March is a special month for Flower Girls because it commemorates when it all began. It’s been exactly 9 years! We couldn’t be happier with how much we’ve grown over the years. We are not only doing community events, but making our mark in the corporate world and the school system too! In celebration, we’re sharing 9 things we’ve learned in 9 years of cultivating space for authentic conversations about work, our mental health, womanhood, and overall well-being.
1. Your mental health and well-being are more important than other people’s opinion of you. 2. You are not your job, trauma or struggles. You are a human being who deserves to be seen and heard. 3. Talking to people about what you’re going through is healing. 4. Therapists are a godsend and deserve all of the flowers. 5. Finding the right doctor, therapist or any healthcare professional takes time, research and patience. 6. Your voice matters, your opinion counts, and you will find people who see you if you share your story. 7. Like-minded people love coming together to share a laugh and learn new things. 8. Community and connection are the answer to a lot of our problems. 9. We don’t have to know the answers to everything we’re going through. We just need to be willing to do the work and try new things that will improve our well-being.
We can’t wait to see what’s next! Thank you for being here.
We were gifted sunny, beautiful weather today for our delightful Galentine’s day event with Miss Purl! Hand embroidery is not as easy as it looks, haha, but once you get the hang of it, it’s so calming and activates the flow state of your brain. Thank you all for joining the fun today! We hope you learned a new hobby that you can incorporate into your daily routines. Check out some embroidery stitches we created of roses, stems, and other styles! Special love to Kamaca Champion aka Miss Purl for teaching us with love, patience, and humor! If you missed today’s workshop and want to learn more about hand embroidery or knitting, head over to Miss Purl’s website for details! 💕🧵🪡
See more resources below: How to embroider for beginners – If you want to learn how to embroider, but have no idea where to start, then you’re in the right place. 12 ways embroidery can boost your mental and physical well-being – Research conducted by University College London in 2020 confirmed that artistic activities can ‘lower inflammation and stress hormones such as cortisol’ while also helping reduce the risk of dementia. Other studies have been more specific, pointing to a direct link between textile crafts and improvements in mental well-being. Needlepoint is a great way to cope with uncertainty – With needlepoint, the path forward is clear and certain. It gives us a sense of perceived control. Why DIY gifts have mental health benefits – One study found that people who engaged in arts and crafts, such as music, painting, drawing, textile crafts, and creative writing experienced lower levels of mental distress. They also experienced higher levels of mental functioning and life satisfaction. How cross-stitching helped me manage my anxiety and depression – “Helpful treatments for anxiety include distraction, mindfulness, and grounding techniques that bring you back to the current moment. Crafts can be a great grounding and soothing distraction and healthy part of a treatment plan to tackle anxiety,” explains Dr. Melissa Welby, a Connecticut-based psychiatrist. Having a crafting project, she adds, “makes it easier to let go of anxiety when it comes up or to pick up that unfinished project and get distracted by creating.”
We wrapped up our final virtual event of the month last Sunday! Slow Living with Intentions was so much fun, and allowed us to dream freely about what we want our 2024 to look like. Kristin Vierra, a Remote Career/ Lifestyle Coach, Digital Slomad (slow traveler), and advocate for slow living, guided us through what it means to live more intentionally and how to create a vision board. Kristin’s career transitions and solo travel experiences inspired her journey to become a remote career and lifestyle coach. She has a passion for exploring foreign countries, broadening her mindset, and gaining wisdom through immersing in other cultures. We began the gathering by discussing the importance of living intentionally which is key to manifesting the life we want. Intentional living is a philosophy or approach to life where individuals make conscious and deliberate choices to align their actions and decisions with their core values, beliefs, and goals. It involves being mindful and purposeful in how one lives, focusing on what truly matters to us. This means:
Living authentically
Connecting and aligning with core values
Prioritizing meaningful experiences
Pursuing a more fulfilling and purpose-driven life
So, how does this play into manifestation and vision boarding, you might ask? Kristin shared that when we put intention into things, it comes to life! By connecting to our intuition and allowing it to be our compass, we can achieve whatever personal and professionals goals we set out to accomplish. She emphasized the importance of first getting clear on our personal intentions. By defining our vision, we pave the way for meaningful action to bring it to life. To create our vision boards, we used Kristin’s template from Canva (see above); there are a ton of other options here. We also had the option of creating a Pinterest board where you can pin inspirations. With meditative music we went to work on creating our vision boards. The Flower Girls really enjoyed this activity, and shared the following sentiments:
Part of creating a vision is speaking your vision.
The universe always delivers!
Cultivating friendships is so important and many of us are yearning for better connections!
Vision boards are a way to romanticize our lives.
We want to eat better and live a healthier life.
We’re aiming for a less chaotic life.
We want to live more intentionally!
Be authentic to the journey.
We must ask ourselves – are we living in alignment with our goals and values?
Celebrate the smalls wins and play more!
More gems: – My social battery has decreased and has forced me to prioritize who I share my time and energy with. – Thank you for this space, Vanessa! I’m excited to keep working on my board. & the inspiration Kristin! – Thank you @Kristin Vierra for this amazing activity!! Thank you @Vanessa Flowers for the Self-Care Sunday Series!! – Love that cultivating friendships is important to you all! – I loved your board!! I’m inspired!
Last Sunday we met for our third virtual event in our Self-Care Sunday Series – Tap for Anxiety Relief! Thanks to Beecher Leonard-Fritzmeier for introducing us to EFT (Emotional Freedom Techniques) which is also known as tapping, a holistic practice that combines elements of Traditional Chinese Medicine with modern psychology. This gentle technique involves tapping on specific meridian points on the body while focusing on thoughts, emotions, body sensations, or memories. The goal is to release emotional blockages and restore balance to the body’s energy system. The benefits include anxiety relief, emotional healing, immune system regulation, stress management, and overcoming negative habits and addictive behaviors. Beecher shared her journey to tapping which involved burning out at work and her son experiencing anxiety due to an autoimmune condition. She explored different modalities and stumbled upon EFT which really worked to not only help her feel better, but her son too, so it was a win-win! Beecher has made it her life mission to introduce others to EFT and emphasizes the importance of dismantling limiting beliefs and emotions that persist from the past while tapping. Our favorite places to tap were next to the eye which helps with overthinking and the collarbone when wanting to calm down.
Here’s a tapping exercise to get you started. How the Flower Girls felt after the exercise:
Thoughts have definitely slowed down! Sense of calm😌 I’m feeling more calm and relaxed Definitely feeling chill 🙂 You’re always told that meditation is a way to reconnect to your body, so I appreciate the physical reconnection! Thank you for making this so approachable!
To learn more about Beecher and her EFT offerings, go here!
Aging with grace, or as someone on the call articulated beautifully – “maturing with age”, is a journey we must embrace! April Cole talked about her struggles with getting older after losing her mother in her early 30s, and grappling with the fear that came alongside this tragedy. April recalls wearing a ‘mask’ where she looked great on the outside, but inside she was suffering. April finally saw a psychiatrist who introduced her to meditation, and that changed the game for her! Now she’s living her most authentic and unapologetic life at 60! April says we struggle with the acceptance of aging for two reasons: (1) there’s fear and mystery behind growing older, (2) we as a culture have a preoccupation with our appearance as we age, which is an Americanized mindset. Here are the key lessons we learned from 60-year-old April who is living proof that aging with grace is possible:
Don’t say you’re never going to do or accomplish something. Doing something for the first time later in life is just as sweet as doing it when you’re young!
Look in the mirror and tell yourself, “You look good girl! Thank you for this body.”
Work on your inner dialogue to reframe how you’re thinking about things.
Connect the dots to understand why you behave the way you do.
Write down everything you want to fix about yourself in your journal while still loving yourself.
The way you take care of your body now will have lasting effects later in life, so start caring now.
Fix the issues you’re dealing with now before you’re forced to deal with them at 60.
Work with your therapist to help you unpack the trauma you experienced in the past.
Be okay with being alone.
Stop hiding what you’re feeling. Seek help!
Make a diagram of how you’re feeling at every age.
Be patient with yourself and take it one year at a time.
Focus on surrounding yourself with the right people who truly love and care for you!
Make working out a top priority!
Have things to look forward to and you will feel happier!
Other gems shared from the Flower Girls: – Youthful people keep you youthful. – Look at your family history to see what ailments your family has and work to protect against those things. – It’s hard to accept some of the things that happened to us when we’re young, but if we don’t do it now, it’ll be worse later. – Face aging with humor and fun experiences. It’s not all bad!
Overall sentiment: Don’t suppress your emotions, grief, or any hardship you’re experiencing in your life right now because as you get older, those things just become more unbearable to deal with on top of accepting the aging process.
