A simple Occupational Therapy inspired monthly prescription of activities intended to support wellbeing that you are invited to spend as little, or as often as you like on.

September is here, time for many of us to bring some order back to our days having left our routines by the way side, or perhaps make way for change with the incoming season, autumn for the northern hemisphere and spring in the south.

My 1992 summer inspired holiday into boredom has me screaming for a new timetable, I learnt so much from the theme of last months Wellbeing Invitation to do nothing. Things I’ll be leaving behind include social media, the iPhone, things I’m bringing in include the simple old fashioned mobile phone for texts and calls, notebooks and the Liberty tote back I’d retired about 5 years ago, also I’ve not missed the morning pages and I will instead be sitting with a cup of tea welcoming the children instead of huffing about being interrupted. I’ve worked out I probably have around 7 more years with all of my children at home and I want to savour it. one of the reasons we moved here was to allow for this and it feels like it’s taken years to detox from the busy of our life in London and it’s still a habit. We all enjoyed a break from the routines but there is a definite air of desperation for their return, the desire to get on with things, that back to school feeling with is both literal and metaphorical in our household. And the intention of this months Wellbeing Invitation is to harness that.

Bring some order back where we can, cultivate the space to manage the chaos we’ll always encouter.

Cultivating a nourishing routine.

Here is are the details of this months activity based prescription to help us along the way to improved wellbeing.

1. Look at your timetable and create a moodboard for how you'd like your days to look

If you took part in last month’s wellbeing invitation you may have a list of times from your to do list that you left unattended, perhaps the activities you put to one side such self imposed daily activities such as journaling in the morning, 10,000 steps, making the bed. Look at what you’ve missed and add it back in, what you’ve not missed leave it out.

This want us to have a look at our daily routines, our timetables, when we were at school there would have been breaks in our day carved out to support the smooth running of the school environment, a range of lessons that brought diversity to our day. Create a timetable for yourself that encourages breaks and has nourishing activities within it each day.

To help with this I invite you to create a mood board for how you’d like your day to look. This could be images or words, poems. I enjoy cutting pictures from magazines and arranging them, you may prefer to do something digitally or write down key words. This can be put up on your fridge, used as a screen saver on your computer, we’re inspiring ourselves to turn the lease of our attention to what we are trying to cultivate.

2. Handwrite a letter

Do you remember the blank page of a new notebook at the begging of the school term, the promise it offered, the ‘this time I’ll use my best handwriting throughout’, that’s what we’re looking to harness with this activity. As technology has become increasingly integrated into our daily lives the traditional act of writing with a pen has been somewhat forgotten. Why would this have an impact on wellbeing? I’m glad you asked, it has many cognitive benefits. Inspired by an article from Pen Heaven hand writing you may find you experience the following:

reinforces our reading and language processing skills
allows time to slow down the thought process enabling the writer to think about the words, how they are spelt and the structure of the writing; all making the writer more adept at the language they are using
improve memory, writing creates unique pathways in the brain causing those who wrote their notes by hand to remember the content more than those who typed them
helps us be more creative, when typing there can be a tendency to edit as you go along rather than letting your ideas flow which can be counterproductive for the creative process
writing with pen and paper helps to rid you of the distractions of the digital world
writing forms a unique and irreplaceable part of our culture, handwriting styles are unique to the individual and something which simply cannot be replicated with a keyboard

This is an invitation to dig out an old fountain pen and bring it back to life, write a note to a family member or friend, write a letter to yourself about the first task, or simply copy out a poem or phrase you love.

If you do write a letter, you may make somebodies day and have the luck to receive one back.

3. Mindfulness of breath - 10 minutes daily

We have heard over and over the benefits of mindfulness so I won’t go into the details (you can read more here), but essentially, are starving for stillness and silence in our culture, there is noise and chaos everywhere. We are going to commit to taking time to taking a break, not only to promote relaxation, taking time to still our days of their busyness bring quietness to our routines, giving our nervous system a chance to regain balance.

Over the next month you are invited to sit in meditation for 10 minutes daily, this practice can be done lying down if you’d rather. This is a simple, yet tricky practice of observing your breath, returning your attention each time your mind wanders in a kind and non-judgemental way. You’ll find a ten minute guided practice here or if you are familiar with the practice simply set a timer for ten minutes.

You’ll find guidance on posture here.

So that’s your Wellbeing Invitation, I hope you find the tasks interesting and nourishing. Remember as with all invites, you can say no or perhaps just try out one item.

Do let me know how you get on and if you have anything you’d like to share about your experience. If you’d like to explore in more depth anything that arises for you can book a 1:1 session at a time that suits you with me for £60 via josephine@thewellbeingatellier.com.

Have a wonderful September, my review of this months wellbeing invitation can be found below.

Warmly,

Josephine

say thank you by buying me cup of tea