Creating your own happiness

There are plenty of things you can do of your own account to create that feeling of contentment and happiness within yourself that does not depend on other people or circumstances. 

As I strengthen my "conscious living practices" I realize more and more how this is possible. And in this post, I will share some ways in which I create my own happiness that you can consider applying into your own life. 

1. Smiling and taking an effort to connect with people: When I am out on my morning walk, I make sure to share my smile with every person I see - other ladies, elderly, kids, the apartment gardener, security personnel. I wish some of them and some wish me back. This fosters my sense of connection with the world around me and makes me feel good from the inside. 

2. Picking up some activities to do mindfully: I like to immerse myself completely in my music practice, my workouts, reading, my Journaling practice - everything I enjoy deeply. Doing what I love automatically makes me be more present / mindful and makes me feel happy / contented. 

3. Spending time away from social media and instead spending it with people and things that are in my life: Today we live in a world where our minds are constantly stimulated and unless we make a conscious effort to withdraw, we get pulled into the virtual world and lose connection with what's right around us. 

One of the conscious living practices is the "Gadget Fast". In this me & my group of "conscious living practitioners" stay away from gadgets for 3 hours in a row. This time is spent connecting with what's right around us. It's challenging for most of us, but we get better at it with conscious effort and our real life starts to get more enriching.

4. Aspiring for more with respect & regard to how far I have come: I do have goals and ambitions, but I try not to lose sight of my journey. Sometimes chasing after our goals that seem too far away to reach can make us feel like failures but taking the time to appreciate how far we have come can help approach goals with a better state of mind.

5. Managing my attitude with empowering beliefs: My deepest intention is to live a life of freedom - freedom to be, to express, to connect, share. I understand that not always my opinions and views are going to be endorsed, not always are those I wish to connect with going to reciprocate that connection, and not always I will be liked for being true and authentic. But that is how I choose to live my life as that's my deepest intention, not to be accepted by others but always be accepting of myself. Making mistakes (coz as a human, I am allowed to) and course correcting as I go about my life. 

Connecting to what's important to me helps me to carry on in spite of opposition and rejections from the outside world. 

These are just some ways in which I manage my own happiness - by controlling the things I can and making an effort to let go of what I can't. 

Sometimes it's tough to let go, those days I am extra gentle with myself and like all things the difficult feelings pass too (another empowering belief that - nothing lasts forever) 

Did you resonate with these points? Do leave a comment if you did. And wishing that you live your life in joy and learn to create your own happiness. 

Mindfulness - Daily doses of happiness

Anxiety resides in the future while regrets reside in the past - happiness is in the present moment. Mindfulness has been one of my favourite practices after self-love that has helped enhance my happiness quotient. 

I have begun to enjoy all of my routine activities - washing the dishes, folding or drying clothes, cleaning the closet, cutting vegetables, cooking, walking and my daily sun basking time etc. I use these moments to practice mindfulness. I drop everything that's going on in my head - the mental chatter of who, what, why, how, when etc. and be present with the routine task at hand. 

While earlier (rewind a few years) I would look at routine task as something to quickly get done with, today I look to them with a sense of purpose. I have learnt to enjoy and be present with them. They are my little breaks from anxiety.

Practicing mindfulness daily has enriched my life greatly. 

If you are reading this, then I invite you to start practicing. Take baby steps. That's how I got started about 3 years ago. I would pick one activity to be mindful with. Giving it my entire awareness and attention. It took me many months to master this. But am glad I did not give up. 

So, my advice to you is trust the process and be consistent in your practice. The changes are sure to be experienced with time 💕

Learning to Flow

Learning to flow with the currents of life isn't going to be easy as we, as humans, prefer to have everything under our control. We have desires, needs, wants and ideas about how things should be. 

And if things are not the way we want them we get easily upset. 

It is important to recognize this tendency to control in us, so we can learn to respond differently. We can learn to respond in a way that enriches and lifts us instead of destroy us. 

When things don't go our way, we may encounter many difficult emotions. It could be disappointment, unease, helplessness, fear, worry etc. Instead of trying to brush these feelings away, we can learn to be with them. Just acknowledging their presence can help us to not be so much in their grip. I like to tell myself, "I am feeling uneasy". And almost always, after I have done this sort of acknowledging, it becomes a lot more easier for me to hang out with that emotion, so to speak. 

The next thing I like to do, is revisit some of my empowering beliefs about life. I strongly believe that the universe is always watching us, and presenting to us what's best for us, at any given time. We may not always be able to see the complete picture. Just believing in this idea, helps me deal with whatever I am presented with a lot better❤️ So look at cultivating some empowering beliefs that will help add ease into your life. 

Difficult experiences are the greatest teachers and if we learn to ask ourselves, how can I grow through this? Then we can be a lot less fearful and a lot more open to face anything. 

Believe that the universe knows what you need. And everything is happening for your best❤️ 

And just surrender, flow and be free🙏 🌸

 

Finding ease and happiness within

The other day one of my students raised this reflection which I found very interesting. She said, you know Purnima, if we don't brush our teeth for two days or take bath for 2 days, our mouths and bodies start stinking, so we are forced to be regular. The same applies to our daily conscious living practices. If we don't do it regularly it starts to show up in the way we live our lives. 

Nothing can be truer than that. The practices of "conscious breathing, conscious relaxation, meditation, mindfulness, self love etc have to be done every single day just like brushing and bathing. 

However you would notice that we tend to overlook these practices over taking care of just our bodies and focusing on those aspects of our life that are seen by others - such as our education, possessions, income, status. And in current times followers, likes, and such.

Why does this happen ? 

A little reflection, will tell you a little more about the nature of our minds. The mind ( unless trained ) likes to focus on things it doesn't have, and craves for external validation. So our primary focus becomes attaining popularity, wealth, status etc. Stuff that people can see. We don't ask ourselves the question, am I happy and at ease with myself often. If we did, our daily routines would look a lot different 🙂 If we wanted inner peace and ease, we would prioritise conscious living practices such as 

"Mindfulness and Meditation". We would take the time to do these. 

Think about it. 

The other day, I committed these 10 self love affirmations to memory : 

1. I choose to stop apologizing for being me 

2. I release negative self talk

3. I love the person I am becoming

4. I believe in myself and my capabilities

5. I deserve all good things 

6. I am powerful

7. I accept myself unconditionally

8. I acknowledge my self worth

9. I am radiant

10. I am enough 

As I stood in front of the mirror, repeating each of these affirmations, slowly and deliberately to myself, I felt so much of love - love for me, that's difficult to explain in words. That moment, I really didn't care a bit about whether anybody else accepted me or not. It was enough that I loved and accepted myself ❤️ That's the power of the "self love" practice. 

Sitting quietly in some corner of my house to do my breathing work and meditation practice, gets me centered and grounded. I don't feel the need to articulate much after the quiet time. I am more at peace.

Simple daily chores like washing vessels, drying and folding clothes, when done mindfully don't feel like boring tasks that need to be avoided or done quickly so we can get on with life. They become part of our life - precious moments to be relished and enjoyed.

And these are all personal experiences. That nobody can see, but only the individual can feel and experience.

Unfortunately many of us have not found these experiences for the simple reason that it has never occurred to us to prioritise inner peace and ease. 

Infact many of us even lack the discernment of what's causing unease into our life. 

Whenever you feel unease, question yourself, "what's causing the unease?" Most often you can trace the source to your own mind - a belief, an idea or a goal that you are clinging to which isn't serving you. It requires mindfulness as well as courage to let go and drop that which causes unease. 

Some people might misconstrue choosing ease to mean not growing or challenging yourself. This is far from truth. 

When you are at ease and at peace with yourself, you tend to set more meaningful goals that serve the higher good. And you are more likely to focus on the action, and enjoy the journey over being obsessed with the result. 

Because we live in a world that's very outward focussed, we are influenced to focus mostly on the external. It's important to acknowledge this so we are aware of being pulled by the world around us 🙂 

Once that awareness is turned on, we can choose different. We can choose to pull away and in. 

We can choose ease, peace and happiness. It is our true nature. Not to be earned, but to be claimed. 

The question is, are we willing to choose it ? 🙂

 

 

Making Conscious Relaxation a way of life

In the extremely competitive and achievements oriented world that we live in, very minimal importance is given to rest and relaxation. Although it is much needed for improved performance and efficiency.

Also there is the belief that we should relax only after completing all our chores. This is not necessary. We can learn to integrate relaxation into our day as we continue to perform our daily tasks. 

Some ways you can accomplish this are:  

1. Check in with yourself from time to time to see if you are holding any unnecessary tension in the body. Consciously relax your shoulders, neck, jaw, space between the eyebrows. When your body is relaxed, it will be easier for your mind to be relaxed too. 

2. Take short breaks to breathe deeply.  As you inhale fill up your side ribs, back ribs, abdomen and chest and as you exhale , exhale all the way out. You can even visualize inhaling positive energy and exhaling out anything that doesn't serve you. You could use words such as "calm" and "ease" or "let" and "go" whispering to yourself "calm" or "let" as you inhale, and whispering to yourself "ease" or "go" as you exhale. 

I often advice my students to put post it notes around their house or workplace where they can see it , with the word "breathe" written on it. These can serve as reminders to pause, take attention inward, and relax consciously. 

3. Kick start a breath-work practice if you don't already have one. I teach and practice the alternate nostril breathing or the Anuloma Viloma pranayama. I have explained in detail how to do this on my wellness blog. Take a look: 

https://wheelingawaytowellness.blogspot.com/2012/06/breathing-exercise-2-alternate-nostril.html?m=0

In case you are unclear, feel free to reach out to me, for any clarifications. 

This breath-work practice helps to purify the nadis ( energy channels in the body ), and is a basic breathing exercise that anyone can do. It helps to calm the nervous system and relax the body. 

4. Whenever you feel triggered and unpleasant emotions grip you, see if you can connect to your breath, take 4-5 deep breaths, before responding to the trigger. Oftentimes in life we may encounter situations that make us uneasy. Acknowledging the unease can help us regulate the emotion and deep breaths can help us calm down so we can take appropriate action 

I hope these tips help you to start practicing relaxation at will and make it a regular part of your day and life 🙏❤️

 

On Building yourself and Others

In the previous post I spoke about how to "cultivate self-love". In this post I want to talk about being conscious of how other people's opinions and comments impact our psyche. Also, as "conscious living practitioners", how we can use our words wisely to inspire, motivate and lift others and avoid the use of words that bring somebody's self-esteem down. 

So, I am going to break this post down into 2 parts. 

Part 1: Safeguarding your psyche:

Being aware of how other people's opinions and words affect us is important so we can safeguard ourselves and not take everything anyone says personally. 

Oftentimes, people closest to us, are the ones to use harsh judgmental words that can affect us deeply and alter our perception of ourselves. And all this can happen without us even realizing it. So first off, know that what anyone says or thinks of you has really nothing to do with you, it's to do with their idea of you which may or may not be true. 

Know that you are important, worthy and deserve love and respect simply because you exist. You don't need to have special talents and skills to be accepted. 

By all means work on yourself, take responsibility for your life, and improve yourself. This will give you more confidence to live your life with ease and self-reliance. But know that it's not the reason why you should be respected. 

Every human being deserves respect and kindness. And if somebody treats you badly, it's due to some internal issue of their own. And there is no need for you to take that personally and evaluate your own self-worth based on their opinion. 

So, to summarize this part: 

A. Be conscious and aware of how other people's opinions and words are affecting you. 

B. Remind yourself to not take anything personally.

C. Know that as humans we are likely to err and flounder. And that's ok. Be gentle, kind and nurture yourself during such times. 

Part 2: Supporting and lifting others build their self-esteem:

Oftentimes, we ourselves are not conscious of how our words impact others. And sometimes use them mindlessly. Let what you speak, or share (now that we have a lot of interaction going on in the social media space) go through the following 5 filters:

T: "Is it true"

H: "Is it helpful"

I: "Is it inspiring"

N: "Is it necessary"

K: "Is it kind" 

Initially it will be a bit of a challenge, to mindfully apply these filters to your conversations, but trust me, overtime it's going to become second nature. And imagine the kind of positive impact you will be creating with your words❤️

One of my favourite Buddhist teachers, Jack Kornfield, had shared this once, on examining the intentions of our speech, that I found very inspiring. It read: 

"Notice the intentions that motivate your speech. Try to be aware of whether your speech is motivated by boredom, concern, irritation, loneliness, compassion, fear, love, competitiveness, or greed. Try to observe without any judgement. Then, after discovering which motivation is present as you speak, notice the effect of the speech. If there is competitiveness or grasping or pride or irritation behind the speech, what response does it elicit from the world around you? If there is compassion or love, what is the response? If your speech is mindless, as if you are on automatic pilot, what is the response? If there is clarity and concern, how is this received and responded to?"

Such sort of reflection will start to make you more aware of how your speech is impacting others, and you will over time learn to choose your words wisely❤️

 

 

Being your own Best Friend

Being your own best friend is going to be a "lifetime practice", 

and definitely worth the effort ❤️

Unless we are familiar with the practice of self love / self care, we may go about our lives with an outward focus, reacting more than responding to people and life situations. We may also feel threatened or fearful when things don't go our way. 

Many things come up for us during the day - we may goof up something, someone might say something to us that we don't like, our emotions fluctuate ( the reason for this could be purely physiological), we may feel anxious about something, things may not go as per our plan.

Our consistent self love/ self care practice can help us during these times. Our practice ( I will talk more about, what this practice can be, just a little bit later ), can give us the strength to receive these unforeseen events/ feelings with a little more ease and grace. 

All it takes is a few minutes of consistent "loving care towards one's own self". So it becomes easy for us to be there for "ourselves" when things get rough.

Some of the ways in which you can start ingraining "love for yourself" are: 

1. Mirror Image Exercise : Everyday, take a few minutes to look at your own eyes in the mirror, and tell yourself, "I love you". It might seem very odd the first time around, but trust me, you will get better and more comfortable with time. 

If saying, "I love you" to yourself feels very uncomfortable, then maybe just begin with ,"I accept you just the way you are", or, "I like you". Once you are comfortable with this, you can progress to, "I love you". If you stick with the practice, you will get to say , "I love you" to yourself pretty soon❤️ 

Some of my students who were initially very hesitant with the practice, now do it with a big grin on their faces 🙂 

2. Speak to yourself kindly : Pay attention to your internal dialogue. Thoughts like, "I am not good enough", "I am not worthy of love", "I don't deserve anything", "I will be loved only when I become successful" can creep in without our conscious knowledge. To avoid such unconscious thoughts entering your mind, consciously whisper to yourself words of loving kindness such as - " May I be happy", " May I be peaceful", " May I be at ease", " I am enough", " I am free to be who I want", " I love myself", or any other affirmation that feels good and appropriate for you. Don't just say it mechanically. Say it from your heart, feel from your heart and you will begin to believe it. 

3. Keep a journal. I like to call mine, "the love journal". If it feels too cheesy to you😁, you can call it something else. The idea is to key in all the things you love and admire about yourself on a daily basis. I like to do this exercise at the end of my day. 

These practices don't take too much time to do but when done consistently have a lasting effect on how you approach life. Adding what I like to call, "ease" into your life❤️

I hope you feel inspired to not just start your practice but stay consistent with it 💖🌸