Anchoring Your Life

A kite without a string is battered and tossed by the wind. But anchor it properly and watch it soar. 

I believe we experience the most freedom within boundaries. 

For some people, the idea of boundaries and anchors might trigger mental images of cages, barbed wire, or a ball and chain. It feels restrictive. Rigid. You feel trapped.

Maybe it reminds you too much of that hardcore diet that your mom went on (or was that you, too?) where she ate salad three meals a day and saved up Weight Watchers points. Maybe you still feel the resentment of being forced into an early bedtime when siblings were allowed to stay up late and have all the fun. Maybe you believe that any sort of health ‘program’ or ‘protocol’ will be hard, joyless, and suck the fun out of life.

To be fair, many of those so-called ‘health’ programs actually do suck the joy out of life.

And I’ve been there myself. I’ve ridden the almond-everything train. The absolutely-zero-sugar-in-any-form train. The cauliflower-everything train. The plant-based ‘superfoods’ train. The supplement-for-every symptom train.

I rode those trains because I believed it was what I ‘should’ do. Restrict food groups, eat unnatural amounts of nuts and vegetables, stay on a strict diet, and definitely don’t eat anything that’s not on the current hardcore detox plan.

None of these things did much of anything for me. Other than leave me frustrated, undernourished, and with almost no real resilience to stress.

Which is why I no longer have any need for them.

But lest you think I’m advocating for throwing up your hands and running off into the sunset of modern convenience culture, I also have plenty of lived experience on the other end of that spectrum. The one where I had zero body awareness. I ate cheap, processed, hyper-palatable (read: addictive) ‘food.’ And I wandered through life feeling like poop, not realizing what was possible.

But thank goodness there are more than two options.

Rhythm and Routine

What I’ve come to appreciate is the development of a beautiful harmony between structure and flexibility. It’s routine without rigidity. It’s being flexible without being totally sporadic. I like to think of it as an anchoring.

Children and animals thrive on a predictable routine. And so do adults. We just tend to forget that in the way we live. And I’m not talking about living on auto-pilot where you go through the same old motions day in and day out, rinse, and repeat. 

I’m talking about intentionally setting a solid framework on which to build your life. 

And it’s actually pretty simple. I know it’s tempting to get distracted by fancy biohacking tools or extreme programs that promise to radically change your life in 30 days. 

It’s easy to skip over what sounds too simple to make a real difference. After all, eating breakfast and going to bed at a decent hour don’t sound all that sexy. 

But when you get consistent with the foundations, you discover a rootedness, an anchoring to your life that builds resilience. 

Living an anchored life means consistently practicing the simple, foundational rhythms and routines that provide the bedrock for actual wellbeing in a life that you enjoy living. 

Ready for Resilience

I’m sure you’re thinking you must need more than sunlight and taking yourself on daily walks. And maybe you do. But without the anchoring of the foundations in place, you’ll likely find yourself getting tossed from one ‘miracle supplement’ to the next like a kite without a string.

And how enjoyable has that been for you so far? If you’ve been chasing down the next big thing for years, or if your daily life feels unpredictable and chaotic, what would peace and resilience feel like? 

I invite you to find out. Dig deep to find that ounce of self-compassion inside you that will say yes to putting in the work. To developing disciplines, rhythms, routines.

To anchoring your life so you can soar. 

Lori 🤸🏻‍♂️

–

Want some guidance? I offer a 6-week group coaching series called Anchored where we practice the simple, foundational rhythms and routines that provide the bedrock for actual wellbeing in a life that you enjoy living. Learn more here.