Romanticize Your Life: How to Fall in Love With Your Everyday Through the Five Senses Framework

🌸 Romanticize Your Life: How to Fall in Love With Your Everyday Through the Five Senses

The GLIMPSE Method Podcast | Season 1

Why You Need to Hear This Episode

What if you didn’t need a new life to love your life?

What if the secret to more joy, more presence, and more of that this is exactly where I’m supposed to be feeling was already available to you — right now, today, through your own two eyes, your own two hands, and every sense in between?

In this episode of The GLIMPSE Method Podcast, Megan walks you through her favorite framework for romanticizing your everyday life using the five senses as your guide. Inspired by a live breathwork session inside The GLIMPSE Collective, this conversation is warm, real, and packed with simple things you can actually do today — no overhaul required.

Because joy is your birthright. And it starts with noticing the life you already have.

🕐 Timestamps

[00:00] — Welcome & what romanticizing your life actually means

[02:30] — Sight: decluttering, the kitchen island, using your good dishes

[08:00] — Sound: giving your life a soundtrack & listening to nature

[13:00] — Taste: waking your taste buds up & eating God’s foods

[19:00] — Smell: Palo Santo, the Italy perfume, and ditching synthetic scents

[24:00] — Touch: castor oil, 20-second hugs, bare feet in wet grass & cold plunge

[31:00] — Bonus: Style as self-love & finding your aesthetic

[36:00] — The love affair with yourself — the thread running through all of it

[40:00] — Recap + free breathwork session invitation

⚠️ Timestamps are approximate — update with your actual times after publishing!

What Is “Romanticizing Your Life” — And Why Does It Matter?

Romanticizing your life means falling in love with your life exactly as it is right now. Not after the vacation. Not after the renovation. Not after you finally get it together.

Right now.

As Megan puts it: “It’s not about having a perfect life. It’s not about filming everything to look perfect and posting it on Instagram. It is just noticing the life that you have now.”

The foundation? Presence. And the doorway into presence? Your five senses.

👁️ Sense #1: Sight — Create Beauty in Your Environment

You don’t need a Pinterest-perfect home. You just need a space that feels intentional.

Simple ways to romanticize through sight:

•Clear your countertops — Megan keeps her kitchen island clean with just a wooden fruit bowl and a candle
•Arrange things in odd numbers (a tip from her mom that actually works)
•Get fresh flowers or a simple candle for your table
•Make your meals look beautiful — drizzle the sauce, use a cute bowl, plate it with care
•Use your good dishes. Stop saving them for special occasions. You are the special occasion

“Don’t eat out of the Tupperware like my husband Nate does. Put it on a plate.”

A clutter-free, visually pleasing space doesn’t just look good — it calms your nervous system and reduces anxiety. That’s not just aesthetics. That’s self-care.

🎵 Sense #2: Sound — Give Your Life a Soundtrack

Be intentional about what’s playing in the background of your day. Sound shapes your mood more than you think.

Ways to romanticize through sound:

•Create playlists for different parts of your day — morning coffee, focus work, winding down
•Experiment with genres you don’t usually listen to: smooth jazz, classical, lo-fi, nature sounds
•Take a little dance break — put on a song and perform for yourself (Megan and her college friend used to do this with yacht rock on their staircase and it was everything)
•When you’re outside, actually listen — birds, breeze, rain, even the perpetually angry red squirrels

Spotify and YouTube have virtually anything you need. The point is to stop letting sound happen to you and start choosing it with intention.

👅 Sense #3: Taste — Actually Taste Your Food

Here’s the truth: most of us have numbed out our taste buds without even realizing it.

Highly processed foods and zero-sugar drinks are engineered to be intensely sweet — which trains your palate to need more and more stimulation just to feel satisfied. But when you start eating whole foods — what Megan calls God’s foods — your taste buds come back to life.

Ways to romanticize through taste:

•Choose foods that grow from the earth as much as possible
•Slow down and actually taste each bite — put your fork down between bites
•Make your plate look beautiful — presentation makes food taste better (science backs this up)
•Try one new fruit or vegetable each week
•Use the good silverware. Use chopsticks. Make it an experience

“I’ve been eating fresh cantaloupe and honeydew this summer and it is so good. Better than any Little Debbie snack cake.”

The more you eat real food, the more your taste buds wake up — and the more satisfied and nourished you’ll feel.

🌿 Sense #4: Smell — Choose Natural, Ditch Synthetic

Smell is one of the most powerful and underrated senses. And what you’re surrounding yourself with matters more than you might think.

Synthetic scents — like plug-in air fresheners — can actually be hormone interrupters and work against your nervous system instead of for it.

Ways to romanticize through smell:

•Diffuse essential oils at home
•Try Palo Santo as an alternative to sage (Megan’s current favorite — just open your windows and keep a fan going)
•Light a natural candle
•Go outside and actually smell the air — notice when it’s about to rain, when someone’s having a bonfire, when the breeze shifts
•Find a signature natural perfume — Megan has one from a small shop in Italy made with lemon and bergamot that she reaches for when she wants to feel like herself

Natural scents ground you in your body and in your actual life. That’s the whole point.

🤲 Sense #5: Touch — Feel Everything

Touch is the most underrated sense of all — and the one we tend to rush through the most.

Ways to romanticize through touch:

•Slow down your skincare routine — Megan recently started using castor oil on her face and loves it
•Notice the fabrics you wear and how they make you feel moving through the day
•Give 20-second hugs — not the quick fake squeeze, a real one. It does something good for you
•Pet your pets (Spike gets a special mention here 🐾)
•Touch a tree, a flower, the plants — just not the poison ivy
•Walk barefoot in the grass, especially right after it rains
•Try the extremes: sauna for heat, cold plunge for cold — and if neither is accessible, just go sit outside in whatever the weather is and feel it

“I intentionally walked to the mailbox barefoot right after it rained and just felt the wet grass under my feet. Smelling, seeing, and feeling all at once.”

Touch brings you back into your body. And your body is where your life actually happens.

✨ Bonus: Style — Self-Love, Not Vanity

This is the sixth sense of romanticizing your life — and it’s really just permission.

Permission to put in the extra five minutes for yourself. Not for anyone else.

•Browse Pinterest and find an aesthetic that makes you feel something
•Follow someone on Instagram whose style you love and let it inspire you
•Wear the jewelry. Layer the pieces. Put on the hat. Wear the lipstick to brunch
•Megan’s current vibe: minimalist boho — and she’s still figuring it out, which is half the fun

“You are the main character of your life. It is time to start accepting it and living it.”

💛 The Love Affair With Yourself

Underneath all of it — the candle, the good dishes, the Palo Santo, the barefoot walk in the wet grass — is one simple truth:

You are worth this.

The most important love affair of your life is the one you have with yourself. And it doesn’t begin when your life looks perfect. It begins right now, with whichever sense calls to you first.

Pick one. Just one. And notice something today.

“Stop waiting for somebody else to do it. It’s all right there inside of you. Start romanticizing the life that you have — because joy is your birthright.”

🔑 Key Takeaways

•Romanticizing your life = falling in love with your life right now — no big changes required
•Presence is the foundation; your five senses are the doorway in
•Sight: clear your space, use your good things, make meals beautiful
•Sound: be intentional about what’s playing; give your life a soundtrack
•Taste: eat God’s foods, slow down, let your taste buds wake back up
•Smell: natural over synthetic, always — your nervous system will thank you
•Touch: 20-second hugs, bare feet, cold plunge, slow down your skincare
•Style bonus: find your aesthetic and have fun with it — you’re the main character
•The thread running through all of it: the love affair with yourself

🎁 Free Breathwork Session — Romanticize Your Life

Want to feel this concept instead of just reading about it?

Megan is offering a free 45-minute breathwork session built around romanticizing your life — complete with a guided visualization — when you join her email list.

👉 Sign up at [your link here] to get instant access.

This is the exact session her GLIMPSE Collective community did live. And it is so good.

🎙️ Su

Enhance the Human Experience!

https://glimpselove.myflodesk.com/e5bcyak6bj

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:01

Hello and welcome to the Glimps Method podcast. I'm your hostess with the most dis. Just kidding. This is Megan, and it's good to be here again with you. And today, this is a fun one, you guys. We're gonna talk about romanticizing your life. So um I have a school community. Um, if you guys don't know what that is, it's it's S-K-O-O-L. Anyway, we did a breathwork session on Sunday this past week on romanticizing your life. We did a little visit visualization and um we uh kind of breathed into this idea that I'm gonna talk about today. And um, stay tuned after because I'm gonna have a little way that you could actually try that breathwork session out. And um, I hope you'll take me up on it. So um romanticize your life. What does that mean? Um, well, it's basically falling in love with your life, how it is right now, today. You don't have to make any big changes, these are all little changes. It's um it's like just slowing down. It's kind of what I talked about um last week, just slowing down and looking inside. But this is more, this is a little more fun because you get to do some fun, action-y things. Um, so what have I told you the most important love affair of your life is the one you have with yourself, and I truly believe that. Um, it's not about having a perfect life, it's not about um, you know, I don't know, filming everything to look perfect and posting it, you know, on Instagram. It is just noticing the life that you have now. So presence is the actual foundation of this concept, and the way that I frame it, the way that I like to frame it, is um your five senses. So we're just gonna kind of go through each of our five senses, and then a little bonus at the end for another um piece that fits into this that kind of encapsulates um all the senses. So um we are going to first talk about sight. So one thing that can really help with sorry, my timer's going off. I should have stopped that. Okay. One thing we can, I'm meal prepping too, you guys. This is so good. What a good day to get some things done. Um, so anyway, sight. Declutter your space. Um, it is so nice to have. I'm constantly like getting on my family. Actually, I kind of stopped getting on them about this, and now I just do it every time. We have this giant kitchen island in our kitchen. Kitchen island in the kitchen. Wow, imagine that. Anyway, um, I always have those wipes ready and I clear it off and I wipe it down so it's just nice. We have like a little, um, my husband calls it the canoe. It's just like a wooden bowl that I put fruit in, and pretty much that's all I want to see on that. I want the the kitchen island to be clear. I want dishes to be either put away in the cupboards or in the dishwasher, or you know, if anything, just in the sink low enough so I can't see it. So sight. Um making things, you know, clear that helps your mental health, that helps your nervous system, it helps you um not be anxious. So um, and just like make things, you know, aesthetically pleasing to you. Um whether it be with like a little arrangement of you know getting fresh flowers or having like little, you know, not too many trinkets, but you know, like a candle, and I don't know, my mom always taught me you gotta have things in odd numbers. So, like we have a plate on our kitchen table, and I have three things like a little wooden thing that says home and then like a candle and then maybe something else. So make things, you know, visually beautiful. Um, when you're eating, um, don't eat out of the Tupperware like my husband Nate does. Put it on a plate, you know. Use sometimes it's fun to use chopsticks to eat. Um you know, make things look nice, drizzle your sauce on instead of like dipping it, or put it in a cute little bowl and put it on your plate. Um and use nice things, like don't save them. Um, we have these dishes that my parents got from Hong Kong Hong Kong ages ago. And we used to only use it as kids, like when we'd have lobster tail, we'd eat in the living room and we would, you know, break out those dishes. Now I just have them in the kitchen and we can use them, you know, if we want, whether we you know, put like a nice little fruit display on there, or um, sometimes I'll do like a sandwich bar and I'll arrange meats and cheeses on there or veggies. Um, so yeah, make things beautiful, um nice to look at. It'll ease your your nervous system and your, you know, you won't be as anxious looking around, like, oh, I need to do this, I need to do this. Um, okay, moving on, and there's tons of things that fall into that, but moving on to sound. So give yourself a soundtrack. Um, be intentional about what's playing. Um, you know, if you're on a walk, that's one thing. But if you're just, you know, just kind of putzing around the house, doing work, whatever, take a little dance break, you know, pretend you're in like a video. I remember in college with my friend Aaron, we used to do these. We'd come home from the bar at night, and we'd actually be excited to leave because we would play, it was pretty much like usually like yacht rock type songs. And we had this big staircase in our this house that we rented, and we would like put on videos for each other. It was fun, like you can do that for yourself, and it just it feels good. Um, Spotify has like everything, or you can get anything on YouTube or whatever you're feeling like, and maybe you know, start um thinking about different genres. I know I get stuck in a genre, but um, you know, look at like smooth jazz or maybe even just nature sounds or um classical, you know, different sounds and different um music can make you feel different ways and you know just kind of explore that. Um also when you're out in nature, listen to what's going on out there. I know sometimes you know we'll eat out on our deck or something, and it's just nice to take the time. Um what's really nice is when I'm in my cold plunge, just kind of listening to the breeze on the trees and um the birds chirping. Um, one thing I don't exactly like are the red squirrels, they are always mad, but anyway, that's like a nature sound too. So um really just start um paying attention and then taste. So slow down and actually taste your food. You're gonna put and that's gonna help you if you if you think about the okay, guys. We're gonna talk about taste now. Sorry, I got a phone call and I'm just recording this on my phone and it stopped my dang recording. So we are on taste. Um, okay, so slow down and actually taste your food. Um choose foods that grow in the earth. I like to call them gods foods, but um, things that you know, whole foods, and allow yourself to try new things. Um one thing that I have been doing, well, I've been eating trying to eat more whole foods. I'm kind of joined this group. It's called Kingdom Fit Moms. If anybody's interested, shoot me a note, I can share it with you. But we focus on you know, really just trying to eat mostly real nourishing foods, and it's so amazing how delicious. Like, I've been getting melons, cantaloupe, and honeydew, and it is like so good. Like when you actually sit down and like cut it fresh and taste it, and it's like better than any, you know, like freaking little Debbie snack cake you can get. Um, but also the more you start eating the whole foods, the more it's like your taste buds wake up. I feel like with all the processed foods out there, we have like just numbed out our taste, and we just go in like the fake um, you know, like the diet coke. Um it's like a really sweet flavor, which actually makes you even though there's no sugar in it, um, and actually the ones that are probably the worst are like the zero sugar, so they are meant to taste like regular Coke, and they're just like I don't know, like a hundred times sweeter than actual sugar, and then drinking that will make you crave sugar later on, and um, but I've just been noticing how my taste buds are just like more alive at the more um I cut out the processed foods and the more I turn to the natural foods that grow on the earth, and I mean I do eat meat too, but um yeah, it's um it's amazing, and you're just so much more nourished and you feel um satiated, uh, I think sooner. Um thing you could try to I've heard about people just like trying like a new vegetable like every week or like a new fruit that you know they have all kinds of things out there um that you can try and um just make it fun and you know as I was saying, make your plate look nice, and if your plate is looking nice and maybe slow down by using chopsticks and just really taste your food. Um, and then moving on to smell so um essential oils and natural candles, um, going outside and really smelling the air, noticing, you know, like you can tell if it has just rained or it's about to rain. Like it's just really interesting how the air changes, um, you know, depending on the humidity and just what's going on. Um, if there's a breeze, you know, um, you can maybe go out and smell somebody's barbecue or like somebody's having a bonfire. Um, you know, those are all just fun to take in and just really see how how you're feeling or how that how these different smells make you feel. I will just say um natural sense over synthetic because synthetic can actually kind of block your vibe and and kind of do the opposite. So um, you know, avoid those plug-ins and and all that kind of stuff because that can really, and I think though somebody told me they're like hormone interrupters too, or something like that, but um, yeah, just natural sense. Um I love to do, oh, and I also love to do, you know, you can like sage your house or um you know open all the windows and just kind of clear the space. It feels really good to do that. I also I got this Palo Santo, and I I haven't really read about what it exactly does, but I learned about it in breath work, like you can use that instead of sage. I don't love the smell of like burning sage, but um, the Palo Santo is so good. So just like incense, but just make sure you have like a flow going, maybe a fan, and then like your windows open so you're not just inhaling the smoke. Um, and then moving on to touch. Um, so intentional, um, you know, touching your body, putting on lotion, um, you know, taking your time in the shower or with your um bedtime routine. I just started using castor oil on my face. Yes, I saw it on Instagram and I like fell for it. But I actually just really love it. Um love putting it on and then just like kind of rubbing it in. And um I just like noticed in the past year that I have this like line on my neck that I'm just like so. I rub that castor oil and that line on my neck. I'm like, get that line out of there. I don't know what it's from. Um, so um, and just like human connection, you know, hug your people. And I think I heard somewhere like a 20-second hug can. I wish I had read up on this, but it can do something really good for you. So do that. Don't just do the quick fake squeeze, you know. Um pet your pets, um, touch a tree, a flower, smell it, you know, just touch nature, get outside in the in the um grass with your bare feet. The other day, like I intentionally went to the mailbox with barefoot. You know, I had to slow down and just like feeling, and it had just rained, so it was just like a very um, I don't know, uh sense forward, you know, a little walkout to the, you know, I was smelling and it was I was looking at the wet stuff and feeling the wet ground and the um, you know, under my feet. So um another touch thing, you know, are the extremes like the sauna. They say that's really good for um detoxing. I as um you probably know. As I mentioned often, I love the cold plunge. Um the hard part is that first initial dip when you get in there, and maybe like the first five seconds, and then um then it's like almost like I'm in a hot tub. Like then I just kind of relax and I think about my breathing, and and um, but I'm feeling the cold sensation and you know all over my body. Um even if it's like uncomfortable outside, you know, like if it's like hot, you know, put on a tank top, go sit outside and just kind of feel the differences. Um, like does the does the air feel heavy? Does it, you know, would it be good if I had like this, you know, aesthetically pleasing glass of iced tea with a lemon or just water with a lemon? Um, and just actually kind of see what you feel. Um and so then another thing, this is just kind of like a bonus thing about uh romanticizing your life. We did sound, didn't we? Yeah, that's I think that's where I ended on when I got so rudely cut off. Um, okay, so style. So this is like self-love, it's not vanity. Browse Pinterest and like find an aesthetic that you like and maybe start moving towards that. Um, oh, one other thing with touch I wanted to mention is just like realizing what kind of clothes you're putting on your body, um, you know, and and how the different fabrics kind of make you feel, it can really affect how you are flowing through your day. So, um, you know, and that's like not buying anything new, just noticing what you have, and like when you wear a certain, you know, style, a certain material, a certain color, how are you feeling um with that? And putting on like jewelry and um this kind of goes with style, so I'm so my bonus little part is like think about the style that you want, um, and it's fun. Like, I had the idea that I wanted to be boho. I'm not sure if that's where I'm going. It's a lot of accessorizing, and I don't, although I love the look of an accessory, you know, heavy kind of look, but I just haven't like found anything. Uh I don't know. I'm I'm kind of shying away. I'm maybe like minimalist minimalist boho, but um, you know, find an aesthetic you like on Pinterest or follow somebody on Instagram that like you like their style and they just you know give you ideas of just even how to like use what you have in your closet. Um, you know, just kind of figure that. And how do you want to smell? Like, maybe I got this, I just started using it again after doing my romanticizer life, but I got this perfume when we were in Italy a couple years ago, and it has like some of my favorite smells are lemon and bergamot, and this perfume it was like I don't even know what was on, it was some shop they made their own all-natural perfume, and I looked at it and it had those two things in it, and I was like, Okay, I'm getting it. So I love to spray that on every once in a while. Um, so yeah, that's how I kind of frame the romanticizing your life. If you're like, what does that mean? So just kind of look at your five senses and you know, maybe just pick one and one sense, and then you know, practice that. Um, so we'll move on to the love affair with yourself. So this is the thread that's running through like the whole kind of concept is um, you know, you are worth spending the time slowing down and seeing what resonates with you, seeing what feels good. What kind of music makes you like energized? What kind of, you know, if you're feeling in sort of like a melancholy mood, maybe you just like put, you know, some classical music on, have like a cup of chamomile, and just like you know, put your reading glasses on and curl up and read something, or you know you're you are worth kind of setting the stage of your own life, and um, you know, the good food, the good candle, the good clothes, the all-natural sense. Um, just remember that this is probably one of the most important things you can do for yourself is to slow down and take the time and really like pamper yourself and love yourself and um stop waiting for you know somebody else to do it or to I don't know, reaching when it's all there right inside of you and um start romanticizing the life that you have because joy is your birthright. So um just to recap, the framework I like to use for romanticizing your life is the five senses. So the sight, what are you looking at? What are you seeing? You know, main things, uncluttering, making things aesthetically pleasing, the sound, you know, give yourself a soundtrack and um you know, uh try out different genres, see how it felt feels doing different things. Maybe you do something in the morning while you're stretching, maybe you know, you have a little um, you know, jazz playing while you're uh having your coffee in the morning, or you know, just play around with it. Um taste, you know, actually slow down, taste your food, uh eat real food as much as you can. You'll be amazed at your taste buds and and um make it look uh just very aesthetically pleasing on the plate. Um use the good dishes, use you know, the good silverware. Um smell, so just noticing the smells, the natural smells that occur in life, and then also adding some essential oils or natural candles or like the Palo Santo I talked about. Um and touching, you know, touch yourself. That sounds bad. Um you could do that too, but um Um, I mean when I say that I mean like with the castor oil I'm putting on or like the you know moisturizing stuff, you know, use like find like an all-natural deodorant uh deodorant that smells really good, which um so the kids tried this carpe deodorant, it's now available on Target, which um but they have like really good scents, and the they both gave it the thumbs up. So next time I'm out I am gonna try that carpe deodorant. So um, you know, get yourself um uh touch, okay. Sorry, human connection. So hug people, hug your people, you know, don't go around hugging everybody, but don't shy away from it, even if you know don't say I'm not a hugger, just you know what, maybe just try it and do it for 20 seconds. Try a 20-second hug. Pet the dogs, pet all the dogs, pet the cats, um, touch the trees, touch the flowers, the plants, not the poison ivy. Um, and you know, if you want to play around with the cold and hot, you can try the sauna and cold plunge. Um and even when it's like uncomfortable out, if it's really cold or really hot, you know, dress for it and really feel it, you know. Maybe you can have a little mister on yourself outside, and you know, it makes it not so bad. Um, we were at this restaurant in Mesa, Arizona, um, last week. I actually dropped my child in Mesa, it's been very hard. Um, she is going through a treatment program for her um depression and PTSD that she has. But we went to a restaurant that was so it was like, okay, so you know Arizona is super hot, it's June. Um, but they had these like misting fans all over like this beautiful outside patio. And I was like, we kind of wanted to sit inside, but the inside was like super cold. We got to that, we got a table right by those misters, and even though like the mist is coming out and stuff, it we didn't get wet or anything, it felt so amazing. So, whoever invented those like mist fan things, those are bomb.com. We really enjoyed it. Um, so yes, that is my recap. Let's see, did I go over everything? Touch, yeah, that was the last one, and then just bonus like have fun, find a fun style, and you know what? You don't even have to pick one, like maybe like, oh, I'm gonna go out to brunch with the girls. I'm gonna be like Boho Megan today, and just like have freaking fun and like put on the makeup, put on the lipstick, wear a freaking hat, you know. Just um, you are the main character of your life, and it is time to start accepting it and live in it. So, um, yeah, I think that's about it. Um, stick around after I close this out. We're gonna have a little invitation, a little call to action for you guys. If you want to experience breath work, if you want to really get into this romanticizing your life and do it's about a 45 minute breath work session. I am offering that for free if you um sign up on my email list. So actually, now I'm talking about it here, but I'm gonna talk about it in the next little segment. So thanks for tuning in. I love ya, and we'll talk next week. Ciao.