00:00I'm Lucy Fink and this week is five days of going back to the basics.
00:04Hey guys! Welcome back to Try Living with Lucy.
00:06If you're new to Refinery29's YouTube channel, click on the little subscribe box in the corner.
00:11And to everyone else who comes back week after week after week, thank you.
00:15Welcome back to my bedroom.
00:17I don't know about you, but I have had the most hectic summer thus far and it's only July.
00:21I've been traveling for work, I've been running around left and right,
00:24and I really haven't had a moment to just sit and be present where I am.
00:28I started to notice that as we grow up and as the world around us gets more and more complicated,
00:33we have to learn to appreciate those real and simple moments
00:36and to get back to the basic and fundamental things that make life so great.
00:41So now I'm going to tell you all about this week where I lived simply.
00:44Rewind to Monday.
00:48Monday for me was all about getting back to the basics by literally asking myself,
00:52who am I? Where do I come from? Where are my roots from?
00:56Well, my mom's whole side of the family is Italian,
00:59and I have Italian relatives that live in Italy just outside of Rome.
01:02And my Italian-ness definitely shines through in certain aspects of my personality,
01:07such as my overactive hand gestures.
01:10But even still, living in New York City, I feel like I've completely lost touch with these roots,
01:14and in particular with my Italian culture.
01:16So as you might already know, and as many of my Italian followers out there can definitely attest to,
01:22in Italy, food is not just nourishment, it's life.
01:26Almost every aspect of daily life in Italy is centered around food and eating meals.
01:30And to be completely honest with you, in my current life here, food is almost an afterthought.
01:35I'm so busy all day that sometimes I don't even have time to ask myself,
01:38what do I actually want to eat?
01:40And I wind up just grabbing the easiest or most convenient meal on the go, and I call it a
01:45day.
01:45So on Monday, I changed that, and I centered my whole day around my food.
01:51I brought my Italian roots to me by going down to Little Italy in Lower Manhattan,
01:55and I started out at Gelso & Grand making my favorite food ever, pizza.
02:01Are you Italian?
02:03Yes, I am.
02:03Me too!
02:04High five!
02:05Perfect.
02:05All right, we're ready.
02:07Working alongside their chef, I made two delicious pizzas.
02:11Nice!
02:11This restaurant, like many restaurants, uses its own pizza-making technique,
02:16so it's not the traditional Italian style of making pizza.
02:20But my philosophy is that wherever there's pizza, there's Italy.
02:24Oh!
02:25There you go.
02:27Prettiest thing I've ever seen.
02:28I love you so much.
02:34Mm-hmm.
02:36Woo!
02:36Then I went to my second stop on my Italian food journey, Aunt Jake's Pasta Lab.
02:41So on Monday, I got a private, one-on-one pasta-making lesson with their instructor.
02:45So you're Italian?
02:46Mm-hmm.
02:47Grew up in Brooklyn, so the Brooklyn Italian type of flavor.
02:50Nice!
02:51She was self-taught, so she had her own pasta-making method,
02:54but essentially she just cracked a few eggs into a little well of flour,
02:58added a pinch of salt, and mixed it all together.
03:02Then we worked together to flatten out the dough,
03:05and we used this machine that we cranked in a circle,
03:07and it created these long, flat sheets.
03:09Wow!
03:12After we let them dry, we sliced them into strips to make tagliatelle.
03:20All right, so let's get this boiling.
03:22Wow, that is beautiful.
03:24Bye!
03:25See you soon!
03:26And at the end, we mixed it up with fresh tomato sauce,
03:29and I consumed it.
03:36Lucy, you did good.
03:37It's really amazing to me because this passion for food is in my blood.
03:41It's part of who I am.
03:42But over the past few years, I've really been pushing it aside
03:45as I focus on my go-getter mentality.
03:48And even if your city doesn't have any cultural offerings like mine did,
03:51that's the beauty of home cooking.
03:53So go to the grocery store, buy some local ingredients,
03:56and get back to your roots.
03:58Tutto bene!
04:01When we're young, we don't really overthink things,
04:04and we just give ourselves a chance to do whatever makes us feel good.
04:07So when we're hungry, we eat.
04:09When we're tired, we knock.
04:10And then we get a little older, and real life just hits us hard.
04:14Go here!
04:15Do that!
04:16Work on that!
04:16Move!
04:17Learn!
04:17Build!
04:18Grow!
04:18Keep going!
04:19More!
04:20More!
04:20More!
04:20Our modern-day society rewards doers and go-getters,
04:24and while I actually firmly believe in that mindset,
04:26there's also something to be said about stopping and just taking some time off.
04:31Tuesday, for me, was about radical self-care.
04:34Taking some time to let go of the stresses and all the pressures of daily life,
04:38and reminding myself that if I'm tired, I should relax.
04:42And if I'm hungry, I should eat.
04:43So I woke up on Tuesday morning, and the first thing I did was I threw my phone into a
04:48drawer.
04:48Out of sight, out of mind.
04:49Next, I was pretty hungry, so I went into the kitchen, and I whipped up a delicious smoothie bowl.
04:55I mixed pitaya, raspberries, strawberries, banana, and almond milk as the base.
05:04And then once it was all blended, I topped it with strawberries, banana, kiwi, dried figs,
05:10cacao nibs, chia seeds, and a dollop of peanut butter in the middle.
05:14It was so beautiful.
05:16Mind blown.
05:17I built a little fort in my living room using blankets and pillows.
05:21I love drinks that have no added sugars, so I grabbed a grapefruit spindrift from the fridge,
05:26my favorite flavor.
05:27And then I just sat down in front of the TV, I totally chilled out,
05:31and I brought myself back to the basics by watching my favorite childhood cartoons.
05:36Comment below to guess what cartoon I was watching.
05:38After my amazing snack, I went into the bathroom for some beauty self-care.
05:41I started by dry brushing my skin for exfoliation and to improve my circulation.
05:45Then I took a nice warm bath.
05:48When I got out, I wrapped myself back up in my silk robe.
05:51I moisturized my entire body.
05:53And then I popped on a unicorn face mask.
05:56These mindful solo moments that I had on Tuesday really helped me push against the complexities
06:01of daily life.
06:05By Wednesday, I was feeling a lot more grounded and calm, thankfully.
06:09So I started digging really deeply and asking myself, what's one thing that I used to spend
06:14a lot of time doing that I feel like recently I haven't been able to dedicate time to?
06:18And immediately, my mind went to my fiancé, Michael.
06:21I met Michael back in high school, so we were young, wild, and free when we first met.
06:26We didn't have that much on our plates back then, so we would just spend our time getting
06:30our schoolwork done and then hanging out together, getting to know one another, and building a
06:34meaningful relationship.
06:35And as we've grown up together and now living in New York City right here, our lives have
06:40changed a lot.
06:40And it seems that everything in our daily lives seems to center around work.
06:44We're separated for most of the day at work.
06:46And then when we come home, we're both so exhausted, so we just go to sleep so that
06:50we can wake up and do it all again.
06:52And as our relationship grows and as even more responsibilities are put on our plates,
06:56it's going to be really important that we know how to prioritize our relationship.
07:00So I started that on Wednesday.
07:02I picked out an activity that Michael loves that we usually don't get the chance to do
07:06together, and then we spent the entire day at the Chelsea Piers driving range hitting
07:10golf balls.
07:12Whoa!
07:12He taught me the proper way to hold the clubs.
07:14Hey, bada, bada, bada, bada, bada.
07:16And then we just goofed around and had fun.
07:18Today, I try out being a professional golfer.
07:21This is Michael for Hire.
07:26Nice!
07:27Building a successful relationship requires work and energy and attention.
07:31It's like a plant.
07:32If you nurture it, and you water it, and take good care of it, it will flourish.
07:38Hey!
07:39Yeah, it comes back up.
07:40How'd that get there?
07:41That was crazy.
07:47So I've been talking a lot about work, work, work this whole video.
07:51I've been saying work is the reason that I don't have the energy to put towards self-care,
07:55and I don't have the time to build my relationships.
07:57But the truth is, I love my work, and work is my fuel.
08:00I love my job, and I love the work environment I'm in.
08:03But sometimes I just get sucked into the nitty-gritty tasks of my day-to-day job, and I start
08:08getting
08:08stressed out about things that I really don't need to stress about.
08:11So on Thursday, I asked myself how I could get back to the basics when it comes to work and
08:16my office life.
08:17And the first thing that came to mind was remembering how important it is to take a
08:20break when your brain is working in overdrive.
08:22So on Thursday, I said no thank you to the speedy morning coffee at my desk.
08:27And instead, I stood myself up, and I used it as a time to reconnect with a coworker
08:31and to get out of the office.
08:33It was actually a great way to start the day, because instead of just sitting at the desk
08:36and getting started the moment you arrive, we went outside and we let our brains wake up
08:41a little more naturally.
08:42We had a great, very meaningful conversation, and we actually found that by the afternoon,
08:46we were functioning a lot better just because of that one simple break.
08:49Then later in the afternoon, we had a group meeting scheduled.
08:52And normally in these meetings, everyone comes with their cell phones and their computers,
08:56and everyone's multitasking while we're having a group discussion.
08:58But I made sure we brought this meeting back to the basics.
09:01So we all dropped our phones and computers into a little bin before we went into the room.
09:06We completely dished the technology, and we turned this into an in-person meeting.
09:11The best colleagues ever.
09:12Cheers!
09:14I brought in some papers and pens, and we did an old-school creative brainstorming activity.
09:19We came up with tons of new ideas for Try Living With Lucy episodes.
09:22I think one of the best things for me to do is to kind of just ask people, like,
09:26what do you and your friends talk about?
09:28Financial planning slash saving.
09:30Vacation options.
09:31Great.
09:32Books that we read and Cardi B.
09:34Finding happiness beyond work.
09:35Beer brewing.
09:36Yay!
09:37Dogs.
09:38But most importantly, I think everyone just had a good time.
09:41And they felt like everyone else was paying attention to them when they spoke.
09:44And it was a really great way to bring it all back.
09:49I knew that you guys were going to love this episode topic and relate to it deeply, so for
09:53the final challenge in the episode, I wanted to be inspired by you.
09:56I made a post on my Instagram asking you guys if there was one thing you could spend more
10:00time doing to get back to the basics, what would it be?
10:03And I got so, so many replies from you guys, but what really stood out to me was that so
10:08many of you suggested reading.
10:10I completely agree with this one.
10:14Reading comes in waves for me.
10:15So there are times when I'm super engrossed in a good book and I just can't put it down.
10:20But then I have dry seasons where I just don't pick up a book at all.
10:23When I'm in the middle of a good book, I feel like it affects my day.
10:27I feel like I'm smarter in my daily life.
10:29I feel more well-spoken and I just feel happier overall.
10:32So I took your advice on Friday and I sat right here on my bed and I just read.
10:38I've been especially drawn into this one self-help book about Ayurveda and I'm working on five
10:43days of Ayurveda, so stay tuned for that.
10:45But I also started a few other books that have been on my reading list and I just gave
10:48myself hours and hours to sit and read.
10:51If you're stressed out, I want to make sure that you don't feel like you're alone.
10:55It's really, really easy to get caught up in the stresses and the complexities of the
10:59world around us.
11:00And most of the time, we're so focused on our little issues that we forget that we're
11:04part of something bigger.
11:05And you won't be able to enjoy your life to its fullest potential if you don't give
11:09yourself time to go back to the basics and just simplify a bit.
11:12I am definitely going to continue to implement this mindset into my days going forward, so
11:17please comment below and let me know how you rediscover yourself or live your most authentic
11:21life.
11:22And as always, comment below and let me know what you want to see me try next time for five
11:25days at a time.
11:26Bye guys!
11:28Hey YouTube, thanks for watching.
11:30Click here for another video on Refinery, here to subscribe to our YouTube channel, and
11:34here for my personal YouTube channel.
11:36Bye!
11:37Bye!
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