It’s so easy to get swept up in the activities of daily life. Here are a few tips to staying happier, healthier, and being more at peace with life’s flows.
Some months after I had noticed the impact that meditation was having on my life, I also began noticing the discomfort if I fell out of my routine. It was fascinating seeing how each little piece of the conscious living puzzle fit so beautifully together. So I began making a point of building these practices into my daily routine. So what are these 5 practices?
1. Daily Meditation
This was a new practice for me, but the impact it was having on my ability to function under the boot of depression made it worth incorporating it into my daily life.
I would meditate for about 5-10 minutes every morning just to take the edge of another day off. I’d spend another 5-10 minutes meditating on the bus. During the day I would find a quiet spot and slip into a 3-30 minute meditation there. When I’d get home I’d do a deep meditation for 40-60 minutes every single night. The results were incredible.
The depression began lifting gradually and the beauty of life was returned with an entirely new perspective. It was like a veil had been lifted and suddenly the entire world was just infant and beautiful in its infancy.
At the height of the transition, it never occurred to me to even skip a day or two, but if it did happen, the impact wasn’t greatly felt until things began settling a little more. If I’d skip a day then, it would definitely be felt, and I’d know exactly why.
2. Reading Something Inspirational
The thing that drew me out of my depression and into this new journey of wellness, peace, connection and love, was The Surrender Experiment by Michael A. Singer. After realising the true power of a book, I always had something to inspire self-reflection, acceptance, peace, love, harmony, growth, understanding the nature of reality or that of my awakening experiences, particularly how much say I actually have over the path my life takes. Everyday I would make a point of reading even just one paragraph to contemplate for the day or before bed. It reminded me to continue doing the work. So much power lay in healing and self-knowledge. I knew it, I experienced it, and so I committed to keep doing it.
3. Veggie Shakes
This had a really surprising/not surprising at all impact on my daily life. Whenever I’d stuck to drinking a green shake every morning, I’d felt much more energised throughout the day. I lost interest in coffee or sweet things and snacks, and my skin and overall physical and energetic health improved.
The amusing thing was how I’d feel the very next day if I didn’t have one and instead replaced it with my morning coffee. The days felt longer and I would have less energy to deal with whatever surprises would arise.
These days I try some pretty interesting combinations and just observe how my body responds to each.
4. Listening to the Right Music
Music is such an interesting thing. Sometimes we acknowledge how powerful it is in the ways it can affect our mood but we don’t really know why or use it to our advantage for that matter.
Sound waves are simply energy vibrating at a certain frequency. Everything including the food we consume and the content we absorb are all resonating at a certain frequency. When that frequency interacts with our own vibrational frequency (the atoms and particles that are constantly in motion in our bodies), it affects our moods, our energy levels, our thoughts (thoughts are energy too). If we want to feel good, look good, think good, then we must consume good too. but it doesn’t help just to be positive and eat well, we must be mindful of what else we’re feeding ourselves because it has a direct impact on what our days will look like. Ultimately, days turn into lives.
I noticed that when I listened to peaceful, or inspirational, or hair-raising music, it would directly impact the way that I felt in that moment which would be carried into the rest of my day. So I made a deliberate point to spend a few minutes at the start of each day with whatever type of vibe I wanted to feel in those moments.
Using music this way became an incredibly powerful tool.
5. Cutting out TV (No Binge Watching Series)
This was a major one for me. I had used series as a temporary escape for 5 years. After moving to a small city in South Korea, I hadn’t connected with anyone longer term and spent most of my time alone. So in order to kill some of the loneliness and the silence, I turned to series.
It very quickly filled every waking moment between school and bedtime, unless I had a call from home. If I’d wake up earlier than anticipated, I’d open my laptop and continue watching before getting ready for work. It became my addiction and it followed me to the next city, and the city after that until eventually a turning point hit and I had suddenly become acutely aware of every pleasure I had used as a distraction from myself.
I noticed from that point on how easy it was to get swept up in the activities of daily life and how far away it had kept me from myself. Every activity, designed to keep me from seeing what was really going on with me. Work, T.V., hobbies, socialising, all of it. So when they had all ground to a halt, I had time to see what was hidden beneath the surface. It was tough! But so necessary for the transition that was to come. Removing those distractions saved me in many ways.
Today, I can consciously decide to watch an episode of something (which is not nearly as often as it was before), and be completely okay with not seeing the next one for days, weeks, or ever.
These 5 little secret weapons of joy, peace and harmony are the little cogs that when well oiled, keep things moving wonderfully smoothly for me. Even the bumps feel smooth when the machine is well oiled. The moment the oil stops, the bumps become more and more noticeable until they’re eventually tossing me from side to side. This is a sure signal that I have left the machine un-oiled for far too long, and it’s time to put good practices in place once more.