Happy New Year!

 Happy New Year! 

Welcome to the 2021 REVOLUTION 

Dr Stephanie H. Lipnicki, DACM, LAc



I was recently reading a blog from Amy Pence Brown (Amy's Blog) about why New Year's Resolutions are so challenging. And let's face it they are. How many people sign up for gym memberships in January only to stop going shortly thereafter? 

In Amy's article she talks about evolving instead of resolving to make changes and having it be a New Year's Revolution. I love this idea for a number of reasons!

Let's take the word revolution. According to the Merriam Webster definition, revolution is defined as "a sudden, radical, or complete change. . . a fundamental change in the way of thinking about or visualizing something. . ." as well as "the time taken by a celestial body to make a complete round in its orbit." How fitting that we think of the New Year - whether you think of it as the annual new year, the lunar new year, or your birthday as the time that you take to complete a turn around the sun - let that year be a year of change. 

Amy also talks about how this revolution revelation came about after realizing how many 'resolutions' were about controlling appearance and not about living life at her happiest (my take-away).

Obviously for anyone who knows me I want one of my revolutions  - and this will most definitely be one of them that is ongoing until I retire - to be that Acupuncture reaches EVERYONE. Whether people come to me to be treated, or I inspire them to seek out an Acupuncturist near their home through watching/ listening to my Practical Medicine Podcast episodes. And even more specifically - I want everyone with endometriosis to know how amazing Acupuncture and Herbal medicine are as tools to manage endometriosis. 

My other Revolutions are about self care:
  • I want to try and improve my physical flexibility. My 2017 surgeries left my right hip losing more and more range of motion. Since Covid has me unable to swim, I want to make sure I try and stretch more. And overall work towards my former step counts (my best is still only about 35,000 steps per week)
  • I also want to make journaling a bigger priority, with attempting to mediate and journal daily - even if it is only for 5 minutes. 
  • Confession time - even though I have had my skin care license in NJ since 2000, and I have baby buttface soft skin. . .I don't have a nighttime skin care routine (I'm certain I will do a youtube video follow up for this). Yes that's right. I have NOT been practicing what I preach. I need to make sure I take better care of my skin with a day and nighttime routine
  • Read 30 pages/ day on weekdays and 60 pages/ day on weekends. I had a goal of reading 26 books in 2020 and read 36. My goal for 2021 is to read 40 (or more) books. 
  • Start letting go of more things - whether I donate or get rid of 7 items/ week.
  • Go on more adventures - sometimes planning things is tough because I don't know when my own endometriosis will flare up, but I want to try and go to 1 place/ month (museum, botanical garden, etc).
  • Take off one long weekend/ month from work. 
  • Get 26 massages and 1 pedicure/ month. WHY? Because I realized when my back went out how I had slacked with my massages and that when I get pedicures and alleviate the stress of standing on my feet - my back feels better. 
  • And I hope to add more!


I also was inspired by colleagues who choose a word for the year. I chose Stability for 2021. I think that since my surgeries I have not felt stability in my life. I have felt financially unstable since the damage of those surgeries and have been fighting my way back since then. I feel that spilled over in my business and I want Natural Alternatives Center for Wellness to feel that she is on solid ground again. Stability is about strength and endurance - which come on - I fought my way back from dying - hello - I am the queen of strength, endurance, and adaptability!

I invite you to create small revolutions in your own life and to choose your word for 2021!

Until next time!

Be well,
Dr Stephanie 
For website and social media: https://linktr.ee/naturalalternativescenter

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