🌟 Happy 2024! 🎇 ⚡️ The Destiny Architecture Blueprint 1/1/24
The truth is, change is possible at any time. You don't have to be all "new year, new you" around here. (I've said this for years, but it bears repeating).
A new year, a blank slate—Happy 2024! 🎆
The truth is, change is possible at any time. You don't have to be all "new year, new you" around here. (I've said this for years, but it bears repeating).
My gym will be full of New Year's Resolutionists this week. They'll drop off by mid-February. Some will hit the ground running at dawn today with their 2024 planned out completely. Others will ease into the new year, simmering black-eyed peas today and watching some TV.
All of this is great! No matter which of the above is your style, there's something here for you.
I prefer the "easing in" path myself. In my experience sober coaching and teaching meditation, Reiki, and yoga—the slow path of change leads to great places.
Dry January 2024 🧨 🥤
I welcome any questions about Dry January.
This was hardly a thing when I got sober in 2013. I'm glad to see this has become something! If you haven't heard of it before, Dry January is the practice of taking a break from drinking alcohol for the entire month. You can read more about its effectiveness as a positive behavior from the NIH in the UK.
I've been sober since 7-1-13, so I can speak highly of what sobriety has done for my life. I, however, was drinking alcoholically, and Dry January is meant more for those who aren't alcoholic but who want to see what a break from booze can do to improve their lives.
Another idea for January 2024 if you want to try something new and disciplined regarding alcohol is to do "75 Soft"
There are 4 rules to 75 soft (the softer cousin to "75 Hard," which you may have heard of):
- Eat well and only drink socially.
- Exercise for 45 minutes every day, with one day a week for active recovery.
- Drink three liters of water a day, which is 101 ounces.
- Read 10 pages of any book daily.
Dry January gives you 31 days of trying out a sober lifestyle. 75 Soft is a longer commitment of 75 days that allows social drinking.
🤔 What's good about either? I'm a believer in streaks. From winter 2021 to spring 2022, I wrote online for 150 days consecutively. This changed my life in many positive ways:
✍️ I became a stronger writer
✍️ I let social media validate (or torpedo) my ideas as I built an audience on what was then Twitter.
✍️ Writing became a daily habit, which made it easier for me as a professional writer.
✍️ I met a lot of great people, some of whom read this newsletter now. (Hi! 👋 )
🌞 Building a streak of 21, 31, or 75 days with anything will serve you well—even if you break the streak. If you do "fail," you learn. You find out where your resistance is.
📢 Announcing: Changes to the Podcast & Meditation Membership
After nearly a year of distributing the guided meditation podcast across Spotify and Apple Podcasts, I've decided to release it only on DestinyArchitecture.net and run the membership only through the site I own and run. (The same site where this newsletter is posted each week).
I gave both of these services a good run. While they tell me I have downloads, an audience, and "recurring average subscribers," I don't have more visibility than that—nor am I receiving payments through them. Using Apple's podcast service has also failed to yield me information and payments.
When you subscribe through my site, I receive the payment immediately and can see you've subscribed. You can also log into your account and leave comments.
This gives us a 1:1 relationship so that you can get in touch more easily!
I will be offering a new podcast!
I'll interview various Destiny Architects about our favorite topics like yoga, Reiki, spirituality, meditation, personal development, metaphysics, and more. This will come out weekly for free.
(You may remember this podcast from before, which I called "The Fearless 5." Here's a taste of the most popular episode I made, where I interviewed my friend Ken about TikTok after he hung out with Gary V).
The guided meditations will now live only on DestinyArchitecture.net and are accessible with a subscription of $4.99/mo or $50/year. If you subscribe now, you have instant access to all 50+ mediations I recorded in 2023!
Changes to both podcasts begin in 1 week! Watch next week's newsletter!
ICYMI: How to Do An End-Of-Year Reflection
YouTube Video of the Week: Yoga Nidra
Ease into 2024 with some rest through this yoga nidra video.
Subscribe on YouTube 🙏 (Like, comment, and share—it helps!)
The Destiny Architecture® Blueprint is brought to you this week by two new products I'll be trying and reviewing to kick off 2024:
🍵 Natural Shilajit — I'm interested in trying this for its ability to help with sleep.
🔮 The Tridevia Golden Foil 78-Card Tarot Deck with Enlightening Affirmations — which I'm interested in because I LOVE a tarot deck.
I will be receiving and reviewing these soon! The above links will take you to their sales pages with my discount.
Landmark Study Tells Us How to Avoid Dementia
“Be curious: learn new things, spend time on a hobby, stay engaged and socially active by visiting friends and families or going to social gatherings,” she said. “Exercise regularly: keep moving, all levels of exercise work, from walking to vigorous exercise, find something that works for you.” -CNN
Isn't 10K Steps a Day a Bit Much?
It depends. I've personally felt that number is arbitrary and hard to obtain consistently. But if your goal is to avoid Alzheimer's Disease, you can achieve this by hitting just 4K steps a day, according to this study.
Last week's newsletter ⬇️
The Latest Meditation for Subscribers:
Make 2024 The Year You Get Serious About Meditation!
This self-guided, self-paced course gets you started meditating immediately, tells you who meditation is for, what the benefits are, and guides you through various practices.
You get the benefits of mediation immediately as you begin your practice. It even comes with a 30-day journal so you can track your progress!
Whenever you're ready, here are a few ways I can help you:
Receive 5 fresh, new meditations each month with over 50+ already recorded in the meditation membership!
Learn how to meditate on your own time with my online course, Meditation for Beginners.
Book a private Distance Reiki session or private mediation session online.
Get the best of all worlds with a bundle for coaching + meditation + Reiki!
If you have any questions or comments, please email me at destinyarchitecture [at] gmail [dot] com.
If you love this free newsletter, here are ways you can support an independent creator and solopreneur!
1). Share this newsletter with a friend it can help! Forward it to them or send them this link to subscribe for free!
2). Leave a testimonial to support Destiny Architecture® and creator Heather Larson.
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Destiny Architecture® Statement About the Use of AI:
New for 2024, I will provide transparency and honesty about my use of AI tools. This newsletter is written by me, Heather Larson, a real human who puts in real work. The Destiny Architecture® podcast show notes are written with the assistance of AI, but still edited by me, (Heather).
This newsletter was written entirely by Heather Larson, a human being.
I believe you should be told when the information you consume is created by or with the help of AI. My hope is that other creators will follow my lead and choose to work with this same level of integrity and transparency in their work. The Meditation Course was created, written, arranged, recorded, and edited by me. There are AI summaries inside it that were created from my own written content.
It takes years to earn an audience's trust. While I use a variety of tools in this business, I won't ask you to pay for content created by robots. You're more than my "audience," you are real people I respect as both clients and community. Out of respect, diligence in my work, and gratitude, I will keep a code of conduct that offers you my integrity about how content is created.
(Diligence in work and gratitude are part of Reiki's Precepts).
As someone who has written professionally since 2001; practiced Reiki since 2012; and meditated and practiced yoga since the 1990s... I need to share my knowledge and experience with you in a human, wholesome, and nurturing way that AI bots can never come close to. I also must do it in a way that respects yoga's yamas and niyamas as well as Reiki's 5 Precepts. 💫