We all want more positive, less negative, in our life and in our mind.
We all have feelings and thoughts; we have ups and downs – and the share of each isn’t necessarily fairly distributed from person to person.
How do we live a whole life that is capable of managing positive and negative, ups and downs, and, find a compatibility between heart felt desires and rational thinking?
Perhaps we have to first be open to experiencing both and take on all of these things. Can we really be selective about what we think and feel? Today’s ‘gurus’ and life coaches say we can. Maybe..
But my understanding of acceptance includes knowing there will be things I think and feel, and experience in life, that will not be helpful or serve my path (whatever that may be).
Yet, from this openness and living with eyes wide open, we can – through little daily practices – not only support ourselves in carrying the polarities of life, but find ourselves having a bigger heart and a compassionate thinking mind.
Awareness is like the god of it all: awareness can carry it all without conflict.
Here are some ideas and tips for everyday practices for living a whole life:
-Rather than heart vs mind, pay attention to both, listen as an arbiter and be empathic to both
-One treat a day! Be it taking five minutes to sit in your favourite chair, pausing, enjoying two squares of dark chocolate, listening to a piece of music, or deliberately stepping away from the desk/computer, whatever it is… you can find one simple treat a day.
-Upon laying your head on the pillow, be thankful for 3 things
-When feeling disappointment, allow for it, and know it can make us bigger, not smaller
-Stay ever curious and open, not just to new things, but to rediscovery and being surprised by elements or features of things or people you thought you knew
-Some people will always have an easier path than you do, by the same token, some people seem to have a harder time than you do; so you can always assume you’re in the contented middle.
-Find wonder and joy in what is around you
-Watch thoughts and emotions – don’t dismiss either, but know they are like water – flowing, changing, coming from one place and eventually going to another
-There will be at least one moment in the day when everything you need you have right now
-There’s a dignity in quietly working hard and doing what you need to do, and fulfilling your responsibilities. That is also a good life.
-Surrender is a practice; intentional application of surrender will lead to feeling it naturally over time
-Doing and growing and learning can be thought about and pursued, but nothing makes us grow and learn more than when we are in the present
-Patience might just be the biggest learning
-What if the search of truth and love lands back… at you. What if you are truth and love?
Any of these suggestions resonate with you? Do you have your own? I’d love to hear. Drop me a line. Divya x
-picture credit: Fully Aligned by Angie Kegebien