woo-woo weekdays ✨

“Find the goddess inside of yourself instead of looking for the god in someone else.” - Francesca Lia Block

It’s Wednesday. I am sitting in traffic, rushing from work to home, to evening events and social engagements, with an afternoon coffee in one hand, my phone in the other, and a completely unregulated nervous system.

I finally get home. I can breathe. But only for a moment, because dinner needs to get on the table, sometime before bedtime. The laundry is piling up again, and god, I really need to call the electrician.

Finally, it’s dark, and the house is asleep. My body begs for rest, but my brain is hardwired to run on overdrive as we lie in bed.

I need a new job. I need a vacation. I need tiny little magic elves to come and clean my house while I drift off to sleep. However, the reality is that none of those things will be happening anytime soon.

So I try to relax, and then I get up and do it all over again.

Sound familiar? If you’re anything like me, you’ve been living in a too fast-paced, too busy lifestyle for far too long. It can be easy to look for advice and hear “just slow down” or “you’re doing too much,” which, to be fair, I do need to slow down, and I am doing too much, but at this moment in time, there aren’t really any major changes I can realistically make.

I did, however, manage to re regulate my nervous system, and live the busy woman lifestyle in a way that doesn’t leave me completely frazzled (most of the time) at night.

This is where my new series, Woo Woo Weekdays, comes in.

This series is a project of love, or paying forward advice that wonderful, relaxed, and witchy women have shared with me; of activities I’ve tried and habits I’ve picked up. I am gathering everything I've learned and everything I’ve tried, and I will share it with you once a week. This isn’t just generic advice, but advice that I, someone who burned out completely and had to restart her adult life almost all the way over again, have used to live a much happier, more relaxed, and joyful life.

I think I’m going to space it out, a few tips once a week, because it all seems less overwhelming that way; to me, at least.

Let’s start with a pretty common one and make it a little more magical.

You already know what I’m going to say, and I’ll be real, this is something I still struggle with sometimes, but you have to give your phone a little space.

Not all the time! Just right before you go to bed, and again first thing in the morning. I try to go by a thirty-minute rule for myself, and it genuinely helps so much. If you can put it down for at least half an hour before you go to bed and right when you wake up, I promise you, your heart will be racing just a little bit less right when you wake up. (no? Just me?) But if that’s not possible, just start with five or ten minutes, whatever you can manage.

Here’s where you’re going to sparkle things up a little bit. You now have a collective hour that you’re not doomscrolling on TikTok or internalizing the news (or both!)

Here are a few woo-woo things I like to do in that time, usually first thing in the morning, to set myself up for an internally calmer day.

1. The five-minute meditation. It’s as easy and simple as it sounds, close your eyes and breathe as slowly and deeply as you can. Set a timer for five minutes, or there are plenty of apps with short, guided meditations you can use. (I like moonly.) If you aren’t into guided meditations, you can play one or two songs that you think give off a good vibration, or find nature sounds, gong meditation, whatever gets you in the right mood.

2. Personalized Affirmations. Look, I love a good affirmation, but sometimes I feel as though they don’t always apply to me. This activity takes a little frontloading, but it’s a one-time thing, I promise. Take a few minutes to visualize your favorite self. Is she happier? Does she set boundaries? Is she braver, bolder? Those things are your affirmations. Whisper them out loud to yourself as a new, personalized mantra. I like to combine these two tips and say them out loud to myself at the end of my five-minute meditation.

So that’s where we’ll start, and we’ll build it together and get a little more woo-woo each week, and a little closer to our favorite selves.

Future topics? The one-card tarot pull, intentional coffee magic, and the woman’s guide to orgasm as meditation.

Stay tuned 🖤

XOXO, Alys