Does your life sometimes like a pair of tight shoes? Rather than life feeling like a constant rush from the car to the office feeling those shoes pinch, wouldn’t you like life to feel like you’re wriggling your naked toes in some warm, summer sand? Here are 10 more simple ways to feel like those shoes are coming off for a bit!
1. Lose the shoes in nature. Bare feet on the sand or on the grass: literally ground yourself. Take a moment to feel, really experience, the texture and temperature beneath your toes.
2. Connect with a non verbal being. There is something inherently peaceful in the connection with a loved pet or with a small child. Stroke the cat, walk the dog, stop and admire the neighbours sleeping baby. Feel the peaceful energy that comes from those who cannot talk.
3. Breathe. Slooooooooooooooowly. In the through the nose, right down to the belly, out through the nose. Focus on nothing but your breath for 10 full slow breaths for a shot of instant calm.
4. Savour your food. Eat your next meal with full awareness. Slow it right down bite by bite. Experience the tastes and textures one bite at a time rather than wolfing it down. How is the first bite different to the 5th? The 10th? By being peaceful and not rushing you will enjoy your food more, and also find you eat a little less.
5. Nap. Sleep is good. Napping is good. Sneak in a cheeky power-nap or go to bed a little earlier than usual. Give your body extra rest and it will reward you.
6. Turn off all electronic devices! Sir, step way from the laptop, put the i-phone down! The incessant need to be reactive and in communication at all times, checking, checking checking, is a true dissolver of peace. Have a few hours electronic –free and rediscover what we used to do…read a book, play a game, talk to the people actually in the room with us! Spooky!
7. Be still. Stop with the doing. Just for 10 minutes. You don’t need to meditate, just stop frantically doing and experience stillness. Set a timer on your phone, sit and relax. Relax the muscles in your forehead and jaw. Just let your thoughts wander. Daydream.
8. Tune into the richness of your senses. Be present by stopping and asking yourself to experience the moment through your 5 senses fully. What can you see, feel, hear, smell, taste right now? Stop and really register what your senses can pick up about your current environment.
9. Dance like no one is watching. Peace is generally considered a calm energy but that doesn’t mean it can’t be an active inner connection sometimes. Put on 3 of your favourite dance tunes, turn the music up loud and feel yourself as a part of the music. Feel the joy in the moment, and the peace it brings to reconnect with that joy.
10. Tell a person you love, you love them. Make time and space to mean it. Share the peace.
Let me know how you access your inner peace or how these suggestions work for you!
“Ultimately, we have just one moral duty: to reclaim large areas of peace in ourselves, more and more peace, and to reflect it towards others. And the more peace there is in us, the more peace there will be in our troubled world.”
Etty Hillesum (1914 – 1943, Author of An Interrupted Life)
