Working Towards Wellness: January 2026

[itsfi]

Happy New Year, BIC! Let's start 2026 with a fresh, fun and fierce month of self-care à la wellness bingo!
If you're new here (to BIC and/or to wellness bingo, welcome!! If you've taken part in a round of wellness bingo before, welcome back!

Self-care can be a very personal thing - what works for one person may not work for someone else. Practicing wellness is a process - it takes time and effort. We will have our good days and bad days - moments when we are thriving; and others when we need to pause, take a deep breath (or multiple ones, for that matter), and reset. 

Working towards wellness is a life-long, evolving process that takes into account our individual needs and circumstances. Self-care is not about perfection, but progress. Likewise, wellness bingo isn't about winning or being the first to get bingo or clear the board. It's about finding what practices we can incorporate into our daily / weekly / monthly routine to support, maintain and/or improve our quality of life. All while having some fun along the way. 

Getting Started

To help you get started with this month's game of wellness bingo, here are a few links that may be of interest to you:

How to Play / How to Post 
Description of Wellness Activities

• Rows 1 & 2
• Rows 3, 4 & 5

Looking forward to hearing about your wellness practices this month. Please join in as you feel comfortable. 

[ather]

@danielledanielle  Oh no you too!? I feel like it was a blur for me!

[itsfi]

All good @ather; life can get busy. I have a feeling you got in some wellness activities even if you might not have been able to participate in wellness bingo. 👊

[ather]

@itsfi  Definitely did! Can’t remember what it was but sure I did!!! 

[shaeschaeshea]

Hi, new to this community, this looks super fun and useful. I slacked and indulged during the holidays and am trying to get back to being healthier in the new year and this looks great. Read through the notes and comments and think I get it, 

My healthy meal, winter walk and arts squares all happened around the same time. Went to dinner and illuminated night walk earlier this month. 

Journal time and gratitude get done a lot together a lot since I got a gratitude journal for myself for Christmas. I haven’t don’t it every day but try for 2 or 3 times a week which is hecka good for me.  

Getting a lot seasonal fruits and veggies in with this subscription box we were gifted for Christmas. It comes with a couple of recipes too.

This was super helpful and there are some self care things a lot actually I hadn’t thought of that sound really helpful. 

[Shosh85]

Hi @shaeschaeshea! So happy this thread is helpful! It's definitely a fun way to make sure you're taking care of yourself!

Dinner and an illuminated walk sound lovely! 😊 

[shaeschaeshea]

@Shosh85 it really is fun and I like that it's set up or it's open to letting us do it at our own pace. Everyone is very encouraging too and that's just great. 

[itsfi]

Welcome, welcome @shaeschaeshea, you did great with your self care activities this month. That illuminated night walk sounds like a lot of fun; is it like a tour type of set up? Or a place you go and you do the walk on your own / with your own group? 

Gratitude journals are a wonderful way to journal, whether it’s once a week, every day or a couple of days a week. It’s about finding what timing or approach provides you the benefit you most need.

[shaeschaeshea]

@itsfi thank you for the warm welcome. The illuminated walk is at a set location but it's a large area, a section of a park, and they have it set up like this one was a bit of a winter wonderland new year theme. Astra Lumina is the company that puts it together and they have it in different cities; it's really cool. I told my brothers about it and they had something similar where they live and took their families / significant others and liked it.

[nuinui933]

@shaeschaeshea 

That fruit and veggie sub box sounds amazing.

[shaeschaeshea]

@nuinui933 the first box was full of a lot of great things.

[itsfi]

2nd this @shaeschaeshea @nuinui933! 💕 That’s great that it comes with recipes too. 👍🏼 Is it more heavy one way or the other (fruits, veggies?) Do you get to choose or is it completely a random assortment?

[shaeschaeshea]

@itsfi  they give you a choice of fruit only, veggie only or mix fruit and veggie. If you pick the mixed box, you can list like things you prefer or if you'd prefer more veggies than fruit but they don't guarantee that you'll get that. They say they'll try to accommodate the requests but no guarantees because it depends what's available and how many other boxes of just fruit or just veggies are ordered. I guess to answer your question it's both - you get to choose and it's random what you get.

[itsfi]

Last update for January for me. 

• Create - Arts - Crafts - Hobbies - spent some time over the last couple of days working on photographs, knitting, craft projects, and the like.

• Music time was spent listening to the songs nominated for a Grammy this year. My interest in most awards show, music or film-wise, is mainly in the fashion and beauty areas but I decided to dig a little deeper into this year's Grammy Awards, in part because there's a bit of a tie-in to next month's wellness board 😉 and also because it's just a lot easier to listen 🎧 to a half a dozen songs 🎤 than to watch 5 or 6 movies 📽 for an awards show. 😂 I'm behind on listening to all the songs so I'll be doing more of this self care activity a little each day throughout the week. 👍

• Joy List - I had a harder time with this than I initially thought I would. Coming up with activities that were joyful or entertaining or that brought me happiness wasn't so much the hiccup for me; it was finding something that would hit the spot, be meaningful to me and the circumstances that arise in my every day where I might actively need to seek after or choose joy, or choose to do something that brings me joy. I've been noodling on this idea of a joy list for some time and particularly this month as it's on the wellness board, and finally sat down and started a working list in my journal last night. I've also been transposing it bit by bit onto a spreadsheet / chart on my computer that I can add to and edit from time to time as necessary, and copy and paste that to my notes on my phone so I have it within easy reach. One thing that I did not include in the list in my journal that I did on my spreadsheet was to include a note referencing an online article that I appreciated "Finding Joy When the World Feels Heavy" from Psychology Today, the topic of which I've had a handful of discussions about in some form or fashion with friends and strangers alike over the last year or so. 

Looking forward to hearing about folks' (continued) wellness activities through the end of the month. February's board will be uploaded sometime Sunday (2.1.2026) morning Pacific Time - my goodness, how is it almost February already?! 😳 

[curlychiquita]

I like your joy list, @itsfi! This month has been very hard. I hate winter at the best of times, and now this weather isn’t helping.  I’ve been generally positive, though.  I have been choosing joy, mostly, and I’m glad you have, too!

[itsfi]

I'm heartened that you've been generally positive and choosing joy, but I'm really sorry it's been a hard month @curlychiquita. You're so right, weather, bad weather just makes it harder, crummier!! It makes your choosing for joy even more inspiring. Hopefully, we are in for a short, very short winter and we're gifted with an early spring. 🤞 January is about over (probably already officially done for you); here's to a better February, a joy-filled February. 

[nuinui933]

@itsfi 

That sounds like a fun way to do a self care board with music. NIce picture, what do you think of the Eadem lip balms?

[itsfi]

@nuinui933, thank you. I hope it's a good one for everyone. I like that Eadem lip balms. They're among my top 3 favorite lip balms. The formula is thick without being gooey or goopy. Most are not sticky but there's a tint or two that can be a smidge tacky but not overwhelmingly so. The applicator has a slant tip and feels cooling when you glide it across the lips. There's 1 or 2 shades that lean slightly on the warm side but for the most part the shades have neutral undertones. If you have a chance to try them, I'd reccomend them.

[shaeschaeshea]

@itsfi  the icons are really cute and wintery. I looked up that article and it was good. Thanks for sharing. Fun idea for music theme for self-care 

[itsfi]

@shaeschaeshea, thank you. It's good to try something new every once in a while. I've been learning a lot as I was researching the diffeernt songs and musicians while putting the board together.

[Shosh85]

@itsfi  You cleared the board! Nice job! 🙌

Such a fun idea to listen to the songs that were nominated for Grammys! I might have to copy you 😉

I'll have to do a Google search for that "Psychology Today" article. Sounds like a good read!

Cant wait to start on a new board for February! 

[itsfi]

Thank you @Shosh85! I'm usually so out of the loop with these things. I at least was familiar with all of the musicians in that category even if I had only heard of a few of the actual songs before my little project. 😂 It was a fun thing to do and nice to try / listen to some different genres / artists I might not otherwise listen to (or knew much about). Definitely try it - there's a host of other categories too.