Busy and bustling cities in a fast-paced, digital world can see us wired, buzzed, hooked, drawn, side-tracked, absorbed, screen-focused, disconnected and sadly, depleted even exhausted and burnt out. Learning how to honour our natural being and human needs requires space and stillness, self-care and self-awareness. Try these tips to unplug and unwind but also decompress and enjoy quality downtime to regain as the French might say joie de vivre, the joy of living:
Cut the Crap: Doing the same things daily that just doesn’t feel good or right? See if it fits with what you wish and how best to live now, and perhaps be open to do the same things with new and fresh energy or in a different and innovative way. Do you consume or inhale toxins through the foods you eat, the substances you take, the cosmetics you use or the clothes you war or wash them in? Switch it up! Go simple, organic, natural and new.
Live Free: We have primal instincts and animalistic passions that reveal our rawness, magnetism and wildness and this is intermingled with our humanness. We innately love to be free and outdoors, in nature, alive and pure in powerful ways – to see, roam, explore, discover, enjoy, connect, live and be. Stepping out of our comfort zone to embrace new things is a wonderful and healthy thing. Close to nature is close to natural – your true essence.
Do Less – Be More: There is great merit and deep wisdom in the Italian expression: ‘dolce far niente’, the sweetness of doing nothing. The race to do, have, see, know more and go faster, higher, further, bolder, longer, stronger can be exciting and exhilarating at times, while at others it can be damaging and draining. Moments of heightened expression followed by rest and recovery, cycles of expansion followed by periods of consolidation and integration are all vital if not essential. We don’t just breathe out in one direction, incessantly; we breathe in, hold and then exhale. We live life often as though there is only one motion, one action, one endeavour – to do. Yet, doing for doing sake can be pointless if not heartless and soulless if there is no awareness or awakened action. Moments of rest and relaxation permit creativity and individuality and profundity to arise and even flourish. So, take time out to really recharge and fill your fun tanks so you can feel energised, enthused and enriched!
Change to Change: If life isn’t working then perhaps what we are doing reflects the stagnant ways in which we are thinking. Automatic, unconscious thinking can hold us captive in patterns and realities that are sub-optimal, even dysfunctional. Consider finding new ways to open your mind and healthy ways to heal. It could be time to check-in and see what can change? Perhaps, your exercise routine, your food choices, your friends and friendships, how you think, whether you complain, or gossip, the language you use or the places you go and see if it fits anymore or really feels good. Just because we have always done it may mean that it has a hold on us and holds us back. Only we can know that and being true to you includes having the courage and authenticity to examine what we are doing… Attending to the underlying beliefs that may run rampant or perpetuate dysfunction is about researching what is available to release and integrate them and modalities abound!
Stop cheating yourself: When we are less than honourable or impeccable with your word, or we do something that disrespect or denigrates ourselves or another if only behind their back then we have sold out. When we degrade or disrespect our body, or deny our truth, we pay the price through the energetic consequence of who become in the process of sponsoring certain energy. Keeping our conscience clear and high, our energy open and pure ensures we can occupy happier and healthier states of being.
Attitude is everything because everything is energy: When we truly understand that all things have a resonance, frequency or vibration we come to realise that operating at lower or more challenging energetic states is a matter of how we choose to think, act and be and this includes the weight of the past energies in us that we have lived out of, or that live through us. Coming from a higher space and higher place is about making the switch inside in how we perceive and what we choose to see before us.
Gentle Moving – Natural Movement: Free-flow dance, interpretive movement if only in your bedroom with hands and feet can heal and awaken in small and surprising ways. The art of body movement is dynamic and just connecting in with your intuition to find ways to sway and swing, to shift and swerve may be all that is required to unlock parts of you and heal.
Meet Face to Face, Eye to Eye: Hiding behind screens – phones, televisions or computers – at a distance to others can leave us tired and cause us to misread and misinterpret things as they inhibit our other senses and knowing from connecting and understanding, feeling and intuiting what is really happening. Quality time spent with and near to others is when we come to learn, observe, connect and live. It also ensures we get a more holistic and realistic indication about the other person.
Switch-off to Switch on: Having a television-free, computer-free, phone-free, distraction-free, internet-free, Wi-Fi-free, social media-free, noise-free day in nature – in the ocean or bush, or at home can be recharging and restoring. Without the constant barrage of information and ceaseless bombardment to our senses, we can just – in time – find a rhythm of calmness and peacefulness that lets us better connect to and discern our intuition. It can also mean our nervous system comes into alignment and simply calms down.
Congruence and harmony: Find ways to align within and step away from things that drag you down or put you in a negative headspace. Sometimes, when we have been going down a difficult path for a long time we may need to be assertive, unapologetically and almost ‘ruthlessly’, as a matter of extreme self-love and self-care to end patterns that permit nonsense and dysfunction to flourish unchecked and reign supreme, and almost feed off our energy in a draining way. It takes discipline and clarity, and certainly a sheer sense of ‘enough’ or of being ‘fed up’ to exercise strong boundaries and have the inner resolve to enforce them. That is a really good thing. As they say: if not you, who, if not now, when? There is only one of you, so treat yourself with sacredness and specialness.
Words have Power: Choose them wisely and positively. What we say is a conversation in our body and with our own mind. Words can strengthen and support, inspire and unify or they can damageand drain, divide and unravel. We are, in many ways, a by-product of our thoughts and words so when they are healthy and harmonious then we chart a course that see our life and living situation tend to reflect that same self-talk. Our mind, and ears, is always listening into to our speech and thoughts, so when we clean up the inner patterns we also find our thinking and speaking tends to clean up too.
Work with what is: Take yourself by the hand and befriend you. If you are sensitive then work with that, if you are craving more freedom, then work with that, too. Acknowledging who you are and permitting yourself to live out and from those aspects is a journey of self-expression and mastery. Too often we try to fix and improve instead of perhaps realising we may be called to find ways to live who we are unabashedly and to move into those places and pursuits that most align and resonate with our true nature. If you are creative and a free spirit but tether yourself to a sit-down, corporate job in a hostile environment then perhaps it is time for you to change, to leave and to move in a new direction, entirely. Or at least find more of a balance.
Deal with issues before they deal with you: Wherever possible, go to the core of the issue and work on that first. So often, we are uncomfortable or confronted by the reality we face that we skirt and dance around the real issue because it seems elephantine in nature! You may feel lonely or isolated and instead of attending to the inner reason you are closed off, shutdown or unable to connect you may throw yourself into being even more ‘in your face’ and ‘activity-based’ or even you might see yourself hide and avoid situations, seeking comfort in things that serve to keep you going around in circles. We rarely find happiness in the truest sense until we are willing and strong enough to face what is within us and how we are living that keeps a pattern continuing…
Compliment: Come from love and choose to see the beauty and blessings in all things around you, letting that be your focus. I like noticing all the best parts in myself and others as it reminds me how amazing and stunning life and creation is, in every way. It aligns me with the truth of what is, that only perfection exists. Soften your gaze to see the beauty already in front of you.
Lift your standards: Fear causes many to lower their standards and settle even if what is before them feels wrong or lack-lustre. Being practical and logical sees them compromise their heart and then wonder why they feel heavy-hearted or heartache? If it is not right for you, then, in truth, it is also not right for the other. Staying in the wrong relationship or a loveless one can be injurious if not perilous to our sense of wellness and wellbeing. Finding ways to be strong on your own and within, to really be there for you is audacious and courageous.
Extreme words cause extreme emotions: Strong blanket words are as restraining as rope, they can pin us down, hold us back or keep us small through their controlling influence. Indeed, powerfully positive words can be exultant and euphoric. Consider the difference in these words and how they cause you to feel: Triumphant… Jubilant… Blissful… or Miserable… Devastated… Grief-stricken.
Stop the stimulants; Sugar, coffee, uppers, anything really that is perking you up and keeping you wired can be clouding your mind and holding you back. Anything outside of us or seemingly positive things can become crutches of dependency and addiction that cause us to stay small or feel disempowered. Food is medicine and we can eat or drink things that can skew and hijack, numb or disconnect us from what we need to know or what other parts of us are trying to reveal to us. Dulling the information does not change it but can seem to delay it. Knowing what is really going on in your inner emotional, mental and energetic landscape tends to require us to get really clear so we can read it correctly and feel it truly.
Detox Your Organs: By this, I mean, your brain from the news, your liver from toxins, and your skin by massage to name a few. We all have differing bodies and uniquely activated systems based on differing genetic profiles. Some may be great at detoxifying while others not so; some may have a tendency towards inflammation while others seem to have issues with sleep. Each of us, in different ways can usually benefit from living with few toxins so that our body systems are not so burdened or challenged to the point of accelerating aging or leaving us feeling unwell.
Bring the outdoors, indoors: Plants, flowers, herbs and vegetables… Having greenery and beauty around us from nature inspires and energises and often provides healing in natural ways simply through the existence of living things being close to us for they transmit a frequency, too, and one that most closely approximates that natural essence that we are, too.
Breathing Deeply, Slowly, Fully: Of all things, breath is key. In a fast-paced, digital world we tend to breath short, small and shallow as though holding our breath or waiting to breath. Yet, deep and long, strong and slow breaths re-calibrate and reset us in ways that calm us down and hold our nervous system in check and relax us. Our bodies are intended to be free and fluid, relaxed and calm so allowing ourselves to truly take the nourishing breath of life is integral to our wellbeing!
Be gentle with yourself and others: Reflect on your good qualities and positive aspects, notice them daily and give thanks. We can always ‘work’ on ourselves in our process of refinement and fulfilment yet come from a joyful heart that sees yourself as a wondrous being, a champion of life. You simply do not know the patterns and experience, the beliefs and energies that impact on someone either from what has happened in this lifetime or another lifetime, whether absorbed through lineage and heritage, or lived in another life.
Cry: So many people resist or restrain tears as though it is bad, wrong, silly or weak. Yet, our tears can be as cleansing and cathartic as a way for us to process or clear emotions held in our heart like hurt or sadness, loss or trauma. Men and women have feelings and emotions and allowing them to fully and freely express the full range of them is a beautiful and intensely human thing – it reveals deep love, true passion, intense grief, real sorrow, and that is part of the human experience. When we deny or dismiss, downplay or deride our nature we stifle and suppress ourselves…
Always Believe – Always Trust: Some of the most unlikely candidates and least like individuals for peace or prosperity are the greatest champions of them. One’s life experience, circumstances or situations can fuel and further a deep desire that calls forth unseens and unwavering forces in nature through our sheer energy to catapult us into the reality we most yearn to live. Such deep wishes can chart a course unstoppable and remarkable. You are your own hero and through owning that truth and your own path, we come to rest in a state of grace and gratitude, freedom and flow.