Romanticizing your life. It sounds so beautiful, doesn’t it? Like living inside an old romantic movie or a small European village where life is at a slower pace. Despite what you may be feeling or experiencing presently, there are ways to incorporate romance in your life without having to build a time machine or move to a different country. You can cultivate a sense of romance into your everyday life no matter where you live or what your background is.
Why romanticize your life? Because life becomes so much more delicious and free when you do. Because why let life just pass you by and go through the motions? Because a romantic life is a beautiful life. So immerse yourself in all the beauty that surrounds you. Tap into the senses that awaken and feel the grounding presence that it brings. Like being born again and again, each new day will bring an electricity of excitement.
Below are the seven simple steps that will help you create more romance in your everyday life. This is not romance with a life partner, but romance with yourself and with life itself. Even if you are not a romantic or do not believe in romance, romanticizing your life in these simple ways will cultivate a life of more fulfillment and presence. Romanticizing your life is more about creating an experience for yourself as an act of self love.
Slow the pace
Slowing the pace in your life can help ground yourself to the present. It helps you to enjoy the little beautiful things about life instead of just running through the motions. If you have ever traveled to a European country like France or Italy you will feel a sense of slowed pace in the air. Emphasis is more placed on the enjoyment of life, art and beauty, than on the hustle culture of mass productivity.
Adopting this type of slowed pace into your everyday life will bring such inner peace and joy that may have not been there before. Especially if you have been so caught up in work and other life pressures it may seem you don’t even have the time to slow down.
Slowing down the pace in your life does not need to be a whole day event though. There is a time and a place for everything, however incorporating more time into your day where you can slow down and be more present will help life feel like it’s not just passing you by.
So take the time to relish your morning coffee or tea, have a slow morning, take a detour home to go for a walk or to watch the sunset. Take your time whenever and wherever you can, but especially in the moments you want to remember.
Create a sensory experience
When you ignite all of your senses the world around you awakens and becomes so alive. You are intensely brought to the present moment when you take in a moment with every human sense in your body. Take in the moment with the sounds that you hear, the tastes on your tongue, what you see with your eyes, the aroma you breathe in, and the sensations you feel against your skin.
You can try this with something small at first, like enjoying a morning cup of coffee or tea. Try taking that drink in your hand outside in the crisp morning air and just breathing in deeply. Try focusing on one sense at a time to fully take it in. Instead of zoning out in the shower, maybe try really feeling the pressure against your skin, the temperature, and how it washes down your body to the drain. Like cleansing and washing away all of your worries and fears.
Next try focusing on two senses at once, and then another one until you fully envelope yourself in the full sensory experience. You can try this with just one small thing in your day or create intention around an immersive full sensory experience.
For example, you can try setting an intention to fully take in a moment in your day by allowing yourself to notice and experience all the senses that it creates. Alternatively, you can also set an intention to create an experience that excites your senses, like going for an invigorating walk in the early morning, making a beautiful bath for yourself, or creating a lovely meal to enjoy.
Whatever and however you incorporate more of these sensory experiences in your day to day, you will begin noticing the moments when you aren’t fully present compared to the moments that you are and how each makes you feel afterwards. The moments that awaken your senses will make you feel more alive and grounded to the present.
Create digital rest
We are in a digital age, but being surrounded and dependent on such devices can have negative effects on your mind and your life. Learning to create boundaries around the amount of time and attention you give to screens and social media will redirect your attention to things in your life that you may be overlooking. Things like spending quality time with yourself and loved ones, being more present, and working on things that light you up inside.
Life will pass you by if you let it. Make an intention to create time and space to be without your devices and use that open space to create, spend time in nature, be with friends, or have a day date with yourself. The more time you can disconnect from the digital world, the more you will find connection in the real world.
Make yourself a priority above it all. Make digital rest a practice of self love. Use this beautiful time as a sacred space to get to know yourself better. When we are constantly connected to the digital space we are flooded and sometimes numbed with an overload of information. While some of it can be inspiring, it also can be a cause for comparison.
Allowing time for digital rest will expand your creativity, nurture your relationship with yourself, and help you feel more connected to the world around you. Start practicing in small ways of little breaks throughout your days, and slowly you can expand to giving yourself a full day of digital rest. There’s a beautiful world around you waiting for your authentic presence. Tap into it and see what awakens inside of you.
Attune to your body
Finding time to connect to your body will help ground you to the present and fall in love and appreciation for all that your body can do. Your body is a temple. Let’s learn to love on it, connect with it, attune to it.
You can practice this by speaking affirmations to yourself as you gently give yourself a massage. You can practice being more present with your body by checking in with how your body feels in certain situations and environments. Which ones make you feel good and rejuvenated, and which ones make you feel stressed and depleted?
You can also practice connecting to your body more through movement of any kind. Slow movement like stretching and yoga can be especially grounding. Practicing self awareness to your body and checking in with yourself is a self loving practice. Keeping yourself too busy and never taking time to slow down and check in can leave you feeling depleted without knowing why.
Learning to listen to your body and what it needs will help guide you in the ways you need to nurture yourself the most. It will help bring compassion to yourself and deep inner awareness. The more you become connected to your inner being, the more connected you will feel to the people and the world around you. And that is what life and love is about, finding connection, with yourself and with others. So let’s start with yourself first.
Read and/or write poetry
There’s something deeply romantic about poetry. Whether you enjoy writing it yourself or not, you can always enjoy the art of poetry by reading books about it. And if you do feel creatively inspired to write it yourself, remember it’s not about how good it is or isn’t it is about the act alone of simply writing it.
Practice seeing the world through a poetic lens by writing about or finding a piece of poetry and perfectly describes how you are feeling right now. Poetry is such a beautiful way to express and filter your life experiences through. The good and the bad, the ups and the downs. It’s an amazing art form that can capture every aspect of this human experience that we are living.
You can also practice writing little poetic sonnets just for yourself to read back on and make you smile. You can write little poetic love letters to others to show them how much they mean to you. You can write just to write with no intention of sharing at all, but just to express your heart in such a beautiful way. Practicing non attachment to the perfection of it, will help your words flow with more ease. Poetry is not about perfection, but about self expression through the power of words.
Create art
Whether you are an artist or not, there is such freedom in self expression of art in all its forms. You can connect to your inner child through art and creativity. Especially when you create just to create with non attachment towards how good it needs to be. It’s important to give yourself permission to create bad art and to just have fun with it.
Let your inner child be free and playful. Do something creative that lets you just have fun. Set yourself free of expectations and judgements. You can do this alone or with someone you love. Whatever you feel most comfortable with, the most important factor is simply to enjoy the moment and let yourself be free.
Creating art in whatever form you choose is meant to be fun and a way to express yourself. Also expand your mind to what is art to you and how you want to express it. You can make a beautiful meal or dessert and present it in an artful way. You can make a handmade card for someone, paint something abstract, go for a walk in nature for the purpose of taking artful photos.. Even if it’s just on your phone.
Create for the purpose of enjoyment and being more connected to the world around you as well as your inner world too. You will start to see life through the lens of an artist’s eye. You will start to see all the little things of beauty you didn’t see before.
Find joy in the mundane
Find joy in the little things in life. The slow morning you take. The simplicity in your evening routine. Crawling up to read a good book. Sipping your tea or coffee slowly. Cuddling with your pets in between laundry folds. Lighting a candle with your dinner to enjoy the ambiance and good conversation rather than tuning out to something on the TV or your phone.
The key is to find little ways to find more connection and grounding yourself to the present moment in the little simple everyday things you do. A simple moment can be turned into something beautiful. A small task can be turned into something enjoyable and fun. Don’t fall into the disconnection of just going through the motions in life. Find ways to become more present. Find ways to enjoy the littlest of things.
Final Thoughts
Romanticizing your life is not found in grand gestures. Romanticizing your life is more often found in the small and simple things in life. It’s about finding ways to feel more connected and grounded to the world around you, as well as the world within you. It’s about finding joy in the little things and doing more things that bring you joy.
In a world that can be so disconnected and distracted, let’s set aside your devices for a moment, and do one thing that will bring joy and light to your life. Let’s find connection and beauty again in the subtleties of life. Let’s not fall into the trap of numbing ourselves or going through the motions, but instead seek renewal and awaken your senses. Fall in love with every little nuance and breath of life. Life is beautiful, romanticize it.
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