The ongoing pandemic has elevated stress levels, anxiety, uncertainty, depression, and loneliness within our communities. So what if we took a moment to reflect on self-care?

Members of the Culinary Literacy Center's Healthy Communities and Nourishing Literacy programs came together to share best practices of self-care and mindfulness they've carried with them through the pandemic. For some, having a mindfulness or meditation practice is nothing new, but for many of us working from home or for the first time in a long time having more "free time" than we know what to do with, a sense of anxiety about how to fill up our days started to occur.

This is how the idea of In Joy, Take Care began.

How do we bring together different practices of mindfulness that the community can do anywhere with little to no physical objects or materials?

In the following visual podcast, Aurora, Shayna, Chrissy, Sunshine, and myself, Valentín, explore and share our methods of relaxation, mindfulness, and grounding exercises.

• Aurora transcends us into a mindfulness practice that allows us to expand our sense of self in relation to nature.
• Shayna shares a tactile exercise of repetition in relation to food.
• Chrissy explores culinary recipes with the back-of-the-pantry goods we all seem to have for a rainy day.
• Sunshine leads us into his world of music therapy through the guitar.
• I lead us through a grounding exercise that allows us to let go of negative thoughts, instead holding onto positive thoughts and affirmations that can help us get through a difficult moment or a way to start our day.

We invite you all to set aside a little over twelve minutes of your day to sit with us through these joyful exercises on the Free Library's YouTube channel! We encourage you to share these with loved ones or simply sit by yourself and participate in a quiet space or even outside.