowed to struggle when things are new and different. We may feel sadness, overwhelm and disappointment at times. These are signs we are experiencing life, growing and learning. No mud, no lotus.

Spirituality

This one is personal. It could be anything from reading a verse from a holy book, astrology, praying, meditating, carving out time to paint, going on a hike in nature. Once you decide your spiritual practice ask yourself: How often will you engage in this activity? What day? For how long? Make it easy: create an altar, set out the journal/book, keep the candles close, put the hiking shoes by the door.

Final Words

Your environment is your responsibility. Your health outcomes depend on the choices you make. Notice how the pillars are interconnected. Work on one, and others start to improve. What if you chose to focus on one pillar each month and implement tiny changes each week? You’ll build your wellness sanctuary by the end of the year. Take action, create change. Maintaining that change, that’s where the internal work matters. You become the wellness sanctuary.

What’s your biggest takeaway to creating a wellness sanctuary in your home?

Kathy Ozakovic (Kathy O)

Health & Wellness Strategist | The CEOs Wellness Coach | Burnout to Breakthrough: I'm the coach you hire to heal/prevent burnout, optimise health and happiness, maintain family values whilst growing the business

Health & Wellness Strategist, Founder of NuFit Wellness Kathy O, with a background in dietetics, went on a journey of self-discovery to become a leader in wellness. Over a 3 year intensive personal development journey, Kathy read 300 books and immersed herself into learning as much as she could about what they didn't teach at university. She self-educated herself about health, wealth and relationships through reading, writing, mentorships, completing accredited courses. As a result, the 'Burnout to Breakthrough (BTB)' method, 7 Pillars To Wellness, Embodiment Fractal Framework were created. It is no coincidence Kathy O's material is about burnout. Before she was Kathy O, she was a girl navigating the pain of heartbreak, breast implant illness, failed relationships, violated boundaries, narcissistic people and the 'never enough' story. We all have a story. You get to rewrite it as many times as you need. What will be your wellness story?

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As published by KFit World Magazine

Share this blog with someone you want to inspire. Sign up to the NuFit Wellness Newsletter and be the first to know it all. Attend my Wellness Workshops. Kathy O - Health & Wellness Strategist: Supporting people achieve optimal health, wealth and relationships with lifestyle principles through awareness, breath and conscious choice. Embodiment Coach: Alignment is the method. Embodiment is the achievement. Authenticity is a byproduct. Be unstoppable. Be authentically you.

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KEYWORDS: Health, Wellness, Lifestyle, Home, Environment, Nervous System, Regulated, Calm, Peace, Mindset, Movement, Nutrition, Sleep, Stress, Optimise, High Performance, Change, Nutritionist, Dietitian, Dietetics, Holistic Health, Integrative.