Yesterday was a rough day. For many folks, every day is a rough day. Take heart though, here are a few simple tips to help you handle, move through, and move beyond your worst nightmares. Here’s now to nip those big upsets in the bud! If you are in the midst of financial challenges, business downturns, layoffs, health challenges, depression or any other major two-by-fours across your head, take heart.
1. Step away from the chaos. Take a breath break. This simple basic key to life is often overlooked in the midst of high stress. We can survive without food and water, but within minutes we perish wihtout breath.
2.Speaking of water, drink it! Regularly! Coffee, tea, juices and soft drinks don’t count. Here’s the rub: our body systems are run by minute amounts of electricity. A car battery won’t run without water, neither will we. Recharge your batteries with frequent small amounts of good quality water. For extra pizzaz, take a moment to acknowledge the gift of water and ask that it be blessed. That blessing will be returned to sender.
3. Get up and move! Movement will change your emotions, physiology, and state of mind. Combine movement and breath and you have a recipe for de-stressing on the go. Martial artists have learned to “shake it off” by standing up, shaking their hands as though they were shaking off water. That stimulates all your energy centers, known as meridians. Do this vigorously for a few moments. If you’re so inclined stand on one foot and shake the other. Then repeat with the other foot.
4. Reflect on the goodness in your life. If you can’t see any in the moment, make it up. I have a group of nature photos that I use when I need to take a mini-vacation at my desk. For just a moment or two, I drink in the ocean, revel in the mountaintops or walk amongst the flowers. Your brain can’t tell the difference between an imagined or real thought, so focus on what is good, loving, and supportive.
5. What you choose to focus on you draw to you. Your ego, a.k.a. negative self-protecting slayer-of-dreams, will tell you why you can’t choose to be happy when your external life may be falling apart. It’s a liar! When times are challenging, there is a HUGE opportunity to re-invent your life. Most folks are so afraid of dying they forget to live. The only thing constant is change. You can control how you view change.
6. Tips one through five are only suggestions. Find the ones that appeal to you and work them. The proof is in the doing. Life will continue to change with or without your cooperation. Life works when you work it. You work it when you cooperate with life as it presents itself. Taking a chill pill, breathing, moving and practicing conscious gratitude will up your energy, clear your mind, and open doors to new creative ways to move beyond your stress. Right now, I’m doing all of the above, and invite you to do the same
.Sending you Love and Light. When we choose to face the sun, the shadows are behind us.
