At Haven, our mission is Natural Beauty. Natural Beauty is not just taking good care of your skin or being thoughtful about diet and exercise — though those things can certainly be a part of it. Natural Beauty is also a lifestyle, a holistic philosophy that encompasses all the healthful things we do to be our best selves and live our best lives. It’s going back to basics. It’s living with purpose. When our daily decisions are aligned with our personal values, then we can access the natural beauty within ourselves, our environment and our lives. Here are some of the tenets we can live by when making a commitment to The Natural Beauty Manifesto.

We can be busy all day long. Sometimes we are so tired we just want to do something mindless after which we go back to being busy. This is modern life. We all need a gentle reminder to find a way to stop. Stopping, the first tenet of our Natural Beauty Manifesto, is perhaps the most important. It means taking a conscious break from the doing, the random progression of thoughts, the worry, the neverending checklist. It’s setting aside time in which we pay full attention to the present moment. Resting our minds and bodies, sitting with ourselves, breathing in and out, releasing our tensions and preoccupations. We can then become more concentrated, more self-aware, more solid — all of which builds a foundation for well-being and happiness.  

Be still. Do it every day. Embracing the quiet is a wonderful touchstone in The Natural Beauty Manifesto. Stillness can be meditation or mindfulness practice and is the very foundation of awareness. What can awareness do for you? When we create a quiet space, we come back to ourselves, live in the here-and-now, are able to observe and learn what we enjoy and then, cherish it. Embracing the quiet puts us in touch with what is positive and healing. That’s when we tap into something quite important. Quiet lets us find out that what we need is within; we are the chief architects of our own happiness.

Take a breath. Whether you meditate or simply enjoy sitting with yourself, a quick and easy method to stop and get quiet is to take a few deep breaths, even if only for a minute or two. When we speak about Natural Beauty there is nothing more beautiful, and life-affirming, than deep, mindful breathing. When we focus on our breath it brings our mind and body back together; think of the breath as a bridge to relaxation. Breath work has ancient roots: Pranayama , long practiced in India, is now proven by science to reduce anxiety levels and improve cardiac health and increase our overall sense of well-being. Mindful breathing can also be quite spiritual, when done in front of an altar or a vase of fresh flowers. Deep breathing can induce feelings of the sacred and exalted, connecting you to a deeper you and to the universe.

Raising our vibration is the fourth tenet of The Natural Beauty Manifesto. When we view every level of our lives in the context of living at a high vibration, beauty radiates from our being. It’s about the energy. Our vibration can be brought down by modern life when we stray from basic principles and what is most essential. We must understand how fundamentally our overall state of being is made up of energy vibrating at different frequencies. For example, when your energy is high you have that beautiful sense of living in the flow and everything “feels right.” You might even notice people are drawn to you, that’s because like energy attracts energy. How to keep your energy high? Become conscious of your thoughts. Everything you think becomes reality. Think of it as your own personal manifest destiny. Keeping your thoughts positive means your reality will also become positive.   

The Natural Beauty Manifesto would be nothing without Mother Nature. Now that the warm weather is here, we are able to get outside every day and fully enjoy the beauty to be found outdoors. Putting bare feet to earth is a powerful way to reconnect with our environment and ourselves. Live by the sun. Love by the moon. Connecting to nature lets us embrace the beauty and feel the energy that flows from the sacred realm of Demeter. Let the cornucopia of the wild kingdom inform your choices and guide your self-care. Meditate in a meadow, do your sun salutations in the sunshine, buy food from a farm stand. On every level, let Mother Nature’s bounty nourish you inside and out.

Stay Beautiful.

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