4 Life-Changing Practices That Will Strengthen Your Body, Shift Your Mind, and Change Your Energy
- Heather Alice-Marie
- Apr 1, 2025
- 9 min read
Updated: 12 hours ago
These four foundational habits I am about to share changed everything for me...my body, my mindset, and the way I move through my life.
If you’ve been feeling stuck, overwhelmed, or craving a change in your energy, start here.
What you’ll learn in this post:
How a simple daily gratitude practice rewires your mind and brings you back to the present
Why moving your body consistently strengthens both your physical and emotional resilience
How nourishing foods directly influence your clarity, confidence, and energy
How somatic awareness helps you notice what your body is really trying to tell you
These habits work together to help you feel lighter, stronger, more grounded, and more in your natural energy every single day.
I didn’t always have the language for it, or the nervous system/somatic awareness I have now. But long before I learned about somatic awareness, I had already built the habits that carried me through.
They helped me survive heartbreak, burnout, massive life shifts, and moments where everything felt like it was falling apart.
They also helped me rise—when things were working, when I was ready for more, when I was stepping into new levels of myself.
I live by my habits.
They are a part of who I am and gave me structure when my inner mean girl was loud.
They gave me motivation when I had none.
And they helped me through every life-changing experience the universe has thrown my way.
It wasn’t until later, after going deeper into self-leadership and somatic healing, that I realized why these habits worked so well...
They were ways I was already regulating my nervous system, without even knowing it.
The movement, the focus, the daily anchors, these habits became my foundation.
They created consistency, calm, and connected me to my power during a time when everything else was chaos.
They created safety in my body and became my energy anchors.
These 4 life-changing habits are what I do every day. They’ve helped me grow, reset, rewire, rise from the ashes and connect.
Let's talk about habits...
What is a habit? “A settled or regular tendency or practice, especially one that is hard to give up”
Habits are hard to give up. Habits are things that you continue to do no matter what. You continue to do them when things are easy and when things are hard.
Why are creating habits so important?
They are the foundation for how to uplevel your life.
These 4 life-changing habits that I’m about to share with you will fuel your self-leadership growth.
When life throws you a shit-storm, these are the habits that are going to get your through it all. And when life throws you a party and you are celebrating and feel like you’ve got everything you’ve ever wanted, there’s still more.
The levels to your life are infinite.
How do I create lasting habits?
Start Small. One step at a time. It takes at least 21 days of doing something repeatedly to become a habit. And on my journey its more like 75 days. This is a marathon, not a sprint.
Are you ready? Let's go!
If you desire something different you are going to have to do something different…
Desiring something different, whether it be to get healthy, lose weight, opening your business, rising in your 9 to 5, meeting the love of your life…
Means you are going to have to do something different...
And when you decide to do something different, I want you to be prepared for what you will experience...
You are going to have to challenge yourself and your limits...
Because life is going to challenge you.
Life is going to test you
It's going to knock you down...
And when life did this for me, I realized I was already preparing myself…
Take life head on🔥
Are you ready to go ALL IN?
Decide today that you are going all in. Make this promise to yourself.
Commit.
And then take one step forward.
You hold the power⚡to write your story and live life on YOUR TERMS
You hold the key🔑
You always have💜
I've always had a fire🔥, but every single time I'd step out of my comfort zone I'd hit a wall🧱
I've been knocked down🥊 and spit out more times than I can count
But each and every time I've become stronger, more aware and I rise 🆙️
I've shed old stories...the ones that have held me back (shame, guilt, unworthiness)
I'm sharing this because I know you have this fire🔥, this thing that nudges you
Don't ignore that...It's your inner compass
You DESERVE every single thing you want in this life and here’s how to make it happen.
4 Powerful Life-Changing Practices to Level Up Your Life
1️⃣ Gratitude - This is the foundation. Gratitude shifts your perspective, energy and focus into the present moment.
One of the most powerful ways to do this is to write in a gratitude journal. Set aside 5 minutes a day and write 1-3 things you are grateful for. Simple, yet doing this every day will completely change your life.
Why is Gratitude so Powerful?
This powerful practice brings awareness to your thoughts. I used to be on auto-pilot. My inner critic was loud and I was listening. Worrying about the past, worrying about the future. That I wasn’t enough, etc.
And then I began focusing on writing 1-3 things I was grateful for every day. I started to look forward to doing this. And the more I did it, the better I felt. If there’s one thing you take away from this blog post, it’s this.
What are you grateful for? It can be as simple as the coffee you had today.
The easiest way to make this a habit is to get a gratitude journal.
2️⃣ Workout 🏋️♀️- strengthen your body. Lift weights, run, walk, dance - whatever you will do consistently. Make this a habit and a promise to yourself. Side effects of working out and making fitness a priority include:
💪🏽More muscle
🧠Mental Clarity
😊Confidence
🔥Feeling Bada**
3️⃣ Eat well 🥥- eat whole foods that give you energy, mental clarity and have you feeling your best. Prioritize protein, veggies & healthy fats.
The foods you eat have a direct effect on how you feel, your energy and your mental clarity. Brain fog is real. I experienced it for years. As a Group Fitness Instructor & Personal Trainer for over 15 years, I studied and experimented with just about every single diet out there.
And then I found the one where I experienced zero bloating, my intense hunger disappeared (I’m a recovering emotional eater), I had energy all day long and my brain fog disappeared.
This one deserves it’s own blog post and if you want to know more, I’ll be sharing more about this in the coming weeks so you can ditch dieting forever!
4️⃣ Master Your Mindset 💭. Your thoughts are your gateway to your future. What you think, what you feel internally, what you tell yourself is what you experience in this life.
I learned that once I made gratitude, working out and eating the right foods a habit, mastering my thoughts came easier.
Step 1️⃣ is observing
🗣What do you say to yourself when you look in the mirror?
🧠What thoughts do you have about your life, your situation, and the things you want?
For almost my entire life I thought I was overweight. I believe that most struggle with body image and that struggle is VERY real. It stemmed from comments made to me when I was about 11 or 12.
I carried this around with me and it felt like a 100 pound weight.
It consumed so much of my brain space and energy. And even when I was incredibly lean, when I looked in the mirror, I couldn’t see it.
At that time, my inner dialogue and thoughts told me that I was still overweight. I was on autopilot… not even knowing I was doing this.
Step one in changing this is first becoming aware…
Once you become aware, you can dig in more and work on changing your thoughts.
Your inner critic can be a real a**hole. And usually tells you lots of lies… She/he creeps in telling you, hey, you don’t deserve that, or you can’t do that, or you are not enough.
Lies… it’s all lies.
When you become aware of your thoughts, your entire reality begins to shift.
🌀And here's where somatic awareness changes the game:
One of the most powerful ways to start is through somatic practices that ground you in your body—like breathwork, intuitive movement, or even a guided reset.
Your body’s truth lives in sensation and somatic awareness is how you hear it.
Your body holds the stories, stress patterns, and emotional residue that keep you in cycles of “trying hard” without feeling different.
When you bring in somatic practices (breath, movement, body awareness), you help your nervous system feel safe with change.
That’s when your habits stop being a struggle and start becoming second nature.
If you’ve ever felt like you're doing all the right things but still feeling stuck... this is your missing link.
The REAL Secret…
I know you are feeling all fired up and ready to do everything I just shared! But here’s the real secret. Start small. You cannot create lasting habits by doing all the things and completely changing everything all at once.
This is a JOURNEY. This is not about the end goal. Yes, it is amazing when you get there, but that’s not where the magic is. The magic is in your journey. The steps you take. The challenges you face and the things you learn from them. The growth you experience trying new things, and having new perspectives.
So why am I telling you this? Because nobody else does.
START SMALL.
The 4 powerful habits: Gratitude, working out, your diet & mindset each have it's own journey. Please do not rush this. This is not a quick fix. Your life is not a ‘quick fix’. It’s a journey and if you so choose it’s going to be the best thing you’ll ever do for yourself.
You are creating habits and habits take time. Start with one of the 4 Powerful Practices. Let that become a habit and then start the next one and so on. I’ve listed them in the order that will Uncage Your Life!
Gratitude is the foundation. And just 5 minutes a day can shift your energy, build your resilience, and change your life from the inside out.
Ready to start? Grab your copy of the Uncage Your Life Gratitude Journal and begin building the habits that move your life forward—one page at a time.
Let’s Begin!
Love & Light,
Heather Alice-Marie
P.S. Want to keep the momentum going? Choose what feels good for you:
→ Try a free somatic audio session to calm your mind and reconnect with your body.
→ Join my email Community - Get the Spark!
→ Start your daily gratitude practice with the Uncage Your Life Journal.
Or just come hang out on IG: @heatheralicemarie 💛
About Heather Alice-Marie
Heather Alice-Marie is a somatic healing practitioner and the founder of Uncage Your Life.
Through somatic practices and audio experiences, she creates space for you to notice your body's signals and tune into your own somatic intuition.
A Few Questions You Might Have:
Q: How long does it take to feel the impact of these practices?
A: Many people begin noticing subtle shifts within a few days: more presence, more clarity, and more ease in their body. The deeper transformation comes from consistency. Simple steps practiced daily create meaningful internal change over time.
Q: How do I begin integrating these practices into my day?
A: Start with the practice that feels easiest to commit to and build from there. When one habit settles into your routine, layering in the next becomes natural and empowering.
Q: What are some simple ways to practice gratitude?
A: Journaling is powerful because it brings your thoughts into the physical world. But you can also speak your gratitude out loud, reflect mentally, or record a voice note. The best practice is the one you can return to consistently and with intention.
Q: What does “somatic awareness” look like in everyday life?
A: It’s simply noticing what is happening in your body: your sensations, your energy, your emotional cues. Somatic awareness helps you understand where stress or tension is living and what your body is asking for. It is a gentle, grounded way of tuning in.
Q: What are easey ways to bring more movement into my routine?
A: Movement can be simple and supportive: a ten-minute walk, light stretching, intentional breathing, or a strength session. What matters most is choosing movement that feels good for your body and creates a sense of momentum and clarity.
Q: What does it mean if I’m taking these steps and still feel stuck?
A: Feeling stuck often means your mind is shifting faster than your body. This is where somatic awareness helps: it brings your body into the change so it feels safe and integrated. As your awareness deepens, your internal patterns begin to soften and shift.