Clear Your Mind: How To Be The Best You!

Hi, guys, I hope you all are doing well. I like to use my blog as sort of a diary along with the topic of the video. So that is what I will continue to do, and I hope you enjoy that. Anywho my personal life has been a bit crazy to say the least, but I do like to look on the bright side so it could be worse. As many of my veteran readers know I am in university, this is my second to last semester, and I am so ready to be finished. School is nothing if not stressful. So totally random but as I am writing this I had the idea to do some de-stressing DIY(ZIY) video for my holistic living series (so look out for that). When I am stressed, I find that nothing brings me back to a good headspace more than yoga and meditation. I feel like regular meditation allows you to be your ultimate self and break out of the fog of a stressful period. So I think that it is so fitting that this video/post is going up right now in my life (no coincidence). In this video, I just give you some basic tips on how to approach meditation for the first time or make it more powerful for yourself. It is difficult to navigate the world if you don’t have a sense of self, and how can you have a grasp of yourself if you have not ever had time to be with yourself. Meditation is more than chanting, it’s for everyone, it’s for you! I encourage you to watch my video and try some of my tips, you may not like all of them but that’s part of learning yourself. Take some time every day to be with yourself FULLY and see what comes of it!
Love yourself! You guys are awesome ☺

Continue to live a Zen Life

Subzero Madness + ZIY Lemon Cookie Body Scrub

Hey, guys, it’s Maya!
Lol, I don’t know whom else you would be expecting, but it’s me! ☺ So let’s get into it. Over the last few months, my skin has been going through it! Most of you know that I have parched skin and eczema sometimes. I have discovered that along with moisturizing your skin continually exfoliating is crucial for the rough, parched skin. The reason being when you have dry skin it is important keep your skin cells turning over. Now, what the heck does that mean? When you want to get your dry skin from scaly to smooth and from lifeless to youthful, you need to get rid of those old skin cells. This process is an essential component to revitalizing your skin. I love this brown sugar body scrub that I call lemon cookie body scrub because it smells like a lemon cookie! It is simple and fast, and anyone can make this. So I hope you enjoy this video and the scrub more importantly. Let me know how you like it! Talk to you later ☺
LIVE A ZEN LIFE!

Winter Curly Hair Routine, My Winter Revival

Wow, today is Christmas Eve, and I really can’t believe it. This year has been an excellent one I must say. I have grown and learned a lot, but I will talk more about the year in my New Years post. I have finally gotten to the age where Christmas is more about giving than worrying about getting stuff. I have been having a lot of fun buying and making gifts for friends and family. Whether or not you celebrate Christmas, it is nice to have the little time to spend time with friends and family. After this incredibly stressful semester (probably one of my most stressful ever) it’s great to be able to sleep and chill. Filming my winter curly hair routine is a video I have been planning on shooting for a while now, and I finally had the time. I had a lot of fun filming and editing this video, and it is my little gift to you guys☺.

For my winter curly hair routine, I like to keep things extra moisturized and simple. As always I deep condition, wash, and detangle/condition before I do any styling. I typically like to style my hair under running water in the shower; my hair turns out best when styled soaking wet. Giovanni direct leave-in conditioner is so great for wintertime because it is the perfect thickness. Then I like to apply oil on top of the leave in, although it’s winter I still like to use a light oil (apricot has been nice but I love Argan right now). After that the last step is to apply my styler, you guys know that I like gel and jelly kind of products. I am in love with kinky curly curling custard, and it is great for the winter because it doesn’t have too much hold, but it holds in moisture. Anywho let me know what you guys think of my routine and I hope everyone is enjoying your time off and time with your family.
HAPPY HOLIDAYS AND MERRY CHRISTMAS ☺

No Food For Thought

Hey, Zen lifers how’s it going? I am officially back in school my 4th year of university. For quite some time, I have wanted to do a juice fast. I have done juice fasts in the past but never completed them the way I wanted to, or I didn’t exactly complete it at all. The week prior to the first week of school I thought would be a great time to do it. For me, fasting or cleansing is never about losing weight. It is always about mentally and physically detoxifying myself. Fasting is not an easy thing to do, we have such an attachment to the act of eating not just food. I realized while I was fasting the agony and hunger you feel the first few days is not because you are deprived of food but because you are removed from the act of eating. Fasting takes a lot of willpower and discipline, and those are things you need to not only be successful but influential in life. The fast brought me closer to myself and helped me realize that appreciating the present is important, but it’s imperative not to dwell on the minutia and push toward your goal. If you have never done a fast, you may not understand how drinking fruit and vegetable juices and smoothies for five days can teach me all of this. I challenge you to fast for just one day and see how you feel. Acknowledge how you feel in the end and what you have learned. I feel that fasting is a physical meditation, and it does so much more for you than cleansing your system. To make a long story short I had a great time on this fast, and I am very proud of myself for completing it. About a week later now and I still feel great, I have been meditating every day. Day 3 of school and I already have lots of work to do, but it will get done with my 100% efforts. If you are interested in what I was drinking through the week and how I was feeling on the days, watch my video! I hope you enjoy 🙂
LIVE A ZEN LIFE

Summer Fitness

Hey guys! I hope your summer is treating you well. As always I’ve been slacking ini here and I am sorry. I am really excited being I am going to share a bit of what I’ve been doing to stay in shape. Since I am so obsessed with tumblr fitsipation it really inspired me to start running, I had been trying to really get into running for a while now but never really stuck with it. Since moving in to my new apartment I’ve just had such a lust for life (the in-house gym doesn’t hurt lol) I started going down to the gym running on the treadmill lifting weights the whole shebang! Now I’m running every other day and doing come type of cardio or yoga on the off days. When I run I use the app runkeeper (it’s available on android and apple devices) it is really great, and one of the main reasons I look forward to my run days this app tracks pretty much anything you could possibly want it to track. Another really cool thing that I didn’t mention in the video is that if you have a polar workout watch you can sync the two devices. Of course running is not the only thing I do, I love yoga kundalini is my yoga of choice here is a little information about it http://www.goldenheartyoga.com/dc/yoga_styles.html?current=two&sub=b. I love all styles of yoga its so relaxing with a physical aspect. I am still a beginner in the fitness world but I am enjoying it so much. Even though I played sports in high school it’s been a good 3 going on 4 years since then and I have admitted to myself that all of that physicality has faded away lol. I can’t wait to update you guys when I have reached my goal of 5k you will definitely be hearing about that.
If you’ve been working out or getting in shape this summer let me know. What’s your favorite workout app or technology? Until next time

LIVE A ZEN LIFE!

#ZENBOOKCLUB

Hey there!
Hope everyone is doing awesome, so I am really excited to be doing this post because it’s all about the book club I just launched on my YouTube channel! As I am writing this I got the idea that I might incorporate the blog into the book club a little more than I thought I was going to. Would you guys would be interested in doing only a slightly more in depth talk on here about the books or would you like me to greatly expound on the chapters here? Please let me know! So I know some of you are wondering what exactly am I talking about and I am just about to tell you. For a long time now I have been thinking of ways to make my channel and blog more of a place for me to document my life and things I am interested in. At the beginning of my YouTube life my channel quickly became a natural hair channel which is fine but that’s not all I am. So I decided on top of my ZIYs, vegetarian video, and more to come I would add a book club. Yes a book club! There is something about a book club that always intrigued me, but I was never a part of one. I figured I would bring the age-old concept to the digital world so there you have it; a virtual interactive book club. Now I’m sure I’m not the first person in the world to think of this but I think it’s a great idea. I decided to choose 3 books from three different genres to give everyone an option. The beauty of it is that you can read as many or as few of the books as you want and tune in for the updates. My favorite part of this is that I am making this very interactive by having you guys use #ZENBOOKCLUB whenever you post a question, a comment, a discussion topic, or whatever to twitter, intagram, tumblr (or wherever I am) so that I can compile them and use them in the next update video! I will be updating one video per book each week. To make it simple so that everyone is on the same page (pun intented lol) for whatever book you read you take the number of chapters and divide that by 4 (that will be the number of chapters to keep up with each week) since the session will last a 4 week period. The three books, Parable of the Sower, MWF Seeking BFF, Unthink and their descriptions are discussed in my video. I really hope you join me for the book club, if you are not interested in these there will be many more sessions to come and I’m always taking suggestions for new books and authors. Give me lots of feedback please
LIVE A ZEN LIFE.

Take Care Of Your Swimming Hair

Hi guys, I have been MIA on here for a while so I apologize I am finally settled in my apartment and summer school. I hope your spring has been great and you are charged up and ready for summer and my new uploading schedule if you don’t know already I am going to be uploading a new video 2 times a week, which means 2 blog posts a week and sometimes even more!!! So I am currently in summer school taking swimming, which is probably about the easiest class you can take in the summer time lol, but it must be done. I am actually having my cable and furniture set up right now which I think is kind of funny. So because summer is creeping up on us and I have been swimming in chlorine 4 times a week for the last two weeks I think it only makes since to give you guys my tips on how to care for your hair while swimming. My tips are pretty simple and can be modified to your specific hair needs.
1. Always rinse your hair before entering the pool or the ocean.
It is really important to have your hair already saturated with regular water before entering the chlorine or salt water because it allows your hair to be soaked with non-damaging water and allow for less water to penetrate your hair.
2. Apply a moisturizing conditioner and a sealant after saturating your hair with water.
When in chlorine or salt water you want to keep as much moister in your hair because they are very drying to the hair. The conditioner allows your hair to stay soft and the sealant keeps it from rinsing out in the pool. For this reason it would be even more helpful to use a silicone sealant because it is not water-soluble. If you are CG try a non-silicone serum.
3. Keep your strands together
Basically its important to keep your hair up in a bun or a braid something where your ends are tucked away and your hair wont get tangled. Because salt water and chlorine are so drying they can easily tangle your hair and you will have a nightmare when detangling. I know you want to look sexy by the pool but its possible to be sexy with your hair back.
4. After you out of the pool wash your hair as soon as possible!
This is important because the longer the chlorine sits in your hair the more damage it does, especially in the sun. One important thing is that chlorine does not rinse out. Which means that a shampoo must be used whether it’s sulfate or no sulfate a cleanser with cleaning agents able to get out chlorine. But I’m going to tell you right now a regular conditioner wash will not work.
5. If you have the time Deep Condition.
Like I explained before chlorine and salt water are drying to the hair so anything to restore a good moisture balance is important.

So that’s it those are all of my tips on how to keep your hair healthy in the pools. Part of having healthy hair is being able to have the ability to be free with your hair. Don’t be afraid of the chlorine and ocean just know how to take care of your hair! Hope this helps you guys out and I’ll talk to you soon.
LIVE A ZEN LIFE

Something New: STRAIGHT HAIR!

Hey Zen lifers!
I hope everyone is doing awesome! So I am so happy to say that I am officially done with my Jr year of college, on top of that my grades came out great! So I know a lot of you have been dying for me to make a hair video lately. I have been showing you guys some of the other aspects of my life that I am really interested and they will continue to appear on the blog and my YouTube channel. Don’t fret guys I still have hair videos coming your way. So Tuesday I had my hair straightened at a salon called Natural Motion here in D.C. I received really great service and my hair was/is so shiny and flowing so it was definitely worth the money. It cost $55, which is really good because I also got a conditioning treatment. I must say that it was really nice having another person wash and detangle my mane lol. So it’s been almost a week now and I am missing my curly hair a little but I am definitely going to try and stick it out just another week. I totally understand people who go back to relaxed after transitioning to natural because it is so easy, but it gets boring really fast (at least it does for me). So I will say I have found a few split ends and I just snipped them off, it is pretty convenient being able to see single strand knots and split ends easier while straight. I am very pleased with the length it’s boob length in the front and bra strap length in the back (btw I hate the names for determining hair length they are silly to me)! It has been a year and six months since I did the big chop and a lot of people wonder how I grew my hair from about 4 inches to the length it is now in a little over a year. All I can say is that I stayed away from heat, I kept a semi flexible regimen, and I was serious about deep conditioning my hair. That is really it; I didn’t protective style, I didn’t take any crazy vitamin or potions, I eat clean and do the basics of hair care that’s it! I always say do what is best for you, so many people will say that wash and goes are not good for your hair growth or you can’t use certain products. This is your life and your hair journey and you should try whatever you want to do what is best for you. I hope everyone out there Listens to your heart and your body and your hair, I wholeheartedly believe that your body is smarter than we think and that we should listen to it all of the time instead of masking its signals. With that said
LIVE A ZEN LIFE!

ZIY: Studded Denim Shorts

Heyyyyy everyone what’s the dealio! I am so excited to be back on the blog life has been quite hectic. This upcoming week is the last week of university, I have 10pg papers I have Quizzes, exams… THE WORKS! So if you can imagine I haven’t had the most time for blogging and vlogging but you better believe the day I am done with all things school related we are kicking things into high gear. (I am doing summer school classes, but not a full course load only a few classes) So be excited because I’m excited and we have lots to come. This weeks video I did a ZIY, there are going to be lots of ZIY’s this summer I have so many ideas. I studded out some denim shorts that I got and let me tell you studding is probably the easiest thing in the world. They look super cute and the whole thing was really inexpensive. I believe I spent $35 on the shorts and $3 on the studs + shipping, not bad huh? So if you don’t want to spend $80 on studded jeans then just make them yourself! I know I said last time that I would be blogging more frequently but I didn’t expect my work to pile up so fast I even missed yoga today that’s how busy I am (It’s serious lol). Anywho I’m back now
LIVE A ZEN LIFE

MEGA HAUL… I Must Tell You More

I really never do hauls but I seemed to accumulate a pretty good number of things of the last 2 months or so. I have several product in this haul are really like stand out products that I love and will definitely be doing more in depth reviews and videos of. I do have to say that I really really do not like the curling soufflé stuff by shea moisture I just really really dislike it. I don’t know if it is because of the way I used it or what but it is just terrible (sorry if you like this stuff) on second day hair it seriously felt like I had honey and melted candy all over my hair it was so sticky and it did not leave my hair shiny, and it certainly did not leave my hair moisturized. I used it with the curl and style milk also from shea moisture and from the same exact line…. I was not pleased. I do not enjoy the curl and style milk either it does nothing for my hair. I still really like the curl enhancing smoothie so don’t worry I’m not going anti shea moisture. On the other hand I have fallen in love with coconut oil. I talk briefly in the video about how I used to hate on this stuff but I feel like when I first tried it way back when I first cut my hair I either didn’t know how to use it or it just didn’t respond well to my hair, but now I love it and you will definitely be seeing more about that in the future. I also really love the as I am coconut cowash; this stuff is great and has pretty much revolutionized the washing process for me. I am telling you if you have curly hair or even if you have relaxed or straight hair I am telling you try this stuff it’s amazing it seriously cleans your hair like a shampoo but doesn’t leave it feeling like straw this stuff is so great. On a non-hair note I talked about the royal apothic, royal carnation eau du parfum. Omg please find this parfum in an anthropologie near you, you will fall in love. My boyfriend got me this for Christmas and all I can do is smell it because I feel like if I wear it will go away too soon lol (melodramatic) but seriously its amazing such a nice warm scent (which I love) sultry scents are the best. Anywho before I talk about this parfum for days just go smell it and you will understand. Those are really the stand out things in the haul that I just had to say more about.
If you didn’t see the video go watch it right now! Lol
Until next time, LIVE A ZEN LIFE