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3 Cures

3 Cures for Greening Your Work-From-Home Blues ~ Part 3 with Tip Sheet!

(For part 2 of a 3-part series skip on over here. Would you like the cliff notes version? Click Here Your 3 Cures Tip Sheet!)
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3-cures-for-greening-your-work-from-home-blues

Cure 3: Green Screen it!

In Cure 1, I urged you to Lighten Up to make sure you reduce your chances for SADness. In Cure 2, I shared with you one of my fav ways to bring nature’s season right to our desktops to support the sacred work we do.  For Cure 3, I want you to imagine in your mind’s eye a happy place you’ve traveled to or have on your “I Am Manifesting This” list. Make it a healing, happy nature place ’cause we’re going for the gold $$$ here.

What does it look like? Tropical? Mountainous? Verdant fields of green?

Now drop down into your heart zone – you know, that place where the passion for the good work you do beats from… how does that dreamy scene make you feel? Zoom in on that feeling as deep as you can go. Zoom in on the details of natural elements that really stand out for you in that scene. Picture the details. Walk around in it. Give your imagination all the attention you can muster to fully experience that place.

What do you see? What do you feel?

My bet is that you feel pretty darn de-lish… and I’d put my money on it, honey, that you’re feeling a bit refreshed and motivated just thinking of it. Let’s call it what it is, focused positive attention.

Now imagine, what powerful things you accomplish with regularly focused attention brought to you by nature? Thanks to imagery that is both pretty and meaningful to you, great work is not far out of your reach, friend. It’s really within an arm’s reach.

This Cure Boosts Your Attention Span in a Matter of Seconds

 Rx: Turn your computer screen into a green dream scene.

  • Switch out your screensaver /wallpaper to a favorite view of that healing nature happy place that you dream of or reminds you of a favorite vacation. Then give yourself 40-second “green-microbreaks” to view taking in that #serenegreenscene throughout the day to restore from the tedium (and remind you of dreamier, *green-i-er* pastures).  
  • Need some wallpaper inspiration? Come on over & follow me on Instagram (I’m @AnnieRedBird). I post a #PositiveMomentaryDistraction pic every Monday just for the purpose of inspiring you to connect with nature’s beauty and benefits with nature doses that help #mindthegardenofyourmind, if even for a micro-second.

And you know who else uses her fav nature scene as her screen saver? Ms. Oprah! Yep, heard live on a Facebook Live, that my (yours too?) CEO hero, has a picture of those glorious Super Soul Sunday oaks as her screen saver.

Why? Because when Oprah is busy traveling (away from her #healinggardenhappyplace), that screen saver picture of her oak grove reminds her “that joy will come”.

If a joyous nature scene works for #Oprah’s screen; maybe viewing nature will work for you, CEO?

Science says:

Research found that office workers’ focus AND performance increased when they had a microbreak green viewing on their computer screen — just 40 seconds. This helped with task-interruptous and attention.  Set your timer and go on a little nature soul stroll with your eyes.

Your brain will thank you, especially as the day wears on and our attention wears down.

Bank Yourself Some Style Points:

This is a quick, fa-fa-free decor intervention of beauty + benefit. That screen takes up a lot of real estate in our immediate, arm’s reach, workspaces and sprucing it with a serene green scene changes your mood and instantly beautifies your office area. You can personalize your wallpaper for your season, your mood, your motivation.

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So which Cure is first on your list? Do you need to lighten up , spend a little shrine time or let your creative brain recharge on a sip of a green serene micro-scene? 

As CEO, it’s your #1 job to attend to your best nature on the inside, so that you may get on with the good work you do on the outside.

Did you find this Cure helpful? Pass it on! Inspired to make a beautiful and happy space for your workplace?

Get your 1-page Tip Sheet of my 3 Cures for Greening Your Workplace Blues to Boost Your Mind-Body-Soul Bottom Line.

Click for 3 Cures Tip Sheet!

And I’ll make that 1 click a 2-fer by tucking you safe and sound onto Red Bird’s update list where I share great resources and announcements with my VIPers. Fret not, if at any point you want to exit stage left and remove yourself, there’s a 1 click unsubscribe button at the bottom of every single email. Easy peasy.

Are you a style-keen, nature-loving, holistically-inclined “soilsoulsister“ (or brother) who wants to tune out stress & dis-ease & tune into your mind.body.spirit connection, thanks to your own slice of everyday, personal paradise? Plant-tas-tic! Sign up for news, resources, good shares and we’ll get on with thriving outside & healing inside.

3 Cures for Greening Your Workplace Blues ~ Part 2 with Tip Sheet!

(This is part 2 of a 3-part series. Read part 1 here. Would you like the cliff notes version? Click Here Your 3 Cures Tip Sheet!)

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Shrine Time to Green Your Work From Home Blues_Cover

This is sacred stuff, sis. 

Sometimes we need to be reminded that for all that pushing uphill, we are connected and supported by an unending supply of Love. Our magic precedes us, and… under the paper, the social media dings, the interruptions… we could use a little refresher on who we are in all of this hustling. 

  • You and your work matter.
  • The energy and love you put into all that you do to help people because of your business are powerful.
  • You have a ripple effect wider and deeper than you imagine.

Grounding our awareness on something physical in our environment – something deeply personal and very meaningful – reconnects us to that deeper part of our spirit. You’ve heard the phrase “windows to the soul”. Having an empowering environment is like a mirror, reflecting back to us our natural self. Our inspiration and creativity reserves get recharged.

Need a recharging station at your creation station? Read on my big-giver, big-doer friend. This is especially meant for you working from your world HQ’s (at home). 

In Cure 1 of this series, I told you to Lighten Up! because the sum-total effects of a working space that has a nature deficit can zap our passion and leave us work-from-home commander-and-chiefs feeling blue-by-you. 

Cure 2: Shrine Time

If you’re feeling as though the work you do isn’t making much of a difference or your creative channel is fogged over, you may need some nature-based #shrinetime to support you in focusing back on the good work you do and the sacredness of the environment around you.

This Cure Recalibrates Your Perspective for Inspired Possibilities

Desktop nature-infused sacred space encourages connectedness to your sacred purpose.

In this video and post you’ll learn:

  • My shrine time practice of collecting healing nature’s beautiful bits outside to support the healing garden inside my spirit – so that I remain feeling connected to my inner world, purpose, and precious self.  
  • My tips for how to create a desktop healing garden shrine (aka altar) all your precious own to cure your ache for renewed creativity.
  • The science and style behind this powerful talisman act that keeps your inspiration intact. 

Fact: I’m deliberate in making space for my/my business’ greatness. (And my cat is an ever helpful “intern”.)

 Rx: Create a sacred space right on your desk, infused with restorative nature.

  • Clear space. (This alone is healing and can amp your positivity and productivity.)
  • Arrange a little collection – a shrine or altar of happy, nature-infused items that you’ve picked up on a walk – that reflects back the divine and alive work you do.
  • Choose a corner of your desk and create this mini happy place with an indoor plant (that’s some O2 for you!) or place seasonal budding branches into a vase.
  • Arrange your nature-infused mini serene scene so that it’s seen out of the corner of your eye.
  • Add candles or essential oils for a triple sensory pick-me-up (Peppermint for mood boost, citrus for spiritual support).
  • Be sure to include water or the representation of water as it is a powerful money symbol.
  • Take visual sanctuary sips of your shrine throughout the day, allowing yourself to rest your mind and gaze on what you cultivate with your good work paired with a sense of admiration of the arrangement and the tokens of bliss, serenity and symbolism.

Science says:

One of the top reasons people adopt shrines or altars into their daily realm is to support a state of mindfulness. There’s a meditative power that comes with your within-arms-reach arrangement of positive, grounding nature elements on your desktop. It reminds you that you are within a sacred (creation) space. Joseph Campbell commented,

“your sacred space is where you can find yourself again and again.” 

The benefit of a mindful, restorative nature-infused, working environment is that it offers an ongoing state of meditative focus so that you flow back to your purpose.

Studies have shown that such a state reduces blood pressure, boosts immunity, prepares us to deal with stressful situations, helps us out of the trap of the debilitating context switching.

Bank Yourself Some Style Points:

Infuse your desktop shrine with nature’s seasonal symbolism as I did at my very own #creationstation, especially if your workspace doesn’t provide you with access to #greenviewstohelpyou.

Here’s my quick pick list of elements and their symbols so you may bring nature’s bliss and powerful meaning onto your creation station:

Pine cones – birth abundance, health, fertility, fortune

Budding branches – awakening, promise, fragility, life is short so bloom!

Flowers – love, unity, growth, connection

Pebbles – grounding, foundational, enduring

Feathers – Divine order, ascension, spiritual connectedness

Seed pods – progression, sanctuary for the seed of creativity

The presence of green, living things is curative. Why not breathe some green life into that desk space… and your spirit?

It will leave you “shrining” and “be-leaf-ing” in your natural purpose again.

(Couldn’t help that pun, hun.)

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Your Cure #3 for Greening Your Work-From-Home Blues! is right here waiting for you.

Did you find this Cure helpful? Inspired to make a beautiful and happy space for your workplace?

Get your 1-page Tip Sheet of my 3 Cures for Greening Your Workplace Blues to Boost Your Mind-Body-Soul Bottom Line.

Click for 3 Cures Tip Sheet!

And I’ll make that 1 click a 2-fer by tucking you safe and sound onto Red Bird’s update list where I share great resources and announcements with my VIPers. Fret not, if at any point you want to exit stage left and remove yourself, there’s a 1 click unsubscribe button at the bottom of every single email. Easy peasy.

DSC_9163 - cutoutWelcome! I’m Annie Red Bird, Empowering Nature Translator, Serenity Stylista & Sanctuary Garden Designer. I dig deep, crusading about nature’s beauty & benefit to illuminate our truest, best selves, because the spaces we keep have a profound impact on our wellbeing & soul-fulfilling greatness.
Are you a style-keen, nature-loving, holistically-inclined “soilsoulsister” (or brother) who wants to tune out stress & dis-ease & tune into your mind.body.spirit connection, thanks to your own slice of everyday, personal paradise? Plant-tas-tic! Sign up for news, resources, good shares and we’ll get on with thriving outside & healing inside.

3 Cures for Greening Your Work-From-Home Blues ~ Part 1 with Tip Sheet!

(For part 2 of a 3-part series skip on over here. Would you like the cliff notes version? Click Here Your 3 Cures Tip Sheet!)
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I know two things to be true:

  • We are hard-wired to sync with the seasons and to revel in nature’s nourishment.
  • We are hard workers, taking care of things & people in our lives so that they stay in sync.

Sometimes the twain just don’t meet.

Access to nature “green stuff” on the daily is critical to healthy psychological and physiological functioning, supporting our immune systems. Downstream, the lack of restorative break time can impact our productivity and consequently, the other “green stuff” – the money, honey.

Here’s what I else I know to be true:

  • You are (likely) a solo-working-from-home, busting your b$%t, Chief Executive Of-it-all.
  • You take care of a business that takes care of others, directly or indirectly.
  • Taking good care of yourself slips further down the famed to-do list then you’d like to admit.

If break time is a mere, laughable fantasy in your daily operations flow, I’ve got: 

3 Cures for Greening Your Workplace Blues, Naturally & Right from Your Desk

Cumulative effects of a shortage of serene green scenes can creep up on us, showing up as decreased satisfaction and productivity, cranky-pants and generally, just feeling blah. Our environment impacts us. Don’t fight it. This is just who we are. We’re sensitive beings. I mean, really, it takes a highly sensitive person to be highly successful running her/his own biz. Inside our busy, hustling, buried-business wo/men minds we may feel, blue.

Green “nature deficit” around us can cause our mind-body-spirit bottom line to be blue.

Cure 1: Lighten up!

344 smaller rez_3 Cures for Greening Your Workplace Blues

Assess your situation right now. You work from home. You have some sort of desk. You spend how many minutes of your precious life at the helm, in that chair? Lift your head up, look around. No, really, please look around. Is there any bit of natural light shining in on you?

If you’re not seeing the (natural) light of day peeking into your #creationstation, you may need #greenviewstohelpyou.

This Cure Boosts Your Mental Focus & Positivity Bottom Line

Rx: Expose yourself to (more) natural light.

  • Like a moth to a flame, move your desk to a window so that, at least peripherally, your brain soaks up natural light, subconsciously “greening out” while you work.  Don’t forget to open the blinds, doll.
  • Switch it up on occasion and work remotely from an #oasisoffice. Source a respite office location that has green-infused views and pack n’ go. Outside, garden seating would pay off in bonus #positivityperk benefits! 

Science says:

A study in neuroscience and chronobiology (study of circadian rhythms) showed that a windowless workplace devoid of nature messes with successes. Working in this sort of environ, can throw off circadian rhythms and increase susceptibility to SAD (seasonal affective disorder). 

We need not have a single SAD Superwo/man.

Bank Yourself Some Style Points:

This is your motivation to freshen up your workspace and gain a new perspective – because your business needs you to #takegoodcare of you.  Fact: I rearrange my office with every season (at quarter start) to capture different views and sun patterns; to freshen the overall look of my #creationstation (’cause how much time do we spend in these home office spaces???); and most importantly, to be deliberate in making space for my/my business’ greatness.

Perhaps relocating your command station (aka desk) near a “port hole” to the outside world might have a ripple effect to inspire you to paint a wall, jazz up the window coverings, or simply hang a bird feeder within view.

Cultivate a proper CEO’s healing haven outside for your viewing & restoring pleasure. After all, why wouldn’t you have the best view in the (home) office, Ms. CEO?

Ready for Cure #2? Skip along over to here.

Did you find this Cure helpful and actionable in making space beautiful and happy for you? There are more Cures where that came from…

Get your 1-page Tip Sheet of my 3 Cures for Greening Your Workplace Blues to Boost Your Mind-Body-Soul Bottom Line.

Click for 3 Cures Tip Sheet!

And I’ll make that click a 2-fer by also adding you to Red Bird’s email list where I share other great content like resources, announcements, and more with those only on my list. Fret not, if at any point you want to remove yourself, there’s a 1 click unsubscribe button at the bottom of every single email.

DSC_9163 - cutoutWelcome! I’m Annie Red Bird, Empowering Nature Translator, Serenity Stylista & Sanctuary Garden Designer. I dig deep, crusading about nature’s beauty & benefit to illuminate our truest, best selves, because the spaces we keep have a profound impact on our wellbeing & soul-fulfilling greatness.
Are you a style-keen, nature-loving, holistically-inclined “soilsoulsister” (or brother) who wants to tune out stress & dis-ease & tune into your mind.body.spirit connection, thanks to your own slice of everyday, personal paradise? Plant-tas-tic! Sign up for news, resources, good shares and we’ll get on with thriving outside & healing inside.

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