Practice 17 - Solution Oriented approach

Train your mind to focus on Solutions.

#consciousliving #practice17 #solutionorientedapproach

Practice 16 - Acceptance

To strengthen this practice, remind yourself often, to flow with the current of life.

All's well.

#consciousliving #practice16 #acceptance

Practice 15 - Be Enthusiastic

To strengthen this practice focus on doing one routine activity differently. For example, you could wash vessels with greater mindfulness, clothes can be dried by paying close attention to the fabric, maybe even while singing your favorite song 😃. Allow your creativity to work here.

Life gets interesting when we add enthusiasm to everyday life🙂

#consciousliving #practice15 #beenthusiastic

Practice 14 - Random Act of Kindness

To strengthen this practice, make it a point to help someone each day. Consciously look for opportunities to help out. Don't let a single day pass by where you haven't gone out of your way to make yourself useful.

Look at yourself as an instrument to make this world a better place, and go about your day and life with that mindset. When you look at yourself as an instrument, you will find yourself more willing to contribute and extend help.

#consciousliving #practice14 #randomactofkindness

Practice 13 - Self assertiveness

Learn to live your life as an "individual" first. Playing different roles such as that of a mother, father, husband, wife, daughter, son, daughter in law etc sometimes causes us to keep fulfilling the needs of others through those different roles putting our own individual needs in the back burner. This can back fire when we are least expecting it.

Take a step back and notice if you are continually putting others needs first over your own, saying yes when you want to say No.

It's not selfish to look after ones needs. It is only sensible. You are an individual first before the multiple roles you play. Respect your dreams, aspirations, needs, desires and never hesitate to stand up for them.

#consciousliving #practice13 #selfassertiveness

Practice 12 - Minimize Distractions

To strengthen this practice make sure to take a "social media / gadget fast" everyday, consciously, for a minimum of four hours. 

Use this time to connect in person with your family and friends. And if there is no one to connect with, stay present with yourself 💕🌸. 

#consciousliving #practice12 #minimizedistractions 

Practice 11 - Respond with love

Repeat the following affirmation, everyday, almost like a daily prayer. Setting an intent to "respond with love", can make it easier for you to practice it than without any intent setting. 

#consciousliving #practice11 #respondwithlove

Practice 10 - Loving Kindness

To strengthen this practice:

# Send out loving kindness wishes throughout the day to people you come across. Send it out to your family - parents, spouse, kids etc, to people walking on the road, the security guard, your house help, gardener, cab driver, bus driver, conductor, to animals, plants, just about anyone who is part of your world 🙂. Do this diligently and consciously each day. 

The loving kindness wishes that you send out can be something on the lines of - 

"May you be happy and peaceful" or
"May your body be healthy and strong" or
"May you be safe and protected" or
"May you live with ease and joy" 


#consciousliving #practice10 #lovingkindness

Practice 9 - Accept emotions as is

To practice this:

# Apply "RAIN" to all the difficult emotions you encounter through the day:

#consciousliving #practice9 #acceptemotionsasis

Practice 8 - Forgiveness

To practice this:

# Reflect on the following forgiveness prayer whenever you find the time. If possible, do so each day of your life :) 

#consciousliving #practice8 #forgiveness

Practice 7 - Be consistent

In order to see progress it is important to be regular with the "conscious living practices". To make sure you are on track:

# Set some time end of each week to take stock of how you are doing - which practices you have attained mastery in, which practice requires more work etc

#consciousliving #practice7 #beconsistent

Practice 6 - Meditation

To practice:

# Sit quietly for at least 10 minutes a day. Slowly increase duration to 20 minutes. Try to do unguided meditation by focusing on your breath, physical sensations in the body or the sounds around you. Set time aside to do this every single day without fail. Keep a journal to record your experiences.

# If you find unguided meditation difficult then begin with guided meditation. You can look for guided meditation on apps such as headspace and insight timer. You can also use the "Breathing App", and practice resonance breathing on it as a way of meditation. 

#consciousliving #practice6 #Meditation

Practice 5 - Self love

Here are some ways in which we can cultivate self love :-

A. Keep a journal where you key in all the things you love and appreciate about yourself on a daily basis. Look at penning down at least 3 each day.

B. Cultivate a loving acceptance of yourself even in times that you end up behaving badly. Forgive yourself and do whatever that you can to nurture yourself.

C. Everyday make it a point to do one task you truly enjoy doing. It could be reading or listening to your favorite song or anything else that uplifts your mood.

D. Start doing the "Mirror image exercise" which involves you looking at yourself in the mirror and telling yourself " I love you". Might seem odd at first, but just keep at it.

#consciousliving #practice5 #selflove

Practice 4 - Express Gratitude

# Start a formal practice of penning down 3 things to be grateful for every single day.

# Apart from a formal practice, make it a habit to mentally thank every little thing that makes your life beautiful 🌸🙂

# Express gratitude for the food on your plate

# Express gratitude for the clean water 

# Express gratitude for the clothes you get to wear 

# Express gratitude for the roof over your head

# Express gratitude for your family 

# Express gratitude for your education 

# Express gratitude for your work 

Keep doing this, and notice if expressing gratitude often makes you complain a little less🙂🌸💕🙏

#consciousliving #practice4 #gratitude

Practice 3 - Create Mindful Moments

To put this into practice, 

# Consciously choose an activity to give your entire attention to. Choose an everyday daily activity such as brushing or bathing. Involve all of your senses into the activity - see what you are seeing, hear what you are hearing, feel what you are feeling, taste what you are tasting, smell what you are smelling. Be completely present.

Continue this complete presence with the activity for several days, till it becomes second nature.

Now, slowly start adding more daily activities to give your complete attention.

Notice how bringing a greater awareness to your daily activities changes the quality of what you are doing and also how it frees your mind from unnecessary mental chatter.

# You can use mindful presence every time there is too much going on in your mind and you want to take a break from mental chatter that's adding to your stress. Just drop everything and focus on what's around you at the moment. Use this as a tool to help you cope with stress induced by too much thinking.

# Practice mindful eating with all your daily meals. Do this by chewing your food slowly and fully, paying attention to the colors, textures and tastes on your plate, and expressing gratitude to all the people who played a role in bringing the food onto your plate 🙂 Focus on your meal and avoid idle conversations.

#Consciousliving #practice 3 #mindfulmoments

Practice 2 - Relax

To apply practice 2 into your daily life:

# As often as possible, perform body scan to identify areas of tension in the body. Visualize releasing the tension with your out breath.

# When you feel tensed, fatigued, stressed just visualize your entire body engulfed in a beautiful golden or white light ( or any other color that you associate with relaxation ). As you inhale, imagine inhaling positive energy from this bubble of light and as you exhale, imagine letting go of tension, stress, fatigue, strain and anything that doesn't serve the purpose.

# Every time you feel triggered by outside circumstances, such as being stuck in a traffic or getting irritated because of the unreasonable behavior of your children or spouse, or just any other situation that triggers negative emotions in you, take 5 conscious breaths - 5 deep inhales and complete exhales. Respond to the trigger only after having done this. 

# End of each day, reflect on what triggered you negatively through the day, and how you responded to it. 

#consciousliving #practice2 #relax

Practice 1 - Smile Smile Smile 😊😊😊

Lets try to put the first of the conscious living practices into practice, by smiling more often. Here are some ways in which you can do that 😊🌸💕

#Wake up in the morning with a smile on your face😊 set your alarm 5 minutes before the usual time. Use this time to sit quietly on your bed, draw your awareness inward to your breath, add a slight smile to your lips, visualize a smiling heart and step out of bed. 

# It's possible that you miss doing this first thing in the morning 😊 in which case you can put a light smile on your face whenever you remember. Notice how even slight smile on your face allows your entire body to relax.   

# Especially when stepping out of the house, remain mindful of who you come across. Set an intention to share your smile with as many people as possible 😊 

# End of each day, reflect on who you shared your smile with, and how that made you feel.

#Consciousliving #practice1 #Smile  

Application of the practices into daily life

So now we have a total of 30 practices that, if applied, can help us live our lives with greater consciousness. Most of you would feel, that there is nothing new that you have learnt :-) and I contend with you on that. You all must have read these concepts in different forms - articles, motivational videos, podcasts, TED talks, books.

While we vehemently agree that they make sense and when applied can improve our lives and our state of mind, we fail to apply them regularly. And that's due to our forgetfulness and constant association with the external world, that places undue importance to outward accomplishments and appearances.

Today many individuals get educated to get a job and a 6 figure salary. That seems to be the priority. Moral values, consciousness of how ones action is impacting ones environment, role of kindness and compassion, honesty etc is not considered important and this is the reason why we have a world filled with dissatisfied people struggling to find ease and peace in their lives. 

A consciousness revolution is the need of the hour. The purpose of education cannot be to get a good job alone. The purpose of education should also be to help people find peace within and contribute to peace outside of themselves. 

It is never too late to start afresh and create positive actions that serve us and others. 

I sincerely hope, that I will have many people join me in this revolution of awakening to our true selves and being an instrument of peace and harmony through conscious living.

So far we have spoken about what these practices are. From hereon, our focus will be on how to apply these practices into our everyday life. 

As a first step, memorize the 30 practices. Having them in the back of your mind will help you recognize opportunities in your everyday life, to apply them, and experience the results, for yourself.  

Conscious living Practice 30 - Serve

We feel intrinsically good when we can add value to the life of others, have something worthwhile to share, and can help others. 

We all have strengths and skills that we can use to share with others. Doing so will add meaning to our lives. 

Starting today, begin the practice of asking yourself, "how can I serve others?" And do the best you can to use your current strengths and skills to add value to the lives of those you touch. Notice, how that makes you feel. 

#consciousliving # practice 30 # serve 

Conscious living Practice 29 - Slow down and pause

At the risk of sounding like a broken record, I am going to reiterate the importance of remembering how fleeting and temporary life is. Usually when we get triggered we are quick to react. And being reactive instead of responsive only has a negative consequence. 

But if we can pause in that triggered moment, we will realize that we can choose to respond instead of react. 

In the book," Man's search for meaning", the author Victor Frankl says, " between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom."

The practice of pausing can be applied throughout the day, not just when we find ourselves being reactive but also for other things like, pausing before judging someone, pausing before indulging in conversations that don't add value, pausing before eating / drinking, pausing before buying things we don't need. The list can go on. 

Adding a pause to slow down and breathe can help us make appropriate choices that will result in our overall well being. 

#consciousliving #practice 29 #slowdownandpause 

Conscious living Practice 28 - Examine your intentions

It is important to be clear on why we do what we do. If we for example enroll for an exercise program, having clarity on what our intention is will help us stay consistent in our practice. 

However, not having a clear intention, will cause us to easily lose commitment. 

Learning to ask ourselves "why" often, will help us strengthen our intention. Some questions we can ask ourselves are :  

- why should I eat healthy food? 

- why should I practice conscious living? 

- why should I exercise? 

- why should I upload this picture on Facebook. What purpose does it serve? 

- why am I am reading this particular book? 

Let the answers come from within. The answers will help us make better choices. And we can live our life with greater clarity and purpose. 

#consciousliving #practice28 #examineintentions

Conscious Living Practice 27 - Take Responsibility for your life

Our life is a result of the choices that we have made. It is important to take full responsibility and ownership for the life that we have created and avoid blaming other people or circumstances for our present condition. 

As one of the buddhist quote says, never mind the past, you can always start afresh :-) 

By bringing our consciousness to the area of our life that we want to improve, we can take the necessary steps to make positive changes. 

Remembering to  "let go" control of how things should be, and being grateful for where we are can help us not be too attached to the result of our efforts. We can learn to do our best and leave the rest :-) 

Its important to once again remind ourselves of the temporary nature of life. All that we build, one day, we have to let go. This does not mean that we don't build anything or pursue our dreams or fulfill our desires. By all means, we can go after our dreams and goals, the results we get will be in proportion to the amount of consciousness and effort we put in. However, we have to be ( no choice there :-) ) ready to let go, when time comes. 

To me its the journey to success that counts more than the success itself. Its the learning along the way that is more valuable. 

#Consciousliving # practices # takeresponsibilityforyourlife

Conscious living Practice 26 - Let go

When difficult emotions arise, we can choose to pause, and remind ourselves that everything is temporary. Just that reminder will allow us to treat the difficult emotions with care, preventing us from just acting them out. 

Whether we realize it or not, we all have a choice at every moment, on how we choose to respond. We can look at every trying circumstance that arises difficult emotions in us ( getting stuck in a traffic jam, waiting for our turn in the queue, annoying colleagues, cranky kid, etc etc etc ) as opportunities to practice "letting go" and accepting the situation / person as is. 

Nothing is worth losing our peace of mind over. NOTHING. Just learning to "drop" anything that weighs us down and doesn't serve our higher purpose, can restore peace and balance in our lives.

"Dwelling" is the disease of the mind. When we dwell on something, we are not in the present moment. Dwelling on anything, good or bad is akin to being stuck in the past. We miss experiencing the moment in front of us and let them pass without experiencing them fully by simply remaining stuck with our thoughts. Instead of being stuck, we can choose to "let go" of this need to dwell and arrive into presence. Life is almost always good in the "now"😊

#consciousliving #practices #let go 

Conscious living Practice 25 - Disengage with what doesn't serve you

Today we live in a world where there are plenty of things vying for our attention. Each day we are bombarded with political / personal / other random debates, what's app forwards that result in elaborate discussions, Facebook posts, Instagram posts, just to name a few. If we don't learn to discern between what deserves our attention and what can be ignored, we will end up sacrificing our inner peace and misuse our limited time and energy. 

From today, I invite you to draw your awareness to your engagements. Just pause and reflect before you start engaging with any posts or even verbal discussions with people, whether it serves your higher purpose, uplifts your mood, contributes to your peace of mind, personal well being and growth or it's going to cause you to lose your peace and cause unnecessary irritation. If the latter, then choose to disengage yourself with the post / situation /discussion. Just let it go. Not all things/ posts / discussions deserve your time and involvement. 🙂

#consciouslivingpractices #practice25 #disengagewithwhatdoesn'tserveyou

Conscious Living Practice 24 - Cultivate an Empowering Belief System

What are your core values and beliefs ? Are these truly yours or are you unconsciously accepting beliefs passed on to you by others? How empowering are these beliefs and do they help you rise up in life or weigh you down?

Having a clear understanding of ones beliefs and values can help one make decisions that feel right and are in alignment with one's true nature. Shaky beliefs and value systems do just the opposite. Make you indecisive and unclear on how to respond to situations. 

I invite you to reflect on some of your core values and beliefs. Choose a few that you can revisit often. 

I like to have one main intention for my life. And a bunch of beliefs that I like to reflect on almost every day. It's like reciting daily slokas. When I am faced with a situation where I am confused how to respond, revisiting my beliefs helps me allign myself to my true nature and how I would personally like to live my life. 

Attached is a presentation of my "core intention" for this life and beliefs I like to live by. You can use this as an example to create your own intention and beliefs to guide you through your life. 

#consciouslivingpractices # practice 24 #cultivating an empowering beliefs system

Conscious Living Practice 23 - Practice Right Speech

Our words are powerful and we can use them to bring about a positive change into our lives and those of others by its proper use . By improper use we can do just the opposite. 

Many of us use words very casually without any intention. We do not pause before speaking and end up not using the power of words effectively.  

We can learn to pause before speaking ( It may not always be possible, but try to practice as much as possible ) and ask ourselves if what we are going to speak is:

T : True?

H : Helpful?

I : Inspiring?

N: Necessary?

K: Kind?

If not, we can refrain from speaking :-) 

As you practice pausing before speaking, you will realize that a lot of our conversations are irrelevant and unnecessary, not adding any value to us or the person who we are speaking to. By applying this rule, we will save a lot of energy and also avoid negative conversations that are critical, bring other people down, and are of the nature of gossip. 

I invite you to join me in working with our speech. I very well know that it is not easy and can take many many years to master. So what better time to start than now :-) 

You can keep a journal to note down how many times you paused and changed your mind about saying something. How often you expressed your appreciation and boosted the morale of people with your words. How often you refrained from critical remarks that brought somebody's self esteem and confidence down? 

Jack kornfield wrote in one of his posts which is very relevant to our current post  - 

" 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? " 

The above exercise can be a wonderful mindfulness practice and it will really make us more conscious of the impact our words have. Lets start to use our words carefully and create a positive difference to our own lives and those of others lives who we touch with our words. 

#consciousliving #practice23 # practicerightspeech

Conscious living Practice 22 - Take help

Sometimes we can get into situations that are very overwhelming for us. During those times, let us not hesitate to reach out to others for help. 

No matter what practices we have been doing, it is possible that we still encounter situations where we feel stuck and unable to find a way out. During those times let's learn to just reach out and seek help. In today's time people are more than willing to help. We just need to ask🙂

Our physical, mental and emotional health should be of utmost priority at all times. And if taking help is necessary in order for us to maintain that then so be it. 

Many women, even today ( I find this to be the case especially in the previous generation ) feel obligated to do all the house chores by themselves. It is not that their partners are unwilling to help but these women hesitate to ask for help assuming and taking way too much responsibility on their shoulders. This eventually results in poor health which doesn't do the family any good. It's time we learnt to discern where help is required and shamelessly ask for it. 

#consciousliving #practice22 #takehelp

Conscious living Practice 21 - Cultivate a growth mindset

In general we all tend to have a "pleasure seeking" mindset. While we know that all growth happens during adversity or being out of our comfort zones, we prefer to not have adverse time or to step out of our comfort zone. We are wired for pleasure. Draw your consciousness to this attitude. And ask yourself what would happen if instead of seeking pleasure, you sought growth?

Doing so will make you approach every difficult time/ disappointment/ adversity that you face as an opportunity to grow - to grow stronger, to learn to deal with difficult times, to increase your capacity to tolerate inconveniences. 

You would no longer wish life to be any different from what it is. But would learn to flow with it, growing every step of the way. You will learn to embrace life. 

When times are good, you can be present and enjoy the moments and when times are bad, you can learn to accept the situation and see what's the learning and growth opportunity for you there. So you are either enjoying( when life treats you well ), learning and growing ( when life is throwing challenges at you ). Of course you don't need to run after challenges just so you can grow😁, just learn to receive every situation in your life with grace and equanimity🙂🙏

#consciousliving #practice21 #cultivatingagrowthmindset 

Conscious living Practice 20 - Maintain healthy relationships

This post is going to be long because it is not very easy to explain "maintaining healthy relationships". So I am going to break this post down into questions and answers.

What is an 'ideal relationship'?

Today we live in times where everything is defined. What a good relationship is, what a bad relationship is etc etc. So we develop these ideas in our heads about how a relationship should be. The truth is that " No relationship is perfect". Perfect is a concept in our heads. Understanding this is key. Don't look for ideal relationships. Work with what you have got. 

What are we dealing with in a relationship? 

Humans, who are by nature fallible. If we hold everyone to very high standards, then we are going to feel disappointed a great deal of time. Learning to accept people as they are moment by moment can help ease out difficulties. 

What should be our intention in a relationship in order to be happy? 

Relationships are not meant to make us happy. They are there to help us grow. They help us learn more about ourselves as well as the other person who we are dealing with. If we set our intention to learn and grow through our relationships, then our relationship will be a success. 

Why are people, sometimes even close people rude to us, and how to deal with this? 

Sometimes people close to us are rude to us, not because they are inherently bad. But maybe because they are in some sort of emotional pain. And are expressing themselves negatively. Always remember only somebody in pain can give pain to others. Happy people spread happiness. This is an opportunity for you to be compassionate and respond with love. You can also apply loving kindness practice and send out blessings to this person acting out his/her pain.

However, if somebody is being abusive ( physically or emotionally ) then you have every right to protect yourself, or find a way to minimize or completely cut contact from the abusive person, if that's possible. If the abusive person happens to be a close family member then you will need to find ways to minimize contact, as your own physical and mental health should always be of top priority. First share a good and healthy relationship with yourself. 

What are the ways in which I can nurture my relationships?

- Respond to people with love : This takes effort and practice. We get easily irritated with people very close to us like parents, kids and spouse and tend to take them for granted. See if you can practice 'responding with love' with them a great deal of time. All learning should first begin from your own home. 

- Respect All : Treat everyone equally. Inferior and superior are all egoic concepts we have created in our own heads. We are all the same going through different individualistic life paths. We all will die one day, along with that will go, all the identities that we have created. All that really matters is how harmoniously we learnt to live with our differences. 

- Share your time : Time is the most wonderful gift you can give anyone. Call up that friend, visit a relative, invite friends over for coffee or dinner, play with your kids, dance with your spouse. And use this time, to be mindful. Give the person who you are spending time with your undivided attention. That would be the most wonderful way to nurture the relationship you share. Make it a habit to find creative ways of nurturing the relationships you have. The more energy you put into something, the better the result.🙂

I will close this post with a wonderful article on 'how the porcupines survived the ice age. Read and reflect how it applies to our own relationships 🙂

https://www.google.co.in/amp/s/betterlifecoachingblog.com/2010/12/17/how-the-porcupines-survived-the-ice-age-a-story-about-our-need-for-relationships/amp/

Conscious living Practice 19 - Exercise Caution

The other day my friend told me about an incident she witnessed where a young girl was crossing the road wearing headphones in her ears and unable to hear sounds of vehicles, accidentally bumped into a cyclist, hurting herself. Now, clearly if she had exercised some caution, the incident could have been avoided. Just like her, if we were to scrutinize our own lives, we would realize that we too sometimes miss exercising caution, where being cautious can be of help. 

Today onward I invite you to start building awareness to being cautious. This will definitely involve you to be mindful and take necessary steps to live a courageous but cautious life. 

Some examples of exercising caution : 

- Be mindful while walking on the road of vehicles around. Walk on pavement meant for pedestrians.

- Be careful while driving. Drive on the lane meant for driving and never overtake from the wrong side.

- Wear helmet while riding on a bike. Your head is the most precious part of your body. Protect it.  

- Do regular medical check ups. If you haven't done one in a long time, then schedule one now. 
- When the weather is cold and wind chilly, cover your ears and keep yourself warm.

These are just a few examples, I am sure you can think of many more where you can exercise caution. 

#consciousliving #practice19 #exercisecaution 

Conscious living Practice 18 - Minimize Procrastination

We all have that one task that we know we have to do, but keep putting off. Work accumulates over time and begins to hang over our head like the sword of Damocles. There is a very popular Doha of poet Kabirdas which most of us must have read in school. It reads -  kaal kare so aaj kar, aaj kare so ab, pal mein pralaya hoyegi bahuri karoge kab. It means : 

"What you have to do tomorrow, do today. And what you have to do today, do now. If the moment is lost, then how will you do the work". Basically, do whatever needs to be done now.

A very wise advice and something that can simplify our lives if we were to adopt it. 

I invite you to become a little more conscious of the tendency to procrastinate and to try to minimize it by trying to accomplish those tasks that you have been putting off🙂 

#consciousliving #practice18 #minimizeprocrastinstion 

Conscious living Practice 17 - Solution oriented approach

I felt this was the most relevant follow up practice to, Acceptance. When situations are difficult, it doesn't serve us to deny reality. Once we have accepted reality for what it is, we can have a 'solution oriented approach' and look at what we can do, to improve our situation. 

Problems are a part of existence, so instead of focusing on the problem and lamenting over it, let us train ourselves to focus on the solutions. 

The following image of what's in our control and what's not, is a very useful reminder that we can use in our life:

Join me, from this day on, to first accept anything that life throws at you. Time taken to accept a situation will depend  on the magnitude of the situation. Be gentle and patient with yourself. Once you have taken that first step, become solution oriented. 

#consciousliving #practice17 #solutionorientedapproach