Not only is Teresa Palmer an actress and mama but she’s also the brains behind Your Zen Life, an online scrapbook of inspiration, health and happiness. The site has relaunched today with an exciting new logo and a stunning brand new site. With Teresa hoping to continue building the Your Zen Life community, she has also come up with a fun competition where the winner can win an Epic Wellness Pack in conjunction with the relaunch (have a look at their Instagram page for more details on the prize!) To enter, simply follow @loveyourzenlife on Instagram, repost their new logo, tag a friend and use the hashtag #YZLepicgiveaway. A winner be chosen at random on Thursday 28th April 2016. We spoke to Teresa to find out how she came up with the concept of Your Zen Life, how she balances it with her career and her tips to relax. Follow them on Twitter for further updates on the site.
- What made you come up with the concept?
The idea behind YZL actually began over dinner one evening with my BFF Phoebe Tonkin. We were discussing the industry we work in and how shallow it can sometimes feel. We both connected to the idea of using our profiles to affect positive change in the world. We were each passionate about the health and wellness industry and we have had such amazing access to incredibly inspiring people in that realm, so from there the idea was born. We started collaborating and quickly knew that we wanted it to be an online community in which everyone has a voice not just experts or celebrities. That’s what sets YZL apart – anyone can contribute!
- What made you want to do it together?
We both have an avid interest in health and wellness and we are both passionate about being able to serve others – it just made sense! We are soul sisters and perfectly compliment one another so we thought why not mix our friendship and passions to create a positive community? It gave us a focus outside of acting. We also always said if one of us found a passion other than YZL and wanted to focus our attention elsewhere then we could do that too, we were never tied to it. Phoebe is focused on a few other exciting areas of her life so now I have taken YZL over myself and I’ve been loving it!
- What do you and the ‘scrapbook’ want to achieve?
To bring likeminded individuals together, to help each other, engage and provide a platform for everyone to have a voice. To celebrate what makes each of us unique and to focus less on separatism and more on togetherness. Being uplifting, encouraging and inspiring of one another.
- Why are the topics your site covers important to you?
Our site covers a variety of topics in the health and wellness realm – and basically anyone has the opportunity to discuss anything within that arena. We have posts ranging from delicious recipes to natural sleep remedies to personal inspiration stories and they are all important because it allows our community to have a voice and bring like-minded people together. I believe health and wellness isn’t just food and exercise, it also incorporates each of us as a whole individual; the spiritual, physical, mental aspects of who we are. I love that between our YZL content, our experts, guest bloggers and our community we have so much covered!
- How do you decide on the content you publish?
We have submission guidelines that our manager sends out to potential contributors, and so providing the content is within the guidelines and the topics are relative to the health and wellness realm, the submissions get published. That was part of our concept when we started YZL – we wanted everyone to have the opportunity to be heard. Because we only publish a certain amount per week and we have a large number of contributions there is often a slight lag between submission and publication but we try to accommodate everyone.
- How do you find your contributors?
Generally they find us! We connect with other websites in the health and wellness realm and arrange for guest bloggers, experts and cross collaborations but other than that our community submit their pieces to us. Social media has been a great tool for contributions too! Apart from content that comes direct from myself or our manager, all other articles are via guest contributors.
7. How important is it for you to interact with your readers?
So important! My favourite part of YZL is the incredible community of followers that we have. I often bump into people on the street who want to talk YZL and I post Tez Talks to interact with fans through our website and YouTube channel. We also utilise Twitter and Instagram and any emails written specifically to me our manager Cass will forward on so I get to read them. I’m always so moved by the level of passion people show for this community. It warms my heart.
8. How hard is it to balance Your Zen Life with your career?
Not too hard, when it is something that fuels you then it doesn’t feel challenging. I learn to take out time in my day to focus on it. In fact this year I’ve dedicated myself to taking a year off from acting and fully focusing on YZL and its sister site Your Zen Mama… as well as staying in one place and being a wife and mother. 2016 has been wonderful so far! YZL has a manager who takes care of the day to day running of the site, we check in with each other daily and have regular meetings, plus because I love this aspect of my work so much it never feels like I HAVE to do YZL work, I actually crave it. It helps me find balance, it all just folds into my life organically and I also utilise down-time on set so I can catch up on emails, create content, record Tez Talks etc.
9. What healthy living tips would you give our readers?
Start somewhere, baby steps in the right direction if you are just beginning on your journey. Learn to listen to your body and nourish and treat it accordingly, mix up food and exercise and keep in mind that balance is key – I don’t believe in diets or pushing yourself and also have at the forefront of your mind that sleep is such an important part of being healthy. I also think it is important to remember you can never stop learning – constantly read and find out new things and try try try – every one of our bodies are different, so find what works for you! Remember that being focused on developing mindfulness is absolutely imperative for having a calm and happy life, it is equally as important to spend energy on our spiritual selves as it is our physical body!
10. When life gets stressful, what is it you do to relax?
Take some time out for me, even if it is just a 10 minute bath, binge watching a show on TV or spending time with my son in the pool. It varies depending on my mood but I’m very quick to slow down when life starts to get too fast paced.
