Category: Mindfulness

  • To radiate peace, calm your heart and mind

    To radiate peace, calm your heart and mind

    Have you ever noticed those people who walk into a room and just bring an aura of peace? The energy of the room shifts, they bring a calm that’s hard to put into words. We might call it a calming aura and for me, it’s a state I aspire to.

    When these people walk by or enter a room, you can see others visually relax, drop their shoulders and a peace filters in. Around these kind of people, you might feel reassured that everything will be okay and whatever you were worrying about will resolve and turn out for the best. You might even feel that peace when they’re not close by and you think of them.

    Your calm creates safety and you will radiate peace.

    When you bring calm, you’re not a distraction to others. You create focus, motivation and energy for people around you to push forward. You may even feel more comfortable and more like yourself when they are around. It’s a pleasure to be around them and they will help you to be your best.

    Calm in your heart (mind) will send the same energy out across the room and space.

    We wouldn’t be human if we were able to be in this state all of the time. Even on the difficult days when your energy is disrupted or things don’t go your way – choose calm over anger.

    A few tips to help create your own calm and peace:

    • Rethink your work or rest space at home or work. Give yourself a corner for calm
    • Moving your body believe it or not, will get rid of that erratic energy and bring calm to your bodily rhythm and mind
    • Get creative. Pick up a peaceful hobby like painting or music
    • Music. Make yourself a playlist or five that reflect where your mood is at and encourages it to come down down down. I sometimes used the 8hr thunderstorm recording, it’s very peaceful
    • Head outside and get some D, the sunshine vitamin one lol
    • Get a good nights sleep
    • Try one of the many relaxation apps
    • Put the devices away, especially before bed. Try reading a book
    • Guppadea? Make yourself a nice hot cuppa and chill in your calm space
    • Scrapbook. I’ve been looking back through my sketchbook art recently and it’s been very calming. You could make your own book or draw
    • Giving of yourself. Working for others is good for the soul. Donate your time to helping a charity, volunteer organisation
    • Your daily switch off mechanism. Develop your own for after work. For me it’s swimming. I swim 30 minutes each day after work and I love it. Its calming, tiring, a switch off, a cool down an indicator that it’s my other time now

    When you feel calm, you’ll create peace within yourself and your surrounds and it’s a great thing for a healthy mind, body and spirit.

  • Let yourself shine through your healing

    Let yourself shine through your healing

    When you’re on a healing journey in whatever form that takes for you, it can become a constant thought. A fascination, as you learn about yourself, past events and how you’ve been.

    And learning can be all consuming, especially when it’s about yourself and your own growth. Personal growth can be very exciting as you peel away layers and discover your self, talents, weaknesses or your softness and vulnerabilities.

    A healing journey also often involves some pretty hefty emotions. We work through them as we go about our daily lives and it can take our energy.

    While you heal, don’t forget to be the plain ole’ funny you.

    We’re hooman, silly, messy, funny and crazy. We’re smart and dumb, trip up, fall over and then soar high on the same day. This is who we are, and it’s our authentic self. Messy, amusing and hilarious to poke fun at.

    Other ways you may be addressing energising your authentic self; enforcing standards you may have let go, remove tolerances, less performing and more of you, draw the lines and stick to them, make the choices you know you should and refuse disrespect.

    Healing can take our daily energy, consume our thoughts and cloud our identity in some ways. Don’t forget to check in and give the healing some healthy distance, we need to just be ourselves too.

    Shine as yourself as you heal. It’s easy to say, not so easy to do, but somehow the heart already knows how.

  • Confirming your decisions

    Confirming your decisions

    There are often times when we second guess our decisions and it can be so confusing. You might be in two minds about whether you’re making the right call.

    It’s these times, we often wonder what the best way is to balance out all of the factors affecting the decision and give ourselves the best guidance and reassurance.

    There’s all sorts of decision making frameworks and tools you can try and writing or talking it out helps. I find there’s two other things that I consistently use to confirm decisions and ensure I’m making the best call at the time.

    You might also rely on a spiritual guide, the universe, destiny, consult in family or friends or something else. For me, I will try and consult others and I also go back to my values and my why.

    Your personal values are your foundation to guide you when you’re confused or unsure. That’s why it’s so beneficial to have them crystal clear within yourself.

    That is to say, you know what they are and where your lines are (that you won’t cross).

    For example, you may choose to not be friends with anyone who supports abortion. That’s a clear one, others are often greyer. Go back to your personal values and run the decision through your set and see if it aligns.

    Then, and I think this is equally important as your values, go back to your why. Why are you making the choice you are? There will be a core reason and likely some other supporting ones.

    Your core why, will provide you clarity when the noisy doubts crowd your mind. Amongst all of the self-questioning:

    Is this right?
    Will I regret this?
    What if I did that instead?
    I’m afraid of this choice.

    you can return to your core why and the doubts will quieten. Why am I choosing this path? Because of this one original reason, or multiple reasons. It’s easy to forget the core reason we worried about, analysed, planned for and eventually took action over.

    Go back to your why. Your values are your foundation and guiding light, your why confirms your motivation and clears away the doubts.

  • Keep on being your authentic self

    Keep on being your authentic self

    As we move through life meeting people and connecting with them, we leave impressions and memories with people as we go.

    At first I don’t think I was very aware of what I was leaving behind, or how I was affecting others whether positively or negatively. But as our self-awareness and emotional intelligence improves, you start to notice the changes in people that you may have had a small part in creating.

    If you bring happiness, a smile or a laugh to people during their day, you’ll be creating positive memories. And they may recall those times long after you lose connection with them.

    Someone will one day recall your kindness or compassion and smile about it or even pay it forward.

    It’s hard to measure these, I mean how many laughs do you have a day? 😂 Someone may send us a quick message to acknowledge something they’ve remembered or we may hear about it third hand.

    I think it happens a great deal more than we know. People think of you, or something you’ve done for them. The people you hang out with, work mates, friends and family will all be holding these positive memories about some positive experience you’ve been a part of.

    Authentic you is gonna be the best at making yourself and others happy and creating great memories.

    The more true to yourself you are, the better for everyone. When you’re being your authentic self, you shine. You emit a different energy and the people that align with you or your energy will be attracted to your authenticity.

    It’s easy to forget how much good we’re doing in the world with everything going on. But if you’re being authentic you, you’re likely changing the world for the better each and every day.

    It’s a good thing to pause sometimes and remember this. Take a breath and remember that by being amazing you, others are inspired, smile and laugh each day and you’re doing better than you give yourself credit for.

    Keep going, authentic you 🧡✨

  • Cultivate silence to focus

    Cultivate silence to focus

    Our world gets interrupted on average every 10 minutes by notifications and whatever we’re focusing on is reprioritised. We pickup our phone about 40 – 150 times a day.

    That’s not focus. We’re being owned by a device.

    It’s said that any interruption of flow or your daily work, then requires 40 minutes to get back on task and concentrating.

    I know when I’m drawing that I try to put the phone completely away. A vibrating phone and notifications interrupt creativity.

    Here’s a few tips to reducing that loss of focus and flow:

    1. Cultivate silence. It might be uncomfortable at first, but silence will eventually bring calm and then peace to your mind
    2. Create a comfortable space
    3. Surround yourself with things that make bring you happiness
    4. Reduce clutter
    5. Clean off your workspace desk
    6. Ask people to give you quiet time
    7. Review your phone usage. Most phones have some kind of analytics that measure your app usage, times device picked up per day. Assess what’s taking your attention, and take it back
    8. Keep your devices on silent all day. Turn off all notification besides emergency contacts. Vibration, lights, everything off
    9. Leave your phone at home or in your bag for a full day. Try a half day at first if it’s too much

    One version of silence or peace, is when your thoughts stop racing, you’re mentally and physically calm and at ease, your heart isn’t racing, there’s no loud noises and your environment is relaxing. Your version may be different, you might need music to be at peace.

    But whatever your version is, it will hone your ability to focus. And vice versa, when your peace is continually broken, interrupted or taken by other distractions (whatever they might be), you’re ability to focus and get things done is reduced.

    Silence, or your version of calm and peace will exercise that muscle of switching into flow and focus. And with focus, you get things done.