LIVING WELL WITH
PHOTOGRAPHY BY MARCO CALDERON, ON LOCATION AT MIA & MADDIE’S BAKERY
JAMIE
WATKINS
MENTAL WELLNESS SPEAKER Mental wellness speaker, writing coach and best-selling author Jamie Watkins of My Peace of Happy shares her tools for heightened happiness and well-being, her tips for adding gratitude to one’s life, her advice for cultivating meaningful relationships, a few of her favorite mantras and so much more. She also reveals what she’s been reading and the app that’s become part of her morning routine!
How would you describe your personal philosophy when it comes to overall wellness? I take a holistic approach to cultivating, maintaining and sustaining a healthy state of well-being. I believe overall wellness includes physical, mental, emotional and even spiritual well-being. It’s essential to optimizing one’s lifestyle. You’re at the forefront of proactive change in the mental health landscape. What changes do you hope to see?
I would love to see an overall shift that proactively prioritizes mental wellness. Although the narrative around mental health has improved tremendously over the last two decades, the heightened awareness seems to be reactive to crisis instead of proactive to wellness. I’m using my voice as a speaker and expertise as a coach to empower and equip people with the tools they need to prioritize mental wellness and improve their overall well-being. I believe this approach will lead to a downward trend
in the statistics related to crises, as well as a significant improvement to the lifestyle of those impacted. What are some of the tools you recommend for heightened happiness and well-being? There are so many. I usually recommend you try several different ones until you identify which ones best serve your personality and lifestyle, and produce the results you want. I have a few favorites like acts of kindness and gratitude, both
of which have been proven in The Science of Well-Being to boost happiness and overall well-being. Another go-to tool for people like myself, who struggle with the tendency to want to get the most done in a day, is mindfulness and time blocking. By establishing a mindfulness practice and using my planner to time block, I’ve been able to shift my mindset from “get the most done today” to “make the most of today.” Another perk is I feel more accomplished at the end of my days and I get a better night’s sleep. L E H I G H VA L L E Y S T Y L E . C O M : N O V E M B E R 2 0 2 3
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