Hi, my loves.
Welcome back to Lavendaire.
For a while, my life has felt messy,
and I've left a lot of areas neglected and untended to.
I purposely took the past month really slow,
so I could do all the little things to get my life together,
like clean and organize my stuff.
To be honest, I still feel like I'm in the middle of this process,
but I'm making a little progress
week after week to refresh my life.
Before we start, make sure you're subscribed to this channel
for more videos on personal growth and lifestyle design.
First step: cleaning.
As much as I'd like to be, I'm not the type of person who stays clean and organized all the time.
The pressure to clean everything can feel like a daunting task.
So instead, I just tell myself to pick the area that needs it the most.
Today, I'm tackling my makeup desk,
which has felt very chaotic and out of control for a while.
There's just so much on this desk
that I figured the best course of action
is just to take everything off first.
Not only am I cleaning today,
but I'm also planning to declutter a lot of my makeup
because there’s so much here that either I don't use or is expired.
I have an overwhelming amount of makeup
because I get gifted a lot of PR packages.
I'm not complaining because I'm grateful for that aspect of my job.
But at the same time,
I always have to be mindful of what to keep,
what to give away,
and how many new items I can really fit into my space.
I do feel like cleaning and decluttering is not just a physical act,
but an energetic one.
You're shaking up the energy of your space
and inviting new energy to come in.
Next step is organizing similar items together,
so I can be clear about what I have in every category.
I'm also planning to reorganize my storage system,
so this is the starting point for that
Afterwards, I'm going through each item
and deciding whether it's something I can let go of,
whether it's expired or just isn't serving me anymore.
This isn't always easy since there are old things that I love
that I really need to throw away;
and new things that I don't really love,
but feel bad about throwing away.
I don't feel great about giving away used makeup as well,
so donating isn't really an option here.
To be honest, there were some things that were kind of hard to part with
because they were my favorites for so many years.
But at the same time,
I'm telling myself I have no space for anything new.
I need to literally go out with the old,
so that there's space for the new energy
and the new things in my life to come in.
Plus, these are literally expired.
I like to overuse makeup.
Just wondering how often do you discard your makeup?
Do you stick to their expiration dates?
Comment down below.
I'm curious.
Now, it's time to reorganize the makeup that I am keeping.
I'm using this opportunity to redo the whole system.
It's another day.
And now, I'm just cleaning all my makeup brushes—
another task that I often neglect.
The silicone pad that I stick in the sink is honestly a game changer
since I can clean multiple brushes at once.
It makes this process pretty quick and easy.
And there we have it: freshly cleaned brushes.
Another new day and it's the new moon
aka the Lunar New Year.
I decided to sign up for a new moon breathwork and hypnotherapy event by my friend, Leeor Alexandra,
to bring in the new year with self care, healing, and raising my vibration.
All of these practices help you refresh your life,
so I'll share what we did here.
We started off with meditation and intention setting.
By the way, this is my favorite notebook design
that we're launching in our shop this spring.
It says, “you are exactly where you're meant to be.”
And this is what I wrote for my intention for the new year.
We did some stretching and some yoga.
Then, Leeor led us to dance freely for a couple songs.
She was so cute.
Everyone was vibing in the chat
and dancing is truly a practice that lifts your mood and vibration.
If you ever feel stuck,
I recommend you try putting on some good music and dancing it out.
Shake all that old stuck energy off of you
and feel lighter, more joyful, more free.
Then, she let us through a 30-minute breathwork session.
Breathwork is a powerful practice
that helps you tap into your subconscious,
heal from deep emotional wounds,
and gain intuitive insights through a specific type of breathing.
During breathwork, Leeor was leading us to kick and punch and vocalize
to move any stagnant energy in our bodies.
Moving and screaming during breathwork is totally normal.
If you guys are curious about breathwork,
I'll link a few resources down below.
After breathwork, we did a hypnotherapy session.
Hypnotherapy is a relaxing practice
where you just lay comfortably and allow your subconscious
to be guided by the speaker.
Your mind enters a trance-like state,
somewhere between consciousness and sleep,
where your subconscious is more open to suggestions for positive change.
I'm getting ready by going into a legs-up-the-wall pose.
This pose isn't required for hypnotherapy.
I just wanted to try it.
It's funny because I started the hypnotherapy session in this pose,
and then I ended it in this pose.
Somewhere in the middle, I just wanted to relax my body
and cocoon myself in my blanket.
The experience was super relaxing and insightful.
I took some time to journal my thoughts and lessons afterward.
I wrote about the memories and insights
that came to me regarding my childhood and the environment I grew up in.
I wrote about some things I wanted to say
or give to my inner child,
to be able to live more as her true self.
That was a really nice session to start my Lunar New Year with.
It was the new moon ceremony, but it's also Lunar New Year.
I have my fruit bowl here.
I'm not even sure where to start.
But I guess I'll start with,
if you guys have not tried breathwork before,
I highly recommend it.
Definitely watch a YouTube video,
get in a safe space, have some blankets around you
because it can be an intense experience.
My first time doing breathwork was in Bali.
It was like the shamanic breathwork workshop.
I did two of them that were 90 minutes long each,
and that was really intense, but it kind of opened my eyes
to the ability that body has: to heal just through breathing.
People talk about psychedelics and mushrooms
and this and that,
but you really can activate those experiences
through simply changing the way you breathe
and getting yourself in the right environment.
Today, certain things came up.
For example, I became more aware that I hold some childhood trauma in my hips.
I was just moving my hips throughout breathwork,
kind of releasing the energy,
because I do believe we hold stagnant emotions, energy, and trauma in our bodies.
I've talked about this before,
but there are so many things you can do to release that energy.
I do believe that movement helps release that stagnant energy within.
I did cry a bit during today's session.
It was good to tap into my old memories and visualize my child's self.
It helped that yesterday,
I went over to see my cousins, nieces, nephews, aunts, and uncles--
the huge family--for Chinese New Year.
And seeing my nieces and nephews that are literally like babies to 6-7 years old,
that visual kind of reminded me,
“Wow, I was once that age in this same house growing up.”
And there were a lot of memories there,
both good and bad,
some trauma, and just a lot of things that happened there in that house.
I think it brought something back for me.
It helped me go back to that place
and start to kind of reflect on that experience--
being brought up there with all my cousins running around--
and forgive the people I needed to forgive,
let go of anything that I need to let go of.
There is so much pleasure in releasing.
It just feels good to let go.
I've been healing for the past few years now.
And for example, when I first started doing breathwork,
the first 3-4 times, I would get intense physical experiences.
I would clamp up.
My mouth would clamp up.
I would cry a lot.
It would be really intense.
Today, it didn't feel as intense.
And I really feel like I'm at a place
where I've healed the main things.
And now I'm reaching into the little nooks and crannies
and I'm cleaning the little corners that might be dusty in my body.
I feel like the big things are very relieved now
because I've done so much work.
Obviously there's endless work to be done,
but I do feel like I'm at a place where we're doing the little things now.
We’re going back to
“Oh, I forgot about that little memory or that little memory.”
In general, some big themes were telling myself and my inner child
that it is safe to be yourself.
You don't have to try to be anyone else.
You don't have to shrink down and shy away from things
or dim your light in any way.
It is safe to be your authentic self.
It is safe to speak your truth.
I was the type of kid that kept everything to myself.
I wouldn't express my emotions or feelings or thoughts.
And even if I tried to, I felt like no one understood me.
And I really was shrinking myself down
or maybe I was born that way, I'm not sure.
But you know, it's okay to allow yourself to be yourself.
I think a lot of that fear comes from wanting to be accepted,
wanting to belong,
wanting to be loved.
And we all crave, acceptance, love, and belonging.
It's natural.
And so I think a lot of us do have childhood traumas around that,
whether it was in your family, in school, or both.
And in our healing journey,
I think a lot of it is coming back to ourselves,
to learn to give ourselves that love, that acceptance,
that approval from within,
without needing that external validation.
Just learning to trust yourself,
learning to be confident in yourself and your worth,
and recognizing that you already are--
and you already have been this entire time—
been a beautiful and complete soul.
A couple days later, I went into the salon for a major chop.
I've been wanting to refresh my look for a while.
I felt way down by long hair
and wanted to chop off all of that old energy
that lingered in my hair since 2020.
And here's the final result.
Through this refresh, I'm inviting new energy and positive change into my life.
And I feel more ready for it now that I've let go of the old.
Old stuff, old energy, old hair, and more.
I've taken time to nourish myself and my space
and be intentional about how I wanna move forward in life.
I hope this video gave some ideas on what you can do to refresh your life.
It all begins with an intention and a little action
in the areas that feel stagnant or neglected.
What part of your life needs a major refresh?
Let me know down below.
Sending you all so much love.
I'll see you in the next one.
Bye.