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