Crowding out negative is an idea I learned about while attending the Institute for Integrative Nutrition.

The original meaning of crowding out is this:

The more healthy foods you add to your existing diet, the less room you’ll have for junk, and the more sensitive your palette will become to ultimately appreciate a greater variety of healthy ingredients. You’ll literally crowd out  the unhealthy foods until you reach a balanced diet that is sustainable and makes you feel great – even if that still includes an occasional guilt-free indulgence!  

Institute for Integrative Nutrition

But yesterday the crowding out idea took on a whole new meaning for me.

Fear, Anxiety, Sadness

Let’s not pretend that fear, anxiety, and sadness are not part of our daily lives currently.

How could they not be?

If you haven’t felt an ounce of any of those, please share your wisdom with the world. The rest of us are deeply feeling these things, whether or not we talk about them.

But here’s what I know for sure: fear, anxiety, and sadness magnify when you go down the rabbits hole.

And right now, I don’t want to get caught there.

So yesterday I decided to start practicing a new form of crowding out.

Crowding Out (the Negative)

Click HERE to save Crowding Out Negative for later.

Whenever you want to crowd out one thing, you first need to understand what it is you want to crowd out.

In this scenario I’m crowding out:

• the news
• negative people and news on social media
• my own doom and gloom thoughts
• talking to people who are only doom and gloom

And then, you have to replace those things with something else.

You can’t have five of anything at any given moment, take away three and expect to still have five. Three must be replaced.

So yesterday I started replacing.

And just like that, here are all the things that happened yesterday.

Bringing in Life

1. Painting

   I started a massive home painting project. It’s an office project, and I’ve been wanting to do it for a very long time. Decided that now was as good of time as any. I’ll share once it’s done. You might be scared if I showed you current pictures.

2. Working out at home

   I took Amiya and Isaiah to the place where we keep all workout stuff yesterday. Together, the 3 of us did a “mousekercizing” session. When we lived in California, we built an at-home gym in the garage. Back in Minnesota, we love going to our gym, so while we still have the stuff, it’s not really fully set up. And still, I got a great leg workout in and my littles had fun mimicking the moves.

3. Movies

   Watching movies is nothing new for most of you. It is for me. I usually can’t sit still to watch 10 minutes of a movie, much less a full one. But I did it yesterday. Ryan rented ‘Mr. Rogers.” And I totally fell in love with it. If you haven’t seen the movie, during the doom and gloom would be a perfect time to rent it.

4. New course

   I registered for a new course through Yale, The Science of Well-Being. You can take it for free HERE. Tomorrow I’ll start Module 6 of my Gut Health Course. And I’ll also start this course, too.

But maybe the best thing that happened yesterday was that instead of reading the negatives on my phone at night, I ended the day with the Mr. Rogers’ movie. And towards the end, all three of the babies jumped up in bed with me.

One-by-one, they each fall asleep. Samarah and Amiya were directly on me; Isaiah within an arm’s reach away.

And I’m not kidding – it was absolutely priceless. In fact, I don’t think that’s ever happened. I would have let them sleep there all night, but Ryan needed a place to sleep, too 🙂

Cheers to Crowding Out

So here’s a big, fat cheers to crowding out anything that induces fear, anxiety, and sadness in your life currently.

No, it’s not easy. And no, the practice of it will likely remain for quite some time.

But maybe that’s the point.

Maybe the point of all this is to start crowding out the noise and negativity even without Coronavirus circumstances.

We get so caught up in things we deem important and worthy.

But are they really?

My goal for the foreseeable future is to keep writing here and sharing new and different things to help inspire you to CROWD OUT more, stress less.

I find that in doing new things and giving hope and positive sources freely, this all seems more manageable.

Well that, and the memes.

Join the magic and chaos, right where you need to be, HERE.

Xox,

SKH