Episode 284: A Daily Ritual To Develop A Positive Mindset
At the start of the year, I started a new practice to bring more mindfulness to my day. It’s quickly become my favorite way to practice self-observation.
In this episode, I’m sharing what that ritual is, my biggest self-discovery to date, and how this daily exercise is helping me develop a positive mindset and bring more compassion and kindness into my day.
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Mentioned in the Episode:
Episode 186: Exploring Human Design Pressure Centers: Head and Root
Healthy x Human Design: Decode Your Health Using Human Design
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“It’s been a good reminder to appreciate the people who’ve been kind to me in the smallest of ways. It’s been a way for me to acknowledge that reframing self-criticism, self-judgment, or negative talk was also an act of kindness – how I was kind to myself today. It’s also been a reminder to be kinder to others.”
Read the Transcript:
Hello there, my friend! Welcome to The Live FAB Life Podcast. I’m your host, Naomi Nakamura.
One of the most common, frequently asked questions I get from people new to Human Design is, “Well, now that I know about my design, what do I do with it?”
This is one of the things I aim to teach you - how to put your design into use in practical, actionable ways, particularly through the lens of health and how to take care of yourself because Human Design is an informative and valuable tool – if you know what to do with it.
I spent last weekend decluttering and deep cleaning my home. It was long overdue, and it felt incredibly freeing to purge so many things.
As I was sorting through old papers, I came across a card from 2016 with an Eckhart Tolle quote: “If you get the inside right, the outside will fall into place.”
Back in 2016, I had finished nutrition school and started health coaching. I was working with clients who wanted to better their health, reminding them of the importance of hydration and ways to drink more water every day, to move their bodies more often, and how to eat healthy, nutritious food.
All the while, I couldn't help but think I was helping people learn how to better care for themselves, but it was all on the outside. I could see that at the root of their challenges was what was going on inside. And everything we do to “be healthier” only goes so far if our bodies and minds aren’t on the same page.
But I didn't know how to bridge that gap because many ways that “inner work” is taught felt vague. And if they felt vague and out of context to me, how would it feel to the people I worked with, and how could I advocate for it myself? I understood the “why;” I just didn’t quite have my head around the “how,” or rather, the context around the “how.”
It wasn't until four years later, when Human Design came into my life, that it suddenly all made sense because now I had a framework and a common language – that supported the belief of bio-individuality – how the body, mind, and spirit can work together in a way that’s uniquely suited for each person.
Human Design provided context – a substance – if you will, for how to bridge the gap.
So, once we know what our Human Design is, how do we use it?
Over the years, I've shared in many different ways—in dozens of podcast episodes, emails, and newsletters, on social media, and even in the training that I've recently released.
Side note: I've just released the third training if you’re listening to this episode in real-time. First, I released “Healthy By Human Design,” a training on my health coaching approach using Functional Nutrition and Human Design. Next, I released “Human Design Essentials,” an introduction to Human Design, and now the latest program, “Eating for Energy,” a training on how to nourish and feed ourselves using bio-individuality principles with Human Design can be a tool for support and success. I’ve already started working on the next program and plan to have the final two programs created and released before the end of June.
But let's get back to what I want to share with you today, which is all about how I’m currently putting my Human Design into practice daily.
I’m a huge, huge, huge fan of Emma Watson. I love everything about her and think she’s fantastic. Last year, she also shared an Instagram story from her Smythson journal that she’d gotten in 2012.
If you know me, then you know that I love, love, love a good journal. So, if Emma Watson loved a Smythson journal, I would, too!
So, I got myself one of their beautiful journals, but months later, towards the end of the year, I saw they had daily diaries. If you’re a similar age as I am, you may recall diaries being little notebooks with a lock and a key so you could protect the private things you wrote in them.
While I wasn’t looking for anything with a lock and key, I was looking for something that wasn’t a planner or a blank notebook. I wanted something with dated pages; believe it or not, it's hard to find!
So, I got myself a 2024 Smythson diary with a lined page for every day of the year, which was perfect for one of Emma’s practices, which she shared in a recent British Vogue video, and I wanted to try for myself.
In this daily ritual, she writes the following in her journal:
Three things that were fun or joyful from the day Three things kind things Three things that she did well or that she liked about herself
Since January 1, I’ve recapped my day using these three categories every night before bed, and it’s unexpectedly become my favorite exercise for practicing self-observation without judgment.
I love this format because:
It’s done at the end of the day when I’m recapping and looking at things in hindsight, which is when I find I have the best insight. If you followed me back in the early days, in 2015-2016, I talked about “Morning Pages,” which is the practice of getting up first thing in the morning to free-write whatever comes to mind.
I liked the idea of it, but putting it into practice was another story. My morning routine is not one of leisure, which means getting up earlier to free-write. I’m sorry, but it wasn’t a good enough reason to sacrifice sleep when sleep is sometimes challenging.
This is so juvenile, but I'm going to be honest with you—in this digital age, my tolerance for writing by hand is very low because, after a while, it hurts. My formerly pretty handwriting has gotten terrible, and there have been times when I haven’t been able to read my own writing! I even purchased handwriting books on Amazon that teach you how to write cursive to try to learn again. However, journaling by hand feels more personal, and I feel that writing can be more open and vulnerable rather than typing it out.
Having an Undefined Head Center, free writing, and blank pages can be challenging and overwhelming. As I’ve shared in prior episodes, I work best with a template to follow! I like having a format of the same things every night because I know what to expect. I know it doesn’t take much time (but I can if I have much to say). I also like using the same three categories every night for apples-to-apples comparisons. With a Third Profile Line, I like to experiment with things. Being able to make apples-to-apples comparisons very much satisfies my curiosity about the third line.
Now that I’ve practiced this ritual every night for the past four and a half months, I can see how it’s helped me align with my Human Design. It gives me insight and a unique perspective of things I don't think I would have otherwise.
For example, taking a few min at the end of each day to reflect on it brought to my attention how I was spending my time, and the reality was spending my time on things that weren't bringing me fulfillment, weren't bringing me any closer to my goals and the things I want for myself. In other words, I was wasting my time.
I was also wasting my energy on things that didn’t matter. I’d write about things that I’d gotten worked up about during the day, but when it came down to it, they were things that didn’t matter—things that had no direct bearing on my life and people who didn’t know me, who would never know me and didn’t care about me.
So, in the grand scheme of life, why was I spending so much time and energy on these things?
My biggest takeaway from this nightly ritual, which I didn’t expect, was the realization of how my mind naturally gravitated to negativity. I was aware of this, but not to the extent of how much I did it, nor did I know how to stop doing it.
My natural inclination was always to point out what went wrong in my day, what I did wrong, or what I didn't like about myself.
I zeroed in on what I “should have” done and then beat myself up for not doing it.
For example, I’d beat myself up for not having a podcast episode every week, even though I knew I was at my mental capacity and couldn’t put out anymore. Deciding to release the need to keep up with weekly episodes was for my sanity and an act of self-preservation, but I still felt guilty about it, even though the world didn't end if I missed a few weeks here and there. I’m sure you haven’t listened to every episode, so if you want to, there’s a large catalog of past episodes.
And, while I firmly believe that putting content out just for the sake of putting something out there is never my best work, after years of having a new episode every Tuesday, I still felt bad about not showing up consistently.
When I’d get to the section of writing three things that I did well or liked about myself, I would first nitpick about things I didn’t like about myself and felt bad about.
For example, “I should have said this instead of that.” Or, “I didn’t stick up for myself or someone else in this way.”
Observations like these are valid and helpful, but it's important not to associate judgment with them.
Saying, “I could have done this another way, and I'll keep that in mind and do better next time.” is how we practice self-observation with non-judgment.
This nightly ritual has unexpectedly been a huge exercise in practicing this because I didn’t realize how much negative self-talk I had going on in my head.
Becoming more aware and mindful of how I judged and punished myself has been my biggest gift from this exercise.
I’ve also been able to correlate the negative talk and situations where “I could have done better” with not waiting for the invitation.
As a Projector, my Strategy is to wait for an invitation before doing something. I’ve correlated how all the times things “didn’t work out” were when I acted as a Manifestor or a Generator versus leaning into my Projector energy.
It’s also worth sharing that this ritual has become a good reminder to appreciate the little things that happen daily. When I think about what was fun or joyful from the day, it’s usually something simple, like Coco Pop giving me the biggest greeting and being so happy to see when I walked in the door. There’s no better feeling than your dog greeting you when you come home. Fun and joyful things aren’t always grand gestures. They’re in the little things that happen daily, and writing them down gives them recognition, value, and validation, deepening my appreciation for them. It’s been a good reminder to celebrate the mundane and little signs of progress, but progress nonetheless.
It's been a good reminder to appreciate the people who've been kind to me in the smallest of ways. It's also been a way for me to acknowledge that reframing self-criticism, self-judgment, or negative talk was also an act of kindness – how I was kind to myself today.
It’s also been a reminder to be kinder to others. There have been days when I couldn't think of three kind things that someone did to me or that I did to someone else. So now, as I go about my day, I’ve found myself going out of my way to be kind to someone just so that I have three things to write in my journal at the end of the day. This might be a bit self-serving, but I don't think it's ever bad to extend kindness to anyone, no matter the motivations.
Ultimately, I’ve learned the importance of appreciating myself and my gifts because if we don't appreciate and celebrate ourselves, how can we expect others to?
Working from home, there are days when I don’t even have a chance to “get ready” for the day, so when I dress in grown-up clothes, brush my hair, and put on some makeup, I celebrate this! Heck, I celebrate good hair days because it doesn’t happen every day.
As a Projector, it’s just as important for me to recognize myself because if Projectors don’t recognize themselves, others will not be able to recognize us.
A common question from Projectors is, “What am I supposed to do when waiting for invitations?”
The typical answer is, “Work on yourself and refine your craft and skills and your craft so you’re ready for the invitation to come.” Still, you, my Projector friend, need to recognize and extend invitations to yourself first, and it all starts with self-observation with nonjudgment.
This is how you learn to align with your Human Design and values and move closer to your goals and what you want for yourself.
So, I wanted to share this experiment and experience with you and hope it motivates you to try, too!
I had another episode that I planned, and I have planned topics. Since I had just finished Eating for Energy, I thought I’d do another episode before starting on the next training, but as I looked over my list of topics, none felt right at the moment; none spoke to my Splenic Authority. But then I looked over my desk to my diary and knew that this’s been so important this year that I wanted to share it with you because I think it was just as impactful for you as it's been for me.
You don’t need a fancy or even a new journal. Just get a notebook or even just a piece of paper and give it a try: three things that were fun and joyful from the day, three kind things—whether kindness shown to you or kindness extended to yourself or someone else—and three things that you did well or liked about yourself.
Some days, I can't think of three things for each category, but that’s okay because it starts to inform how I go about my day, making me more mindful of my choices and decisions and all the good things that can come from them.
So, thank you for listening. If you try this, I’d love to hear about your experience. Come over and find me on the show notes for this episode at livefablife.com/284. If you share about it on social media, tag me at @livefablifewithnaomi so I can read about it! And if you want to listen to Emma Watson explain it, I’ll also add a link to her interview in the show notes!
I hope you have a fantastic day. As always, thank you for your time, energy, and attention. I will see you right back here again next time. Bye for now.
Naomi Nakamura is a Health x Human Design coach who’s creating a healthier society through aligned energy.
She blends a bespoke mix of Functional Nutrition and Human Design to help others shift into alignment to leverage and correctly manage their energy to support their body, mind, and spirit.
She believes that when we embrace our authenticity and lean into our bio-individuality, we naturally live a life of freedom, empowerment, and optimal health.
Naomi resides in the San Francisco Bay Area and can often be found exploring the area with her puppy girl, Coco Pop!
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