Yes, I have had a two-weeks summer vacation in beautiful Los Angeles in June. But being back in Cologne with not so much of a consistent summer time, the weather got me feeling oh so blue. Since my return from California, I haven’t had two days in a row of warming sunshine, the rain and the clouds do not stay away for too long. The effects? Tiredness, lack of motivation, a longing for flexibility and a heart’s desire of dancing barefoot on a green field with the sun shining on my skin, warming my body and activating all my senses. This feeling of free motion that we have during summer is priceless. Summer makes us see beyond the obvious, inspiring us to be creative, bold and reminding us how much fun it is to be wild and free-spirited. And that’s what I love about summer.

But as it is, we can’t influence the weather (if you do too, please feel free to share your secret wisdom with me). And when a girl’s gotta work, a girl’s gotta work and can’t leave for another vacay in Tinseltown – as unfortunate as it is. So I made my way through the depth of the Internet, researching what fun rituals I can try out to make this catastrophy of a summer bearable. Here is how I got inspired – I hope, these recs will be an inspiration for lightening up your summer as well. Not only are these great for a little do-it-yourself session to get a clear mind after work or at the weekends, but also have a nice positive side-effect: these holistic rituals are believed to have a positive and healing effect on our minds, bodies and souls. Let’s hop on the DIY wagon then!

Mala Beads Necklace for Yoga practice

As a yogini who wants to kick her practice up a notch, I was looking for a mala beads necklace – not knowing about the meaningfulness and said-to-be power of the gemstones the necklaces consist of. Gemstones obviously are a thing in the holistic world, so I read many articles on the different powers of each stone, their influence on the seven chakras and how to take care of and cleanse them (more on that under “Crystals for healing”). If you are sceptic about stones having anything much of an effect on your human body, read this goop.com interview with Colleen McCann, or OurBodyBook.Com’s interview with Vanessa Kunderman. These articles might give you a different mindset on that matter. If it doesn’t, that’s totally fine (at this point, I haven’t tried it out yet, so I can’t prove to you that it works) – making your own mala beads necklace just for fun and for creating a beautiful accessory is just as good for a reason, right? 🙂

Mala beads necklace — what’s it good for, you ask? You are basically wearing your intentions. When meditating during your Yoga practice, you can use your mala beads necklace to strengthening your intentions and really carry them and reminding yourself of them. They say that you should repeat your mantra 108 times (= the number of beads attached to your necklace).

Crystals for healing

If you are not so much a meditating kind of person or the necklace is not your style, you can also place the gemstones at certain places, like for instance at the night stand or in the living room – using the decorative benefits as well as the healing promises of the stones in your home. They are said to clear the air of negativity and bring in such as clearance, focus, grounding, intuition, healing, love etc. Every stone affects another part of you – or another chakra to be more precise.

Flower Bouquets for cleansing

With a selection of dried flowers bundled up into a stick, you can smoke cleanse your crystals as well as rooms from bad vibrations, so to say. It looks nice and is a great way to keep those beautiful flowers of yours after they begin to dry out and put them to good repurpose. And the lovely smell… Mmmh.. For more infos on different flowers and their benefits, have a look at this post from OurBodyBook.

Setting new intentions for the month of August

This idea is inspired by this gorgeous lady: Lee from America. She shared a list of her intentions – you can see it on her Instagram account. Before I started my actual list of intentions, I made two other lists that helped me set my intentions for September (I saw this quote on Dallas Clayton’s Instagram):

In case you need some food for thought, here a list of possible intentions:

• wake up bright and early: no more endless snoozing! 🙂
• meditate every morning for as long as I desire: I don’t believe in forcing yourself to complete a certain number of minutes when it comes to meditating, just listen to your body and when your mind feels recreated and refreshed, free for that matter, you achieved your goal. In Yoga class, we like to take a moment at the beginning of every class to set our focus. That’s what you can start your mediation with (if you need a little notional guidance to start off with).
• strength training for all body parts: at least once to twice a week
• create things: beginning with the mala beads necklace, a new plants’ corner in your garden and a new, secret project just for yourself
• take other people’s opinions into consideration before throwing mine at them: maybe their opinions turn out to be a gamechanger for the way you are thinking
• when in doubt, think before acting: Will it make you happy? Will you feel better afterwards?
• spend more time outdoors: even though summer is giving us a hard time..

What about you? Will you give these creative recs a chance? How do you create your sunshine, when the clouds are standing in the way?

Have a great week, folks!

-your tiny woman in a giant world

post scriptum: More inspo from holistic lifestyle queens:

• Great recipes from this beautiful holistic nutritionist, Lindsay from Weeknight Bite.
• This woman is so much fun to follow, Sophie Jaffe from philosophie.
• She is a true bundle of energy, meet Lee from America. She has super great content on her website!