Physical fitness is not enough. A state when you are physically light and look fit but emotionally drained and heavy. This is not a healthy state of affair. Therefore, give yourself another chance every day to grow, build and improve yourself and present the world with the best version of yourself.
7 ways of Daily emotional fitness program :
1. Attitude: Take life as it is. Take each experience at each moment like it. Analysing and overthinking makes it good or bad.
2. Breathing: It is important to do deep breathing ( around 10 times) both morning and evening. Deep breathing calms down the brain and relieves us from tension and stress.
3. Creativity: Every day, learn, create, understand new things, new ideas. This way, we create new neural pathways. Memorizing new things, old lessons do refreshes the memory too.
4. Laugh: Laugh as much as you can. Laughing not only lighten up the mood but also releases happy hormones and keep stress in check.
5. Forgive yourself and another: Forgiving yourself often is important because it reduces the emotional baggage that you carry for something or the other. Forgiving others is equally important because we don’t know what the other person is going through.
6.Maximum Nourishment: Try eating healthy every day. Eating healthy not only influences your physical health but also your mental wellbeing.
7: Be grateful: Last but not least, being grateful for everything you have. Being grateful for every moment and every breath, I live. Being surrounded by people whom I love. And, there are a lot more reasons to be grateful for. Acknowledge them.
Hello Everyone ! Happy Friday 🌼 and have a great weekend ahead 🙋🏻
Every day, in this hustle-bustle of life, there is too much noise to ever be in silence. The cacophony of sounds distract us all the time and our mind is filled with too many overcrowded thoughts. By the end of the day, you are too exhausted physically and mentally with this craziness. But then, can this drama of the outer world ever pause? The answer is yes, unless, we allow ourselves to be paused and listen to the silence.
Yes, the essence of being silent in stillness even for a short time can be a source of great strength, highly rejuvenating not just mentally but physically too. It gives you the much-needed fuel before you step into a new day. We feel stillness is difficult behind all the distractions. Everything gets in our way. It’s only when we become aware and learn to listen to the stillness, we get time to truly rest.
The best day to practise stillness is right from today. Each morning or evening or summer or winter has its kind of stillness. Sitting or lying down, after breathing deeply with eyes closed, away from noises and trying to follow up your natural breaths for some time will let your life simply, drawn into this darknesswhere there is no limitations or constraints. Though it may sound simple, it isn’t that easy. But then, this is a practice. Initially, you are so caught up with thoughts that the mind slips for tomorrow’s meeting, the emails that you have to check, you have to meet up a friend, your next meal to be prepared come all your way. I know my friends, this is a little difficult, as you are trying to focus on nothing and there isn’t any goal to reach.
You start forming a habit when you are doing every day for a couple of minutes. Some days are difficult with too much clutter of thoughts while some days are easy to focus. That’s all ok, my dear friends. As the days pass by, you will learn to enjoy this silence, the peace.The darkness within this stillness has much more to say than anything else. I have tried myself and am still learning and enjoying the process. You will experience inner peace and wisdom, your spiritual growth. This is what people call as meditation or the sacred stillness is all about.
I have already talked about the science point of view ( in some of my previous posts) what meditation, stillness bring about changes in the brain and also in the physical wellbeing (reduces inflammation). Practising stillness also helps in a better quality of sleep. So, the benefits are plenty. I am not exactly using the term “meditation” as there are several methods of guided thought meditations. Here, I am simply talking about the stillness, listening to the silence which helps to nourish us both physically and mentally. It gives us a deeper sense of connectedness, perhaps with the Divine.
Whether or not, to practise stillness or meditation is entirely our choice to make. We can start listening to silence and practise stillness or continue to hide from it.
Your body is not a single entity. It is a community of 50 trillion cells which behaves the way you think, feel and act. When you are in good emotional health, your healthy mental state influence every cell of your body to grow, function healthily and die in normal cyclical order. Again, new cells born and the cycle goes on. But, then this is an ideal situation.
Today, life is full of stressful and unwanted changes. Some of these events like a job change, job stress, death of loved one, divorced or any such situations create a stronger sense of anxiety, sadness, pain which can completely disrupt your emotional health. With emotions running high, your physical health gets affected causing you to develop high blood pressure, hormonal imbalances, stomach ulcers, weight issues etc. Not only this, your immune system gets affected greatly. You are more prone to disease and illness. So, how do we deal with this?
Controlling our external environment, or the circumstances and events in life is not within our control. There is nothing we can do about it. The only thing we have control is on our emotions, thoughts which do influence our physical health.
4 ways to handle better your emotional state:
1.Resilience: Always keep having a positive view of self. Love yourself and understand your self-worth. This helps in creating a security blanket around yourself. Having strong social support, being close to your loved ones, friends do matter. Learning to accept change in the environment, and keeping everything in proper perspective is important. Not everything in life will happen as per your will. All these mindsets help in building resilience to deal with any situations healthily.
2.A balanced life: Always count on your Blessings and gratefulness. Focus on things in your life for which you are grateful. Try not to get obsessed with anything like job pressure, relationship issues, problems at work or at home. Because things do change with time. Let go of the things which are stressful to your life and make time for things which you can enjoy. Create a balance in your life which helps you, in your both, emotional and physical health.
3.Calm your mind: There is a strong mind-body connection.The more your mind is calmer, the more you are stressfree and enjoy a healthier body. Always, make time to engage yourself in mind activity like meditation, listening to calm music, deep breathing, stretching or Yoga.
4.Self-care: To take care of emotional health, try taking care of your physical health by following a healthy routine of eating healthy, sleep, exercise. Releasing pent up emotions by sharing with loved ones and friends is important too. Exercising also helps in letting out pent up emotions.
In your, every day lives, the brain functions as two major parts – Conscious brain and Subconscious brain. Out of this, 90-95 % of your actvities are carried out by our subconscious brain which acts as an auto pilot. This is your habitual brain. While only 5 % is your thinking brain, the cortical brain, who does the conscious brain activity.
The subconscious mind is more of the inner primitive brain also called the limbic brain which does your automatic, habitual behaviours, which is also responsible for your emotions, feelings, reactions, fears, impulses and reflexes in your everyday lives. So, think, how important a role this subconscious mind plays in our day to day life.
From the day, you were born till 6-7 years of life, your brain is in the hypnotic stage. That means, you observed everything in your environment, programmed every good or bad habit from the people surrounding you, picked up every single activity you have seen. That’s how, the subconscious mind got programmed. As you grew up, you started understanding things slowly but you still picked up habits, beliefs, feelings, emotions, reactions of people, your parents, teachers, friends surrounding you. By the time, you became an adult, you have already developed a personality, habits, traits, thinking patterns, which are very much part of you. Your subconscious mind takes the upper hand in controlling your life which you are not even aware.
Your subconscious mind is not your enemy. Because you cannot do without it. Whatever activities you perform like walking, speaking, eating, writing, driving are all because of your subconscious mind programming. Then, how does it affect your life?
When it interferes with your life purpose, your goal, your performance, your task, then it starts affecting your life. From childhood, apart from the huge lists of habits that you have, you might have picked up a certain negative pattern of thinking like fear of failure, low self-esteem, pessimistic thinking, fear of challenges, impulsiveness which can be stumbling block to succeed. Most of the time, you are not even aware of. You become frustrated, sad and disheartened. You read motivation books, watch motivating videos, make tons of effort. Still, unknowingly, you come back to your old thinking pattern. This is because you have developed this habitual thinking pattern over the years. Sometimes, in spite of knowing your faults, you are unable to change. You go through your same fear, worry, negative thinking again and again. Then, how can you change?
To reprogram your subconscious mind :
Keep repeating your changed beliefs and affirmations:
To break a habit and reprogram your mind for a new habit will take time. Your subconscious mind is habitual, so, to learn a new habit and reprogramme your subconscious mind would take some time. Firstly, decide on what you have to change in yourself. Frame that belief or affirmation in your mind. The subconscious mind does not understand verbal language so using metaphors is a convenient way. Then, keep repeating and reaffirming daily till you can form it a habit. It can take a long time and years. But, this is the most convenient and effective way to change your subconscious mind.
Then, there are other methods, like energy psychology, hypnosis, Psych -K where the brain is brought to the alpha-theta a wave stage, and then the belief is slipped into your subconscious mind. I have not much idea about these methods because I have never tried them. You can get more information on them, if you are interested in
Science has revealed long back that any physical body which comprises of atoms emits energy. This is because protons and electrons are in constant motion, vibrating in different frequencies. Therefore, all physical bodies, including human beings, plants, animals, rocks, stones emit energy. Your physical body is surrounded by a bioenergetic field, a luminous field which surrounds like an egg, exactly like a halo. It is a subtle energy field which normally is not visible to the naked eyes nor we are aware in our every day lives. This energy field is not only created physically but also emotionally. Even the thoughts emit energy during different mental processes. This energy field is called “Prana” in yogic science and “Ch’i” in Chinese.
Why this human aura is important? It is this aura or the energy field which helps to maintain the overall health, wellbeing, success in our life purpose.
If there is an imbalance in this energy field, we are affected by disease or ill health. Therefore, the balance in this aura is vital. Quntum Physics has proved that humans are interconnected with each other through this energy field and also the field of the earth, the Universal energy field. Infact, not only humans, plants , animals and all physical bodies are interconnected through this Universal energy field.
Studies have shown that the energy field or the auric field has 7 different layers with colours. The energy field around the head is easily visible. In people like us, it is not visible because of the colour. A golden halo around the head is visible when it is attained by a profound spiritual growth. That is the reason, we see pictures of saints with a halo around the head.
All these 7 layers together form the bioenergetic field of the human aura, which surrounds the human body like an egg-shaped field. Each layer performs a vital function which contributes to the overall wellbeing of the human body. This field interacts and works concerning the energy centres in the physical body which are called Chakras. These energy vortexes emit energy with different colours which blend and form the aura.
Furthest from the physical body to the closest layer:
1.Archetypal aura: This is like the typical matrix of energy pattern layer of who you are. It’s unique and differentiates you from any other individual. It carries the destiny map of your entire life.
2.Spiritual aura: This layer of energy field maintains a balance with different layers and also the energy centres (chakras ) within your physical body. It contributes to your spiritual wellbeing
3.Mental aura: This layer of the energy field is build on your life experiences. It helps you to grow, retrospect and introspect based on your destiny map and experiences. It forms your attitude and concept to life.
4.Emotional aura: This is your life’s driving force. If you are at peace, this layer resonates through the different layers in your aura. If you feel angry, hatred, defensive or negative emotions, this negativity penetrates through the complete aura. Therefore, this layer is important to maintain and integrity of your health.
5.Imaginal Aura: This energy layer is important because it is through this layer, you create, alter your circumstances surrounding your life destiny. It is through this layer, you can create whatever your soul desires and alter your destiny.
6.Etheric aura: This energy field maintains your physical body. It keeps your energy centres in balance and helps the body to thrive towards better health. When the energy to this layer is obstructed, the physical body interprets as disease or illness.
7.Physical aura: This is the closest layer to your body. So, any condition like emotional trauma, physical injuries, cellular change can be evident within your physical aura.
Maintaining the human aura is a complex balancing and fragile act. A healthy nutritious diet, physical exercises, spiritual learnings, mental exercises, good thoughts and meditation, all contribute towards a healthy human aura.
By ego, it means simply, our identity of “self “. It is neither negative nor positive. As a human being to live and survive, we need a strong sense of identity to develop relationships, to thrive, to make a living, to succeed. So, there is nothing wrong with it. Chasing your dream, wanting to own a big house, an expensive car, to earn money, going for adventure is not at all bad.
But, when ego turns into pride, we become over conscious of our identity. When “self” rules life and when fear craves to overprotect our self-identity, then, ego can be disastrous to both us and the people around with whom we live. We become completely blinded of our true identity (soul identity) in order to protect our fake self or ego. We fail to understand, acknowledge and hold no room for other’s opinions and feelings as we think we are always right.
Fake self identity
So, religious practices like Buddhism preaches to conquer the ego and lead a life of our true self. Because, the ego is often identified as our false self, materialistic state, social status, the success which can never lead to happiness and peace within. So, how do we control our ego? Monks and yogis practised meditation for years to get into their true self and tarnished their ego. But, neither you and I have that much time or patience in our everyday life to practise to let go of our ego.
1.So, the easy way to control our ego is being aware of our existence, the limited time we live in this world. And to remember that death is inevitable and inescapable.
2. Staying grounded, and being in company of people that keep you grounded.
3.Realising the present moment, being grateful for it. To understand that living every moment is a blessing and gift.
4. Being aware and avoiding our egotistical pattern of thinking and reactions. (e.g. I am superior, I am better than others, No one can compete with me ….. so on). Reminding myself, that this world has been created by perception, not reality and everything here is transient, not permanent. Our real self and true nature is our relationship with the Universe and the Divine.
All these steps help us to be close to our true self and remind us that our ego is simply, a self-identity tool, just a survival trait in this competitive world and nothing else. We know when to draw the line and not losing our true self and peace.
Hello everyone, I am sharing a beautiful message that I came across about who your real life partner is. This is a beautiful message given by Shri Shri Ravi Shanker, a renowned spiritual guru from India.
I found it interesting and beautiful. Hope you will like it too.
Rumi says: ” What hurts youblesses you. Darkness is your candle “
When life crashes you down, you are deep down in emotional pain which only you can understand and experience. The pain is very personal. Life can put you down in many ways and many times like unhappy relationships, physical appearance like weight issues, heartbreaks, divorce, death of a loved one, sickness, disease, injury.
When you suffer such setbacks, you have a natural tendency of denial and trying to move on as fast as you can. But in the process, the recovery remains incomplete or even worse. I have been a very sensitive person myself in my entire life. So, I have always tried to look out and read for various ways by which a person can recover from any emotional healing. According to psychotherapy, it is important to experience the pain and slowly let the healing process in. It is necessary to feel the pain to let it heal. There are people around you who may have genuine concern about you, will advise you to move on as quick as possible. But in reality, the healing process does takes time to fill up the wound completely.
5 ways by which you can support your healing journey.
1.Acknowledge the pain: Respect and honour your pain for which you have suffered so much. Be it an emotional trauma or a physical illness, acknowledge the pain and experiencing it are important. When you let your emotional pain in, when you are emotionally drained, then only you can let the healing process to begin. Emotional pain can only heal when you let the healing process in. No amount of time or people, psychotherapist’s guidelines can heal your pain unless you acknowledge your pain and let the healing process in.
2.Overcome your mental barrier: When we suffer some kind of pain, we think we are bad human beings, we have been punished for our bad deeds. This mindset needs to change. Everyone goes through some pain and struggle through life. Pain and struggle are a part and parcel about life ‘s journey. Then again, self-doubt starts making us think if we deserve to heal. Yes, we are all very deserving to experience and enjoy life. Certain issues like being overweight, not a conventional good look, can even make you suffer emotionally. It is important to remember, that life is way beyond the superficial things. Accept the fact that external appearance isn’t so important in developing connections. Learn to stop judging yourself.
3.Dig out the source: Try to understand the source where your emotional pain appeared. Maybe the heartbreak, maybe the physical illness, maybe an emotional trauma during childhood or pain due to death of a loved one. Because when you dig in the source, then can you initiate the healing. Knowing the root, and working on it slowly helps you start healing.
4.Letting go: Let go of your fear and anxieties: Overthinking and worrying don’t let you heal. You have to let go of your anxieties, stress and fear which in turn will harm you more than doing any good for you. Even in case of physical illness, when you let go of your stress, there is a balance of the hormonal, nervous and immune systems which are all very much part of the healing process. Emotional healing starts to happen when you let go of stress completely.
5.Learn from the scar: Whether it’s an emotional scar or a physical scar, revisiting and rumination aren’t healthy at all. Ruminating the experience again and again, not only becomes toxic but even make it more difficult to heal and move on from the pain. Remember, everything around you changes, even your body’s cells undergo continuous transformation and regeneration, so leaving behind the pain and the past does help you heal faster and start refresh.
Science has already proved that every day, we generate about 70, 000 thoughts. Out of which, most of the thoughts are similar to those of the previous days. Some or most are negative thoughts of fear, worry, pain, hurt, anxiety which greatly affects our daily life and wellbeing while some can be positive thoughts of joy, gratitude, confidence, hope which helps us carry our day through.
So, our wellbeing, life, health are all driven by the thoughts that are generated in our mind daily. Therefore, thought hygiene is the continuous flow of thoughts that goes inside our mind throughout the day, about self, experiences and the world around us. If the majority of the thoughts are uplifting, or at least in coordination with our life goal, purpose, then it is wonderful and promotes our wellbeing. But when it is just the opposite or the ones which don’t motivate or uplift our life, then it is time to consciously put a continuous effort to change our thought hygiene.
4 simple ways of practising thought hygiene.
1.Awareness: Make a conscious effort to observe your thoughts every day. By simply observing, is already a big step that you have taken to control your mind. When you are aware of your thoughts, what kind of thoughts preoccupy your mind most of the time in the day, why and when do the negative thoughts come? You are simply taking charge of your mind. The more you become aware of them, the negative or the unwanted thoughts cannot affect you any longer. Slowly, you can turn those negative thoughts into positive and at least make them no longer affect you.
2.Change your inner attitude: It is important to change our inner attitude or approach towards life. Take life and experiences with lots of love and humour. This also means stopping yourself to take everything very seriously. Any experiences daily with life, personal, professional, social should be accepted as they are. Overthinking and analysing makes them bad or good. In this way, at least, you can accept life with more smiles and pleasant experiences.
3.Observing your behaviour: Start observing your behaviour, your action. Your habits are not formed today. It has been practised for quite a long time to turn them into your habitual behaviour and action. So, to change them, you need a continuous effort and awareness. We always blame or complain of ourselves or others for anything that didn’t happen as it should have been. Self-analyzing and self-criticizing is somewhat a subconscious behaviour that we have with most of us. Again criticising others or blaming others for something or the other is a common behaviour. So, when we become aware and start correcting or at least make a continuous effort to change such habits, thoughts and attitude, actions are bound to change and life becomes easier.
4.Start each day with a positive thought: Postive thoughts and affirmations are very powerful. At least, when you start the day with a positive thought, then carry on throughout the day with the positive affirmation, even if the day didn’t go so well, the negativity or the unpleasantness doesn’t affect you much. You still end the day with hope and look forward to the next day. When you are already thinking negatively, you are internally negative, none of the experiences in the day can be an uplifting or happy experience.
