Relax your Mind, Body and Soul

During hectic times, it’s tough to remember that relaxation is more than a luxury. In fact, humans need to relax to maintain balance in their lives. Work stress, family strife, and mounting responsibilities can exact a tremendous toll. Relaxing should be at the top of the list as a healthy coping measure and as a rewarding self-gift. Why do we so often neglect this healing self-care? Do you know the healthiest ways to relax your mind, body and soul?

Perhaps the biggest obstacle to relaxing is that some of us have a difficult time slowing the treadmill we put ourselves on daily. Even getting off it temporarily may be problematic. After all, we tell ourselves, there’s just so much to do and so little time to get it all done. No wonder we’re frazzled, anxious, fearful, worried and vulnerable, sometimes at the same time.

In our increasingly connected society, where time is our most precious commodity and business success is measured by our levels of productivity and efficiency, it’s easy to want to “power through” life’s setbacks and keep on top of our daily work. When you’re going through the healing process though, only complete rest will ensure that you’re able to bounce back to 100% — and that rest involves every aspect of your being, body, mind, and soul.

Here are some things to remember the next time you have that urge to “power through” and ignore your need to rest, relax, and recharge.

Don’t be Patient X / Ground Zero

We’ve all had experiences with that one coworker who insists on coming in, even though it’s fairly – sometimes painfully – obvious that they’re still recovering from their ailments. They may do so out of a sense of duty, and/or because they feel it’s an admirable gesture to their workplace and team.

… It’s not. Don’t be that person who puts their coworkers at risk of getting sick. Even the thought of being in close proximity with someone who may be contagious isn’t a very pleasant one. Do yourself and your team a favor – stay away until you’re back to 100%.

Email Is Endless

It’s better to accept this fact now and work around it, rather than trying to beat it: if you work, especially if you work in the corporate world, then you should know that email is endless. There is no “Inbox Zero,” at least for the long term.

People will always be reaching out to you, at all hours of the day and night, and even on weekends. This is true for email as well as with messaging applications, from texting to social media. If you’re out sick and constantly checking and responding to your messages, you’re setting an unrealistic expectation of your involvement in these conversations – you may be able to keep up with some but eventually, you’ll begin to slow down and not keep up with others. This isn’t fair to you or to the others you’re communicating and working with.

For emergency situations, ask them to call you. Otherwise, let them know you’re out, provide them with realistic options for follow up, then disconnect. Which brings us to the next point.

To truly disconnect, start with your brain

It’s easy to physically disconnect and unplug from all the ways you interact with others: you can turn off your wifi and computer, silence your phone, and avoid social media. But for those used to a high level of productivity on a daily basis, mentally disconnecting may be easier said than done.

When you’re at home, away from the distractions of the office – phone calls, email, meetings – you may feel the need to take advantage of this “downtime” and think through some projects and other work you otherwise wouldn’t have as much time for, on a regular day. This in of itself is still leaving you connected to your work, and not allowing your mind to completely clear itself so your body can recover.

Your body has a natural signal to your brain when it needs that healing time – if you feel the need to sleep, do so. Don’t fight it. If you’re tired and/or weak but your brain is still going a hundred miles per hour, take measures to slowly wind down and relax. Take a shower, read a book, watch a little Netflix; your brain, and body, will thank you for it.

Taking the time to rest, relax, and recharge does wonders for you, on all levels: mind, body, and soul.

Feeding your Soul instead of your Ego

The biggest problem in today’s world is that people spend far too much time feeding their egos and not nearly enough time feeding their souls.

They do this without thinking and without giving any consideration to the damage it does to them as well as the other people in their lives.

The truth is that those who live mostly on ego are the very people who constantly seek happiness but never find it because they are always looking for it in the wrong places.

Happiness can be yours if you fulfill your soul and cast ego to the winds.

Pixabay

Ego has been defined as a person’s sense of self-importance.

Those who view it as their main source of self allow it to overcome their lives and wreak havoc with them.

Usually people who let this happen are those who suffer from a lack of self-esteem. They constantly do things they think will improve their image, but they don’t realize that using ego to this end is only superficial and actually means very little.

Many times this type of behavior makes people think less of them and actually depresses rather than elates them.

Human beings always seek happiness. They treat it as though it is a destination, but that is wrong thinking.

Happiness is something that comes naturally, but only to people whose values allow it to appear.

It isn’t something you can force or buy, but rather something you create by learning how to feed your soul rather than your ego.

Your soul is the heart of your “self”. If you keep it healthy by living your life in worthwhile ways, you’ll find happiness in just about everything you do.

Even if you have been living on ego, you can change, but doing this will not be easy.

The soul has a voracious appetite. It yearns always to be fulfilled and is constantly opening itself to those who are willing to feed it in appropriate ways.

There are many ways to do this. For example, among other things you can:

  • learn to appreciate the wonders nature,
  • be thankful every day for what and who you have in your life,
  • accept yourself as the beautiful creature that you are and
  • eliminate the negatives in your life.

What my little girl can teach you

Here is a lovely story that I came across

I was busy reading my favorite magazine and my little girl was playing around me which was disturbing my reading. So, in order to get me some peace, I tried a trick so as to keep her busy for a little while.

I then took a page out from my magazine which had a printed map on it and made some pieces of the map and hand it over to my little girl.

I asked her to go into her room and put the torn pieces together and make a complete map again.

After all my tricks played on my little girl, I was convinced that now, I can have the silence to read the magazine without any distraction and it would take her some time in figuring it out, meanwhile, the whole day will pass.

But within a couple of minutes, she was standing in front of me with a perfect map in her little hands.

I was amazed as well as confused.

So, I asked her how she did it so quickly and easily.

She smiles and looked up to me and said “oh, Dad, There is an actor’s face on the other side of the map. I just tried to make his face completely.”

And she turned and ran outside to play, leaving me surprised.

In life, there is always the other aspect of whatever you face. Whenever we come across a difficulty or challenging, puzzling situation, just sit back and look at the other side, you will be surprised to see an easy way to handle the problem.

The Art Of Being Your Own Best Friend

Why would you want to become your own best friend? There are a number of benefits to creating your own internal support system rather than relying on your partner, friends or family to be there for you when you’re suffering. Having expectations of other people can lead to disappointment, heartbreak, and relationship breakdown if your expectations aren’t met.

We all have it in us to give ourselves what we need, without seeking it externally.

Of course, it’s great if you have a strong support network, but you could still benefit from becoming more self-reliant. And what about if you have no one to turn to for help, or if your current support people are unable to be there for you? 

Isn’t it far better to know how to support yourself in times of need? Here’s how to become your own best friend.

  1. Be nice to yourself
  2. Honor your needs
  3. Send compassion to that part of you that is hurting
  4. Enjoy your own company

Here is a lovely video on the art of being your own best friend

Words Hurt

Words can either build someone up or break them down, and we have to the power to choose our words carefully. Something that seems harmless to us might hurt someone else, so before we say something, we should always think about how it will affect the other person. Words carry energy, some positive and some negative. Words can change lives, or they can destroy them. We carry this power in our hands and hearts, so we must use it wisely.

We can teach children from a young age how to use their words to inspire, help, heal, and bring happiness to others. Adults would do well to remember what their parents and teachers taught them also, because we can easily forget lessons we learned years ago. With this in mind, a teacher came up with a brilliant idea to show children the impact that words can have on others, and this experiment stuck with each of the children long after.

Rosie Dutton, a coach at Relax Kids Tamworth, used her experience working with children for 15 years and knowledge of teaching children to deal with their emotions in a healthy way to carry out this amazing experiment.

One day in one of her classes, she showed the children two different apples.

“…(the children didn’t know this, but before the class I had repeatedly dropped one of the apples on the floor, you couldn’t tell, both apples looked perfect). We talked about the apples and the children described how both apples looked the same; both were red, were of similar size and looked juicy enough to eat,” she wrote on a Facebook post.

She then picked up the apple she dropped on the floor and told the children how she disliked the apple. She told them that she thought it looked disgusting, had a horrible color and the stem was too short. She had a reason for this: she wanted them to dislike the apple too, calling it similar names.

“Some children looked at me like I was insane, but we passed the apple around the circle calling it names, ‘you’re a smelly apple’, ‘I don’t even know why you exist’, ‘you’ve probably got worms inside you’ etc.”

As she and the class continued their verbal attacks on the apple, the teacher and some students started to feel sympathy for it.

Then, they passed around another apple and started saying kind things to it such as ‘You’re a lovely apple’, ‘Your skin is beautiful’, ‘What a beautiful colour you are.’

The teacher held both apples up the class, and talked to the children about the similarities and differences between the apples. They all agreed that both apples looked the same – the only difference was how they had talked to them, as far as the children could see.

She cut open the apple they had just passed around after the discussion to show the class how beautiful and fresh it looked on the inside. Afterwards, she cut open the other apple that she had thrown on the floor.

“THE APPLE WE’D SAID UNKIND WORDS TO WAS BRUISED AND ALL MUSHY INSIDE.”

She saw the children make the connection, that the bruised, mushy apple had really undergone a beating even though you couldn’t tell on the outside. They also realized that how they talked to it represented what happens inside them when people mistreat them.

“When people are bullied, especially children, they feel horrible inside and sometimes don’t show or tell others how they are feeling. If we hadn’t have cut that apple open, we would never have known how much pain we had caused it…”

The teacher then shared a personal experience of what she felt when someone said unkind words to her the previous week. She explained that you couldn’t tell from the outside how she felt because she still smiled. But inside, she felt bruised and broken.

She says, “Unlike an apple, we have the ability to stop this from happening. We can teach children that it’s not ok to say unkind things to each other and discuss how it makes others feel. We can teach our children to stand up for each other and to stop any form of bullying, just as one little girl did today when she refused to say unkind words to the apple.”

“The tongue has no bones, but is strong enough to break a heart. So be careful with your words.”

Impossible = I’m Possible

Many times I look at my goals and ask myself whether my goal is realistic or accessible for me. It’s a good question to ask as it lets me assess how I plan to get there but often times, it is a doubt that I have put on myself. Through my doubt and my insecurity I have put a limitation on where I feel I belong.

We are all human; yes even those in government and on the television screen. And a lot of them went through hard times just as you have. But, what made them a household name or name in the office they are in was a drive to be successful. A drive to be a success in their field. A drive to dedicate more than 8 hours a day on their work or draft. They said to themselves, “I am worth it and I will work until I have reached my goal.” No self doubt of whether they were meant to be there or if they could achieve it; they went for it regardless.

Tell yourself you are enough. Tell yourself it’s possible for you just as it was for them. Throw away all the self doubt and insecurity; it’s only holding you back from pushing harder and really believing you deserve it When you believe that nothing is impossible, everything will be possible and so much more.

I just loved this video I came across on YouTube. Sparsh is a 13-year old child prodigy, singer/song writer/rapper born with brittle bones (130+fractures), but an unbreakable spirit. He wants to show people how they can transcend every difficulty that comes their way in life and how they can start a chain reaction to be a guide for other people who want to turn their life around as well. He became a worldwide internet sensation with his Purhythm versions of Eminem covers. He aspires to inspire and sing in front of a billion people one day. Sparsh has been learning Hindustani classical music for the last seven-and-a-half years and American vocal music for the last three years. Sparsh is multi-talented. He performs at community events and has appeared on local radio stations and television shows, besides hosting shows as an MC. This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community.

Your Value Lies Within

Your value doesn’t decrease based on someone’s thoughts about you, including your own. It’s just a fact of life. It’s like 11×11 is 121. No matter how you got to an answer, 121 is always going to be correct. It’s the same way about being valuable. You were born valuable, and you will always remain that way. No matter who you are, what you do, who wants you, etc.

Our inability to believe in how valuable we are takes a negative toll on us. It completely limits us. And it shouldn’t be that way. Your place here on earth and what you can do to make a valuable and positive impact is essential and possible; you just have to believe it!

Just because someone sees something differently does not mean you need to adjust the way you perceive yourself. Who knows why that judgment might be different. It could be because you have different points of reference, varying experiences, or incongruent expectations. In fact, no two people see things the same, so there’s always going to be a conflict. But speaking to the problem at hand here, this new found information should not make you less confident in the value you offer.

Do you know why? Because we approach life from our own lens, with our own points of reference, our own experiences, built out of our own expectations. It’s not practical to think that someone else knows how much value you add through your life because they didn’t live it! But you did, and that’s worth everything.

Besides, What if the opposite was true? What if someone said that you were worth more than you believed to be true? You’d probably resort to your own interpretation, because they don’t see the full picture. Well, that’s true on the negative feedback side, and it shouldn’t be any different.

At the end of the day, your value lies within!

Glass of Lemonade

There was college student who was always silent and alone. He always seemed bit nervous and didn’t even had any friends. His teacher noticed this and one day asked him to meet him after class.

When student went to see teacher, teacher said to him, “I see that you are often very quiet. Neither do you talk to anyone nor you show interest in anything and it’s effect can be seen in your studies too. What is reason for this?”

Student replied, “Sir, I had very difficult life. I had to face some very sad incidents in my life and i keep thinking about them. Because of this i am not able to concentrate on anything and don’t even feel like talking to anyone.”

Teacher carefully listened to student story then thought for a while and invited student to his home. On decided day, student reached teacher’s home on time.

“Would you like some lemonade?”, teacher asked him.

Student hesitatingly replied, “Yes.”

Teacher went inside and while preparing lemonade, he deliberately added more salt and kept quantity of sugar low.

Teacher bought lemonade for him. Student made a strange face, as soon as he drank a sip of that lemonade.

Seeing this teacher asked, “What happened? You didn’t like it?”

Student replied, “It’s just there is a bit too much salt in it..”

Teacher stopped him and said, “Oh.. You can’t drink it.. I will throw it away.”

After saying this, as teacher was lifting the glass to take away, student stopped him and said, “Sir, you don’t need to throw it away. It have just bit of extra salt in it, if we add a little more sugar then it will be perfectly fine to drink.”

Listening to this teacher smiled and said, “This is what I wanted to hear from you. Now, compare this situation with your life.

Now understand this, to improve the taste of lemonade, we do not remove salt from it but we can fix its taste only by adding more sugar to it.

Likewise, we cannot separate tragic events from our life that have already happened to us but we can erase old bitterness and sorrow by adding sweetness of good experience in our life.

If you keep on crying about your past, neither your present will be right nor the future will be bright.”

When teacher was finished talking, student realized his mistake and vowed to give the right direction to his life.

Learning:
Often, We keep looking at the closed door for so long that, we do not even pay attention to good things happening around us. One should learn to forget about past sad experiences and try to give new direction to life.

YOLO

You are the captain of your life, the chooser of your fate, the architect and builder of your unique, fleeting, and precious existence. It is yours, not someone else’s — yet we so often allow what others think (or what we think they might think) to direct our actions and our lives rather than our own values and sense of purpose.

It is a disservice to ourselves.

There is only one way to avoid criticism: do nothing, say nothing, and be nothing.

Aristotle

We can all do ourselves a favor by reducing the headwinds against success by not paralyzing ourselves or slowing down for fear of what others may think.

We are players on a global stage, eyes are on us, yet we must perform as if no one is looking, create without fear of rejection, do without the worry of what someone might think. Philosophy has much to say about this, for most philosophers have faced a generous helping of criticism themselves.

Care about people’s approval, and you will always be their prisoner.

Lao Tzu

Caring too much about what others think is a detriment to your achievement. Here are some reasons to do the opposite, according to philosophy.

1. Worrying About What Someone Thinks Gives Them Control Over You — Control They Do Not Deserve

Any person capable of angering you becomes your master.

Epictetus

2. Living According To The Opinions Of Others Means Living A Small Life

If you live in harmony with nature you will never be poor; if you live according to what others think, you will never be rich.

Lucius Annaeus Seneca

3. They’re Not Thinking What You Fear They’re Thinking

We suffer more often in imagination than in reality

Lucius Annaeus Seneca

4. Love Yourself Enough To Cherish Your Own Opinions Too

It never ceases to amaze me: we all love ourselves more than other people, but care more about their opinion than our own.

Marcus Aurelius

5. It Separates You From Peace Of Mind

The tranquility that comes when you stop caring what they say. Or think, or do. Only what you do. Not to be distracted by their darkness. To run straight for the finish line, unswerving.

Marcus Aurelius

6. They are their own critics too

Enter their minds, and you’ll find the judges you’re so afraid of — and how judiciously they judge themselves.

Marcus Aurelius

So today, focus not on what others may be thinking, not on random opinions, not on unhelpful criticism or what your imagination says they are thinking. None of that. Instead, focus on what you can control, and what Marcus Aurelius valued as true fortune: good character, good intentions, and good actions.

Move on

There’s an Arab proverb that states that you should write the bad things that happen to you in the sand, so that they can be easily erased from your memory. However, most of us engrave the bad things that happen to us in marble; therefore, our painful memories remain immortalized in our minds.

We walk around with our failures, our mistakes, our disappointments, and our hurts. In order to live fully in the present, and adequately plan for the future, we need to learn what we can from the painful memories of the past, and then let those memories go.

Let go of the past so that you can be free and move on from the past shackled around your ankles, weighing you down. No matter how hard you try, you don’t have the power to change it. No one can change the past. What’s done is done and you can’t go back to the past and change the situation. The only thing you can do is to accept it, learn from it and move on.

Forgive yourself and others. Don’t waste your precious minutes dwelling on the past events. Life is so short that I’m sure you have more important things to think about and lots of goals to achieve. Focus on them instead.

Do you know how long you’ll live? No one knows. This pandemic has made me realise how much life can change in an instant. We’ve all had someone close pass away in the recent past. This helps me realize that we should appreciate each second, minute and day of life. If you have a habit of living in the past, think about all people that have lost their lives. I do agree, it’s a terrible thing to think over. However, it will help you realize that you don’t have time to waste your life.

By holding on to the past you are blocking your own happiness and the last thing you want in life is to be alone. However, if you become a toxic person, others will avoid you and stop respecting you. No one wants to be around a resentful person so don’t let the past ruin your relationships.

When you live daily in a painful past you are living in darkness. The only who can take you out of your darkness is YOU. Work on your relationship with yourself and decide who you are aside from the pain. Take an inventory of your life and decide what you no longer need. Your past does not define you and your future. You are responsible for your well-being and that includes being happy, and you do get to choose how you will let happiness into your life.