What if we prescribed something other than medications of various kinds. What if doctors pulled out their script pads and wrote out things like:

30 minutes a day with your bare feet on the ground to get a healthy dose of earth energy to help with feeling ungrounded and anxious

1 hour a day of mild sun exposure to raise Vitamin D levels to combat depression and diabetes

3 hugs a day to fight loneliness

1 month of international travel to rekindle the sense of awe that seems to have gotten lost between the endless number of adulting chores and work meetings

2 playdates a week with kids to remember how to be more like one

A list of crystals to have regular skin contact with to bring energetic balance

1 hour a day of kitten cuddles, puppy hugs, or any other animal contact to create more comfort and decrease blood pressure

30 minutes of laughter a day to lighten the heart

As a culture, we’ve become accustomed to treating symptoms rather than eliminating the syndrome itself. These symptoms are the message that something isn’t suiting us.

We are trying to fit ourselves into a box that doesn’t have the same dimensions as our spirit.

I woke to this reality at the end of 2016 and realized that the box that I was fitting my spirit into had become a pristine coffin. I remember feeling so dumbfounded. It was almost like the adult equivalent of being told that Santa doesn’t really exist. I had been told and taught that if you follow this equation (get an education, get a high paying job, get married, build a home, etc.) you’ll find meaning and happiness. And to a certain extent I did; that I can’t deny. I loved my work and nothing can replace the sense of stability that a solid income, a cozy home, and good food to eat can give you. But I realized that all of this amounted to a very small amount of what actually gives me purpose and joy. As the shock wore off, that what I had been promised wasn’t actually all it was cracked up to be for me, and as I worked through the initial anger or having been duped, sadness creeped in, slowly at first. Inch by inch it seeped into me, until I was internally swimming within frigid black waters.

I was faced with the scariest question of all…

What do I actually want?

Initially, I met this question with only the ability to name what I didn’t want. I didn’t want to live to work anymore. I didn’t want to only have the energy to do my laundry, run my errands, and meal prep on Sundays for the week ahead. I didn’t want to feel like I was disconnected from myself all the time. And I didn’t want to go on vacation for only two weeks a year (especially when 3-5 days of that two weeks was spent trying to get my mind away from work and life in order to be present enough to actually enjoy the vacation – let’s not even talk about the last few days of the vacation that are equivalent to the Sunday Blues but even worse).

I kept at it. Every day, asking myself, what do you want? And then the question morphed a bit each day. If you could wake up at any time, what would suit you best? How many hours a day would you actually like to work? How often would you like to move your body and in what form would that take? How much money would you really need in order to have all your basic needs met and to feel psychologically comfortable? What would your eyes like to see; ears like to hear; tongue like to taste? What would make you feel like a kid again?

With each question answered, my spirits voice got louder. I was finally listening. I became the expert on what’s best for me. I let my spirit tell me what its dimensions are so that I could build it a custom-made box to fit it perfectly.

From what I can tell so far, after 9 months of living my new life, my spirits box doesn’t have a completion date. It’s constantly changing. And the beauty of that fact is astounding. So let’s get rid of this notion that one size fits all with how to live and how to be successful and how to be happy. And recognize that it is blissfully unique and each persons recipe is already written within them; it just needs to be read aloud by your spirit and you just need to listen to it.