Our minds are powerful places, and when negative thoughts creep in, it’s easy to get stuck in there with them. Every season, make time to connect with friends and take a beat to reset your mental and emotional habits into a place of balance.

We recently joined Robyn Berkley of Live The Process for a long afternoon in Topanga that was just that. With a community of wellness-loving ladies we loved to see, we spent a few soul-soothing hours living out our hippy-dippy fantasies outside the office. Like most Angelenos, we love retreating to Topanga often for a little peace-inducing, mountain magic.

Tucked inside a private mountain home, we made herbal sleep pillows, enjoyed a kundalini yoga sesh with Guru Jagat and a restorative sound bath with Kassia Meador, ogled the gorgeous crystal pyramid by our friends from Energy Muse and learned a bunch from hypnotist Morgan Yakus and  beauty herbalist Jessica Blades in a soothing self-care session that left us all deeply chill about the rest of our evening. Grab a few powerful tips and takeaways from the pros who helped made the day so memorable…

Tips From Hypnotist Morgan Yakus

PATTERN INTERRUPTION: Pattern interruption is a nice way to create new patterns and interrupt yourself as soon as the negative pattern, loop or thought arises. It may show up as an audio, image or movie. Interrupt yourself right away and create a positive audio, image or movie in its place. Imagine and/or feel yourself in a positive state and/or outcome, then step into that new version in your mind. This will help you to access a positive state and you can feel more balanced in making decisions while going throughout your day. The technique can create a positive shift in 30 seconds.

POSITIVE SELF TALK: You can mindfully practice talking to yourself in a positive way and showing your mind what you would like to create. Most likely, if you’re feeling negative or stressed, then you have been creating negative thoughts. Talk to yourself in the same way in which you would talk to friends, family members or a partner.

ACTIVE SELF MEDITATION: Try an active meditation to show the mind what you would like to create. This technique can support you in designing balance in under five minutes. It can also be combined with other types of meditation. Some of the benefits are creating balance, calming the mind and better sleep.

DANCE TO YOUR FAVORITE SONG: Dancing for even five minutes will create a positive shift in body, bringing in a new perspective. Plus exercise is always good!

Tips From Herbalist Jessa Blades

Slow down for beauty: Lowering and managing stress is so important as stress affects all aspects of our health – the way we look, feel, and even how well we can absorb our nutrients in the food we eat. Find a way, every day, to do something slow and grounding as part of your self-care ritual. It can be small and only take 20 minutes if that’s all the time you have.

Relaxing Foot Soak: One of my favorite tips is to soak my feet in warm water. This is especially good if I don’t have a lot of time to take a full bath, or if my bathtub is dirty. Take 1-2 cups of epsom salts (full of magnesium) and dissolve them into the water. An optional step is to add drops of essential oil into the salts, creating an aromatherapy soak (I love organic lavender essential oil). Soak your feet for 20 minutes and read, sing or meditate to pass the time. When done, pat your feet dry and then massage every part of both feet with body oil. This ritual is super grounding, calming and soothing to the nervous system.

Make friends with the plants: Learning about the natural world of plants is a love affair that can last a lifetime, especially when you want to start adding them to your beauty and health routine. It can definitely be overwhelming when you are just getting started. My advice is to find one plant that speaks to you and get to know it for at least a month at a time, research it, drink it, visit with it at a botanical garden, smell it or cook with it.

Rose is a great plant to start with. Rose is heart opening, while keeping you protected with appropriate emotional boundaries, a great antioxidant and high in vitamin C. The symbol of love, it helps lift depression and eases stress and it is healing to the heart. That sounds good to you?

Try drinking a rose petal tea, adding rose petals to your bath soak, finding a rose essential oil to wear as perfume or buying a new face oil that is infused with rose. By interacting in this multifaceted way with the plants, you will get to know them in a deeper way and realize how supportive, nourishing and uplifting they can be in your life.