“A kind gesture can reach a wound that only compassion can heal.”

— Steve Maraboli

Anne Frank said, “No one has ever become poor by giving.”

We lose nothing when we give with an open heart. We give love; we receive love. There’s more to giving back than just the physical act of giving, it’s a mindset that usually comes with the following sentiments:

1. Doing something for nothing.

Would you work for someone in need even if you know you’re not getting anything back?

It’s necessary to ask this question when we volunteer or do any kind of non-profit work. If we have to work for free to help someone, and we couldn’t document or record our efforts — meaning no one would know we did it — would we still do it?

Double check your intentions. Is it really for them, or is it a strategy designed to benefit you? Because even though it feels good to give back, and it makes us feel more connected to others and ourselves — we have to ask if we’re doing it for show or for our own ego. Do we have to show off how “good” we actually are on social media? Is that our only incentive in giving back?

We must learn how to do something for someone because it’s our own moral imperative, without the need to proclaim it to the world.

2. What gives you purpose?

Think about the issues that matter to you most. What is a global or local problem that bothers you enough to do something about it? It’s easy to complain to people about major world issues, but we can’t just blame everything on politics and government. If we want to do something about climate change, homelessness, gender inequality, sexism, and other pressing issues, then we have to start somewhere.

For us to move forward, we have to take the first step. And it’s up to us to do that. When we say we have to start “somewhere”, that somewhere could be exactly where we are right now.

Begin with yourself, then your closest circle, then your community, and continue to expand through the rest of the world. Change begins with you.

3. Giving is gratitude.

The act of giving alone makes us more thankful. It’s not just the receiver who feels good, but for the giver too. The more we give, the more grateful we become. And the more grateful we become, the more we want to give. It’s a nurturing cycle that endlessly feeds itself.

Gratitude is one of the highest and positive emotions of all. It naturally puts us in a positive state and an abundant mindset. When people are grateful to receive, they are also more grateful to give.

Giving is like the rain in many ways, it nourishes everything it touches. The rain gives life to all living things and beings. It turns into rivers and streams making its way back to the ocean. Then it becomes rain, giving back to itself over and over again.

4. Kindness is contagious.

The power of human connectivity lies within our small acts of kindness. And it’s contagious — the good kind of pandemic.

When we see others being kind to each other, we feel this natural need to do the same for others, too. We are mirrors of each other, constantly experiencing each other in reflection. Everything makes sense when we think back to the quote “A kind gesture can reach a wound that only compassion can heal.” Sometimes all it takes is smiling at the homeless while giving them food. Making them feel like they’re human and still a part of the community. Giving a seat to an elderly man on the bus. Giving a flower to a small child. Picking up what a stranger dropped. Holding the door for someone.

Although it seems like we’re always in our own worlds, somewhere someone is watching us doing something good and it’ll inspire them to do good too.

A little drop of compassion can heal wounds that people don’t even know existed within them. It may seem small. It may seem simple. But its ripple effect goes on much further than we realize.

5. Abundance is a mental state.

If you have little money to give, offer a skill set or volunteer your time and energy. Abundance is not solely about having enough money or resources; you can be abundant in your time, your creativity, or your energy.

Because when you think you’re enough, you will always have enough. You tend give more because you know you can never be depleted.

That’s the beauty in the art of giving back — there’s nothing to lose when your sources are finite, but your way of thinking is infinite.

Our time and attention are the most precious currency we have. At the end of our days, it won’t be money or things that will matter to us. What will matter most is how we spent our time and who we spent it with. In this modern age where we’re constantly attached to our screens and addicted to dings and likes — we often lose sight of what’s really important.

Living intentionally is about learning how to live with purpose and meaning. When we’re in our bubbles: working the 9–5, living only for the weekends, and placing our attention in the digital world and the media — it’s very easy to fall into autopilot. It’s a mental state where we lose touch with reality and the things that truly matter to us. It’s important to recognize when we’re in that state, and wake ourselves up to be more conscious of what’s happening within us and around us. Here are ways to be more intentional every day.

1. Check in with your body. Ask what it needs.

Our body is our vessel for life, and we often take it for granted. When you breathe into your body, you bring the attention and awareness back into yourself. Then you start feeling things you’ve never felt before. You may notice more subtle feelings like your hair touching your neck and shoulders, or which part of the body your emotion is coming from. To be more in tune with your body, it could help to move first thing in the morning. You can either go for a walk, do yoga, go meditate, go for a run or a cold water swim and rejuvenate yourself mentally, spiritually, emotionally. Don’t forget to breathe through it all.

2. Choose what you consume and where you place your energy.

Feeds, screens, ads, media are constantly around us and bombarding our spaces for attention. Tech companies and major corporations profit from our attention alone and we often let them. Look at where you place your attention, your intentions, and all the habits you’ve learned. Ask yourself if this is still serving you or if it’s depleting your energy. Look at the people you follow and how many hours you spend on your social media or screen time. Then do the spring cleaning, unfollow accounts that don’t bring you joy and spend less time on your phone. Another way to consume wisely is to check the Recs portion of our app and see what activities you’d rather replace it with. Check if where your place your attentions is worth your energy and time, then look to where you want to pay more attention instead.

3. Practice self-awareness.

The downside of being on autopilot is that our self-awareness is limited. Because we’re not completely conscious of what’s going on around us, it’s also hard to listen and be aware of what’s going on within us. Check in with yourself and ask: Why do I think the way we do? Why do I get triggered when people say certain things? Am I even paying attention? Am I living in the moment? In order to be more intentional with ourselves and our feelings, we have to ask the hard questions and dive deeper within to figure out what’s really going on. When we create a healthy space for our needs and nurture a loving relationship with ourselves, it allows us to do the same with our interactions in our relationships with other people.

4. Cultivate a positive and healthy mindset.

We’re all perfectly imperfect. There’s no doubt that we’ll make mistakes and experience negativity in our lives — we are human after all and it’s a fact that we have to accept about ourselves. However, if we want to live more intentionally, it also comes with a shift in perspective and thinking. When we create a healthy and positive space for our thinking, our thoughts naturally shift and change as well. Our lives are often a reflection of what’s going on internally. If we focus on the bad, then we’ll continue to experience that narrative in our heads. But if we focus on the good: being grateful for what we have and finding joy in the small things in life, then we’ll feel happier and more content. When we shift our perspective to look at brighter days, it can lift us up and flow over all aspects of our lives.

5. Reflect and set your intentions.

Now, to tie everything together, you can apply this to your life by setting your intentions every day. Having some time in the morning to reflect upon the day helps you build momentum and inspiration, or cultivating a morning ritual can be the perfect practice for creating healthier daily habits. Then before you go to bed, journal and reflect on your thoughts, then think of your favorite moments of the day and document it in the app. But it doesn’t have to begin or end there. When you apply your intentions and practice mindfulness in almost everything you do — you’ll find there is a purpose for you everywhere.

When you go for a hike, there’s a good chance you’ll see a pile of stones stacked on top of each other along the trail. Stone-balancing is not only an art form, it’s a calming process of meditation and introspection. It forces you to pay close attention, as you lose a sense of time while building and re-positioning the stones. In order to build it, you must locate the point of gravity to find balance. No matter what size stone you pick, if you continue to stack within that point, all the stones will stay centered. It teaches you how to stay resilient and grounded no matter what kind of situation life throws at you. It’s the perfect metaphor for living, and all the ways we attempt to seek balance within it. Finding balance is not a simple task, especially when life becomes unpredictable and chaotic. But when we keep ourselves grounded in the moment, it can be easier to flow with whatever obstacles (or stones) life throws at us.

1. Finding emotional balance.

We live in a constant state of duality, living our days to rest at night. But we cannot survive with only the darkness or only the light. We have to find a balance in the emotional spectrum of our lives and learn how to coexist within our polarities. We often seek the positive emotions, because negative emotions are more painful to sit with and we often suppress them. Before we let go of darker and heavier emotions, we have to let ourselves completely feel it so we can be free from it. Embrace the good days when it happens. Hold it close. But when the bad days come, hold it even tighter, so when the time comes to let it go — you can let it go.

2. Learning how to balance life and work.

As a society, we often measure our worth in the monotonous wheel of our work. And when we work too much, or don’t work enough, we often feel either depleted or inadequate. Ask yourself the question, if I am not my job, then who am I? You are more than your profession and it certainly doesn’t define who you are. That realization is the first step in finding a balance between what you do, who you are, and how you should live.

3. Letting courage and fear live in harmony.

Contrary to what most people believe, being courageous doesn’t mean that you must be fearless. The beautiful part about being brave is when you recognize and acknowledge your fears, but choose to conquer them, anyway. It’s normal to have fears, and we shouldn’t be ashamed for having them because it’s part of being human. The actual act of courage is when you cultivate the power within yourself to dare to be bold while facing your fears head on.

4. Loving others and loving yourself.

When you’re in an airplane, one of their first demonstrations in case of an emergency is how to put on a mask. And if you’ve traveled before, you know how it goes: put on a mask first before you help others. It’s like saying we have to truly love ourselves first before we can love anyone else. However, we can still love other people even when we don’t love ourselves, but we get to choose where that love comes from. Do we love them because we often seek external validation, or do we love them for exactly who they are? How we love other people is often a direct reflection of how we love ourselves and if we love ourselves. It’s important to find the balance between learning how to love ourselves fully, that the love we share for others is an overflow of our own self-love.

5. Be like water.

Bruce Lee said empty your mind, be formless. Shapeless, like water. They tied this quote to the belief that we have to be adaptable to whatever situations form in the moment. That doesn’t mean that we have to be malleable, but when we learn how to adjust and reshape ourselves around certain situations that can usually cause chaos, then our lives become more peaceful.

When a wave comes crashing into our lives, we can dive deeper into the surface where the calmness is. And when we come out on the other side — we rise more balanced and centered in our own gravity.

You’re alone and it’s quiet. The only noise you can hear are your own thoughts, and they start to catch up with you real fast. Will you listen to them? Or will you turn on the TV and scroll your feed for distraction? If it’s the latter — you’ll eventually find that no matter how much time you avoid your own thoughts and emotions they’ll start piling up. And it’ll weigh heavy if you don’t acknowledge or express it.

We often look for answers, yet we tend to overlook the necessity to reflect upon ourselves. Sometimes the answers we seek can only be found when we find the courage to ask ourselves the right questions.

1. How am I feeling?

This question will get you out of your head and back in your body. How do you feel in this moment? Are you content and happy? Are you sad? Are you angry? Why? Where do you feel it? Our emotions are usually triggered by repetitive thoughts. By identifying your emotion in the moment, it’s much easier to get to the root of the thoughts that caused it. And when we acknowledge and accept how we feel instead of sweeping it under the rug like dust — we can set ourselves free.

2. Am I taking enough time for myself?

Nowadays, productivity is often tied to our self-worth. Most people believe that if they are not efficient with their time, then they’re not good enough. But the truth is, our time for recuperation is just as important as our time for work. It’s crucial to take breaks, and to truly revel in the pause instead of seeing it as time to enhance our productivity. There’s an Italian quote called “La Dolce Far Niente” which translates to “the sweetness of doing nothing”. It could be as simple as sitting on a bench under a tree and watching the clouds pass by, or listening to music while allowing yourself to just be. Sometimes all we need to reset and regain clarity is to bathe in the nothingness, and actually let ourselves enjoy it.

3. What am I holding onto that I need to let go of?

Researchers say we think over 50,000 thoughts per day, and more than half of those thoughts are usually negative. Imagine carrying the weight of all those thoughts on a daily basis, feeding the repetitive unconscious belief systems we’ve held onto since childhood. Most of these thoughts are intrusive and usually holds us back from evolving and becoming better versions of ourselves. We must learn how to dissect the origins of these thoughts through deep introspection. Reflect on your mind by journaling or sitting quietly, then pick which ones are serving you and which ones are holding you back. You’d be surprised at how much easier you can breathe when you let it all go.

4. Am I staying true to myself?

It’s easy to fall into others’ expectations while feeling the need to please the people around us. But it’s worth it to ask yourself once in a while if you’re doing things solely for other people, or if you’re constantly putting people’s needs in front of your own. Because when you compromise your needs and values for other people, you deplete your own soul. We have to look within the core of ourselves and ask if our values in life are matching our daily actions. It’s through these small actions, in which we can find the truth of who we are and learn how to own it.

5. How can I make the most out of today?

Making the most out of the day doesn’t mean it has to be productive. It could simply mean a day wherein any of your physical, spiritual, mental, and emotional needs are met. What are the things you can do to meet these needs? If you feel stagnant, try moving your body through yoga or going for a run. If you’re feeling down, try journaling to express your deepest, unfiltered thoughts and pour it onto paper. And if you need someone to talk to, invest in a therapy session or find some time to call your loved ones.

No matter what you choose, make sure you check-in with yourself daily. Find a cozy corner indoors or a peaceful sanctuary outside and write out everything you’ve been feeling today. You can even document and upload your musings in the Reel You app. Through introspection and self-reflection, we can improve all aspects of our lives. Nurturing this internal relationship with ourselves creates growth — not only within but also in the relationships and connections that shape us.

What makes you feel like your most authentic self?

Maybe it’s dancing to your favorite song or creating art. Maybe it’s being with your friends or your partner. Maybe it’s writing a poem, painting on a canvas, dancing alone, or reading your favorite book. Or sometimes it’s our environment — where we choose to live, who we choose to be with, the space we create, and the routines that keep us grounded can also help us feel more like ourselves.

Nowadays, we’re constantly bombarded by shiny, pixelated squares begging for our attention. And we often spend time molding digital avatar versions of ourselves — but are we truly showing up as our real selves? Or are we just becoming a hologram of what we think we should be?

Social media aims to make us feel connected and seen — but sometimes it’s hard to feel that way through an app designed to enhance or eliminate our flaws while profiting from our attention. People post their life highlights and sometimes compare the best of someone’s days to their worst days. But the truth is, life is not a series of perfectly curated moments and captions; life can often get messy and dark. We will always have our good days but we also have bad days too, and we must learn how to be at peace with both. We have to allow ourselves to just sit with whatever comes up for us in the moment, and to simply let ourselves be. When we’re vulnerable and brave enough to share some hard truths about ourselves it also inspires others to share theirs. By being the truest version of ourselves, we are liberating each other.

Authenticity, at its core, thrives when you allow others and especially yourself to be completely human. By letting yourself be exactly who you are, you naturally give others the permission to be wholly and unapologetically real. And that’s what the world needs — the real you.

Imagine you’re at the end of your life and there are no days left. Your life flashes before you — what are you thinking about? Is it about money? Or your house, your car, your possessions? What you wore to the party that night or how expensive your bag was? Or maybe…

Maybe it’s the feeling of being awestruck your first day in a foreign country you’re exploring for the very first time. That smell of burnt wood stuck on your clothes the day after a campfire with your best friends. How it felt to kiss her like it was your last day under that redwood tree. The vibration of live music from one of your favorite bands emanating from the stage. Catching the subtle smell of snowfall through the cracked window sill on a Sunday. Life is an accumulation of these small moments, made larger by the beauty in its simplicity.

The truth is, at the end of our days our memories are all we’ll have. It’s all that will be left for us to cherish before we take our last breath. Since the cradle, we’ve been taught to buy into the lie that we need material things and external validation in order to be happy. If we have the latest iPhone, the latest car, the latest cool gadget, or the trendiest clothes and make-up it will measure and define our completion — or so the media and society says. And they may bank on our attention and sense of worthiness, but we are not made to be exploited and profited from. We are humans born to live a full life — we have to experience and taste every last bit of our moments— however big or small it seems to be.

We are all made up of everything we’ve ever lived. Our greatest joys and our deepest despairs are all part of our human experience, and we need to feel it all. The question is: Will you strive to make a living? Or will you strive to make a life worth living?

Nowadays, it seems like a rarity.

Our lives tend to revolve around the next best thing or the grass being greener on the other side. We chase after things and people, seeking happiness and validation through them without realizing that all we seek is accessible in this moment right now. And the shortcut to that? Gratitude.

Gratitude is an often underappreciated aspect of everyday life. People often say it, but don’t feel it enough. It could be one of the most powerful emotions, because it reminds us how much good there actually is in our lives.

The best way to access this is by being completely in the now and learning how to be a great observer. Look for the small things around you that bring you happiness.

Look up at the tree.

How do the leaves look with the golden light passing through them? What about the sky? The sky is never exactly the same. It’s always changing and finding new ways to be beautiful. Do you consume the moment for its worth? Enough to feel gratitude towards it? Or do you let it pass you by?

Sometimes, we just need a little reminder that the happiness we’ve been searching for is right in front of us, waiting for us to see it.

What brings you the most joy in your life? Choose to live around that, whatever it is, for as long as you possibly can. And if you aren’t sure, don’t worry.

Take a breather. Try to meditate and clear your head. Imagine yourself in the lotus position with your back straight, eyes closed, and palms together. Let a quiet sense of peace wash over you as you breathe deeply in through your nose and out through your mouth. Perhaps you find joy in the stillness.

When you open your eyes again, do you find yourself smiling and feeling that — even for a fleeting moment — everything is in place? Give yourself completely to that feeling and let joy emanate from within you.

And if you still aren’t sure what brings you joy, change the scene. Call a friend. Go for a walk. Jump in the ocean until the incessant thoughts float away and you just feel joy. Sometimes nature is the best remedy when you find yourself in a rut; you can let it heal you.

“If you suddenly and unexpectedly feel joy, don’t hesitate. Give in to it. […] Anyway, whatever it is, don’t be afraid of it. Joy is not made to be a crumb.”

-Mary Oliver

There are plenty of ways to find joy in life, even in our darkest hour. In any given moment you can always make your way back to it. As the late Mary Oliver said, joy is not made to be a crumb. There is an abundance of joy in the world; enough to feed us all, if we allow ourselves to find it.

Cook a dish you’ve never made before. Brush your teeth with your opposite hand. Take a different route on your drive home. Then day by day, make your goal bigger. Book a plane ticket to a place you’ve never been to. Go alone. Face your fear of heights by cliff jumping in the ocean. Make an investment for your dream business. It’s in the small steps where we begin to build courage to take bigger ones. We become complacent when things are too easy or predictable. These small challenges bring us fresh perspective and can shake us out of a rut.

Challenging yourself to do something new doesn’t mean doing something impossible.

Breaking out of your comfort zone can help you feel more rejuvenated and challenged. It brings newness to everyday life, and allows you to discover things that you might enjoy. Including a new you.

How will you challenge yourself today? Let us know how it went!

It can be hard to find your path when it feels like life has pulled the rug from under you. But there are ways we can bring ourselves back into balance, even if just for a moment.

Give yourself permission to slow down and pay attention to what you’re doing: where are your feet placed? How does this shirt feel against your skin? What sounds do you hear in the room around you?

When we make space for these smaller moments of attention — instead of rushing past them — they become a chance to slow down and bring ourselves back into the present moment. We can find our way out of chaos by focusing on what we have right here, right now.

One way to block out the chaos is to turn your phone on “do not disturb” for an hour — just one hour!

On average, we’re distracted by emails and messages every couple minutes which us results in us being less focused and less present with what’s going on. One hour without notifications might just help you be more productive at work, a more attentive partner, or more attuned to your surroundings.

Get back in the driver’s seat by giving your full attention to the task at hand, even if it’s just for a short burst of time. We are too often dwelling on the past and worrying about the future. If we can let go of the distractions and things bogging down our brains, we can better appreciate the present moment and be more of an active participant in our own lives.