37: Embracing Nostalgia: 5 Ways to Enhance Your Wellbeing by Connecting to Your Past

As your guide through the nostalgic pathways of the heart, I, Melissa Ann Kitchen, invite you to unwrap the gift of nostalgia and its surprising power to bolster well-being, spark creativity, and foster an optimistic view of the future. This special episode is a treasure trove of insights and personal stories that reveal how the sentimental pull of our yesterdays can be more than a fleeting escape but a vibrant source of everyday joy and motivation.

In the company of cherished memories and the comforting craftwork of my grandmothers' hands, we explore the tender touch of nostalgia as a form of self-care. I'll share with you the charm of creating spaces that whisper tales of times gone by and the simple delights of childhood treats that still tempt the palate. We'll reflect on how vintage melodies, the soft glow of classic films, and the rich textures of old textiles can weave a warm blanket of solace around us. So, pull up a cozy chair, fill your cup with something warm, and let's pen our own powerful narratives, with nostalgia as the companion that lights the way through life's ever-shifting stories.

Transcript

Melissa: 0:01

What if I told you that preserving your past wasn't just about connecting to your personal history or loved ones no longer with you, but was also a way to create a better life and wellbeing? Today, we're gonna be talking about the word nostalgia, and here's its definition Nostalgia is a sentimental longing or wistful affection for the past, typically for a period or place with happy personal association, and in today's episode, we're going to talk about the benefits of nostalgia on our well-being and our livelihood. So let's get started. Welcome to the Preserve your Past podcast, where we'll explore all things related to the creative process of writing your stories for future generations. I'm your host, melissa Ann Kitchen, author, teacher, speaker and coach. I believe that your personal history is a priceless gift for family, friends and generations to come, whether you consider yourself a writer or not. We are discussing the topics that help with every step of the process, like how to mine for the juiciest story ideas or how to refine them into polished final drafts you'll be proud to share. Let's face it sure your stories can be overwhelming, but I've got you covered. We all have a lifetime of memories to share, so why not save yours to pass along? Let me help you leave your lasting legacy. Welcome back, my friend.

Melissa: 1:53

So in the intro I gave you the definition for nostalgia, but I want to talk today about something that really actually might even be one of my most exciting episodes to record. It's one of those big aha moments that I had as I was taking time to sit with my topic and think about why this subject matter was so important to me and why I still wanted to be sharing it with you all. Remember, we just celebrated a year of podcasts for the Preserve your Past podcast in this month of May. So it was a year ago, in May, when we started, and so I've really been thinking about where I want content to go, what I wanna share with you, how I'd like to support you all and what gets me excited. And as I've been reflecting on this topic of preserve your past, I realized that it really does come from the idea of my adoration for the topic of nostalgia. And, honestly, I've realized that, in order for me to feel authentic in my life, I bring nostalgia to almost everything I do, and I think that that idea of preserving my past, while it is to link to loved ones and people I miss, it's also about bringing that into my present so that I can feel more of that happy place, right Of those happy personal associations we talked about, that affection that we mentioned in that definition.

Melissa: 3:33

So today I'm going to share some research on nostalgia that I found as I started digging deeper into this topic, and we are then going to look at five ways that I think that we can all use nostalgia in our daily life to live a better, fuller, more well now. So, aside from preserving our past, I also want us to live well now. So here's some of the research and then we'll go through those tips. First of all, the National Geographic had research that found that nostalgia can actually increase our sense of well-being, boost our inspiration and creativity and make us feel more youthful, alert, optimistic and energetic, and even encourage us to take risks and pursue our goals. And even encourage us to take risks and pursue our goals. I want more of that, don't you? I found another article in the Washington Post that said not only is this type of reflection common, but it can also be good for us that psychologists are now finding that nostalgia is not only universal, but it's also associated with better mental well-being. It can serve as an important psychological asset in our present and our future. And finally, I found an article that answered a wonderful question on karyyogacollectivecom, and the question was yoga collectivecom. And the question was why is nostalgia so beautiful? And their answer was that these emotional events produce a loop of positive emotions and can even help us through times of transition and uncertainty, and, additionally, they serve to boost our self-image and brighten our outlook on the future, as the memories were often created in a circle of love and support with family or friends. So let's now look at how we can create those loops, how we can look at those connections and those feelings that were created in those memories, in that circle of love and support with our family and friends.

Melissa: 5:47

The first way that you can use your nostalgia to have a better life is to embrace the sense of your past. Spend some quiet time reminiscing and reflecting on happy memories from your childhood or past experiences. Think of this almost like a meditation experience and revisit old photo albums, listen to music from that time, surround yourself with a scent from the past and use these moments to bring joy and positivity into your present life. So when I tell you, embrace the senses, we've talked about using the senses in our writing to give others a sensory experience, but now we're using senses to create a physical experience in ourselves that attaches us back to that nostalgia in a very real way. So what I want you to do is I want you to take the time.

Melissa: 6:46

When you're doing this, when you're embracing the senses of your past, I want you to see the sights, I want you to smell the smells, hear the sounds and feel all the feelings. So maybe you do this by choosing a location. If I think about my childhood, I can think about being at the beach, growing up with all of us all the moms would be on their beach chairs, lining the beach and I can smell the suntan lotion of the time. I can smell the salty air, the seaweed, I can feel the sand and the salt on my skin. I can hear the sounds of transistor radios playing 70s music in the background and I can feel all the feelings because we were free, we were running around, we were joyous, or maybe we were cold and shriveled from the water, I don't know, but all of those sights and smells and sounds bring me right back to that. So, choosing a location or a special memory or a person you loved, are there senses that can bring back that person and you can feel like you're next to them. Is it a scent they wore, or is it flowers that they had? Or maybe you want to remember a season in your life. Use your imagination to reminisce and go back in time, even in the sense of thinking about how music of your childhood, of your parents' teenage years or even your grandparents can bring you back to that time. So, like I said, think about using your imagination as a way to reminisce and go back and embrace the senses of your past.

Melissa: 8:34

A second way that you can use nostalgia to have a better today, a better life, is to connect with loved ones. I used the word reminisce before. So reach out to old friends, family members or classmates, share some stories and reminisce about shared experiences. Strengthen your relationships through that nostalgia. This can help create a sense of belonging and happiness and it also can help you with that validation of making that memory more real. So there's something in including others that helps us to see that something really did happen. You can do this over a favorite meal or in a special location, but getting together and reminiscing not only brings that to life and helps you create and strengthen those relationships, but it might also fill in the gaps that you might both have in the reminiscing of those experiences. So connect with your loved ones and reach out to friends, family members and classmates. We did a Christmas special with my sister and brother and we were connecting and reminiscing about a specific childhood Christmas memory and the message on that episode. And reminiscing about a specific childhood Christmas memory and the message on that episode which I will put the link to it in the show notes because it's one to go back to even though it is not Christmas time because the lesson that kept coming up was do it now. Do it now. It's so easy to gather with loved ones and to even focus in one experience helped us to bring out more depth than just sitting around and talking about all of the surface parts of many things. So I would say connect, reach out to somebody and when you do that, reminiscing together, that reminiscing together dive deep into a focused moment or memory.

Melissa: 10:42

The third way that you can use nostalgia to have a better life is to rediscover a hobby from your past. So revisit the activities and hobbies that you enjoyed as a child or while you were younger, whether it's painting, playing an instrument, playing a sport or engaging in some kind of nostalgic hobby that can bring a sense of fulfillment and joy back to your life. So what did you love to do in the past, as a child, before you became a busy adult? Did you love coloring? Was it word games? Did you love painting? What did you wish you learned, even from someone that you loved? Or is there something that you did learn from a loved one in the past that you don't do right now? So for me, the first thing that comes to mind as far as something I learned in the past was knitting, crocheting and needlepoint Between.

Melissa: 11:35

My grandmother, my paternal grandmother, was a knitter and made the most beautiful sweaters and afghans, and I will never be as good as her, but I do love. I love the challenge and I love the mindfulness of knitting. Then my bubba, who you've heard about if you've listened to the podcast, was my maternal grandmother and she was a crocheter. Now, she could create anything with her some yarn and a crochet hook. She created stuffed animals, there was pigs and there was teddy bears and there were things that we had again afghans and blankets and pillows everything you could imagine. And she did beautiful needle work with very fine crochet and doilies, but she also did those fun items I was talking about like a we. We had a set of three bears, um, and because there was three of us, it was the Goldilocks and the three bears, and then we also had the three little pigs, and those will always be in my memory. Actually would love to recreate them. They don't exist anymore. They didn't survive this many years, but that's something that, when I take out knitting needles or crochet hook, bring me back to that time in my life and those people in my life.

Melissa: 13:01

But there's also things that would be fun, that make me think about being a kid again. Playing wiffle ball with my boys or my nephews brings me back to being on the softball team or even playing wiffle ball with my family and my dad out in the yard. So there's items. There's things that we don't do now because we think that we're supposed to have gotten good at them. And if we didn't get good at them, what do they serve us? Like playing an instrument. Maybe you played flute or clarinet, but why play now? There's no purpose. You're not going to be in a band, you know doing a concert or marching down the street, but why not just play for the fun of it. So bring that out as a way of rediscovering a hobby and revisiting your past through things that you enjoyed, things that you enjoyed.

Melissa: 14:02

A fourth way that you can use nostalgia to have a better today is to create nostalgic spaces around your home or around your environment. So decorate your living space with items that remind you of happy memories from the past Display photographs, keepsakes, souvenirs from special moments. Surrounding yourself with nostalgic items can create that comforting and positive atmosphere. So there's actually right now a design style that's called cottagecore, and I laughed when I started looking into what is this that everyone's talking about, because I realized it was my style. It is using cottage and nostalgic pieces from the past to create a cozy environment. But look that up, because that was funny. As I was doing my research too, I was like, oh yep, that's me Now. It doesn't mean that in order to create a nostalgic place, you have to have clutter or it needs to be old fashioned, because sometimes just using little, tiny keepsakes can be a way to surround yourself and create that comfort. So is there meaningful item that you have that can link you back to either a special time in your past or a special person in your past. It can be very small, it could be very simple, but it's a visual cue or a physical item that can give you that link, remember that positive feeling of love and affection that you had for the person. It brings it back till today, or that loop of remembering the beauty of the moment.

Melissa: 15:40

Some of the things that I have that help do that for me are teacups. Now, I may have talked about this previously, but when we would do Sunday dinners at my grandmother's house, she had special teacups, and after dinner, when we would have coffee or tea, the teacups would come out and everyone would pick their favorite teacups. Now the moms and the adults got to pick their, and not just the women. Everyone got to pick their teacups first, but it was definitely an order to that. We as kids had to wait, you know, until we were a certain age to even use the teacups, but also, everyone had their favorites, and so it was fun to see. You knew who was going to have each cup. And so I have started collecting teacups that mean something to me and remind me of the ones that were at my grandmother's house, that I know my mother had her favorite, or my Aunt Donna had her favorite, or my auntie had her favorite. So there are the teacups that I have that are different but will always remind me of those Sunday dinners and those memories.

Melissa: 16:50

Artwork can do this. I have paintings of my mother's and some small works from my father, even though I don't have a lot of their items. I have talked about in other episodes. This candy dish that I have that reminds me of my grandmother and us being at her house playing and spooning out. The Creating nostalgic spaces can be unique to you and, again, can be very small and simple, or can be something like the color you paint your walls or the wallpaper you choose to put. If you use wallpaper, but it doesn't need to be that vague, it can be small, little items that bring you back to that past.

Melissa: 17:37

And finally, the fifth way that I'm going to talk about today, which there are many ways we can do this, but the fifth part that I really love is getting straight to the point of how can we use nostalgia specifically for self-care. So, incorporating elements of nostalgia into your self-care routine. So watching favorite childhood movies, indulging in nostalgic treats or reading books that transport you back in time. I'd also say visiting the locations of where these places happened For me, going for a ride and going back in time to spots that are meaningful to me is a self-care routine, a self-care activity for me, and these activities can provide relaxation, comfort and a sense of joy.

Melissa: 18:31

So think about as you're being intentional with your self-care. How can you incorporate elements of nostalgia into your self-care routine? Are there certain scents that you want to use that remind you of your childhood? Are there flowers you want to put in a vase that remind you of a loved one or a happy moment? Daffodils will always be something that remind me of my mother. Will always be something that remind me of my mother. Lilacs and that smell of lilacs will always remind me of being a very, very young girl at my bubba's house. And so there are so many things that we can do, so let's review the five ways that nostalgia can help you to have a better life.

Melissa: 19:19

First, we talked about embracing the senses of your past. Next, we talked about connecting with loved ones. Number three was rediscover hobbies. Number four was create nostalgic spaces, and number five was use nostalgia for self-care. Please remember, nostalgia can be a powerful tool for enhancing your wellbeing and creating a better life and, as we come to the end of this podcast, I encourage you to find as many ways as possible to create that positive loop of emotions that will help you through your times of transitions and uncertainty. Remember, nostalgia can be a powerful tool for enhancing your well-being and creating a better life. So embrace the positive emotions it brings and use them to enrich your present experiences. And, as always, here's to preserving your past. Wasn't that a fun episode? I enjoyed our conversation so much and if you would like to continue our conversation, be sure to follow this podcast and share with friends. This helps share the mission of preserving the past with stories. Want more tips, tools and inspiration? Head over to melissaannkitchencom and, as always, let's get writing your powerful personal stories.