Personal Transformation the Gentle and Simple Way
In recent years there has been a tremendous trend in concepts such as personal transformation and with ideas surrounding laws of attraction. Interestingly enough, in this society, there has also been a tremendous amount of nurtured personal disconnection building steadily for years and years. For example, it is completely plausible for one to flip through television channels and land on a self help guru discussing how to attract success, and mere seconds later, watch a commercial where well dressed people writhe together, and laugh, apparently celebrating their startling sexiness and their clever decision to consume alcohol. How does one navigate through the continual barrage of mixed messages? How does one remain mindful when it’s subliminally obvious from the commercial that late night vodka drinking in the city results in a great tan and lots of “I’m game if you are” hot dates? Which message lands right on the mark in our heads, and which one creates negative impulses and negative thinking? or is it simply just too much to consider?
As it turns out, personal transformation is mindful. Success is mindful. You just need to keep it SIMPLE. Do not allow yourself to become overwhelmed with the enormity of a perceived task at hand, such as, “I need to transform my whole life” or “I must discontinue all of my negative thinking if I am to become rich.” Instead, focus on doing the next right thing. Sounds easy, and almost childlike, doesn’t it? Well exactly. It should be. This means, if you are hungry, make yourself a sandwich. If there is a sink with dirty dishes, wash them. Deliberately and mindfully go about the business of your morning, your afternoon, or evening, by staying in the exact moment, and directing your attention and energy towards doing the next right thing. It is through the movement and completion of these simple tasks, while keeping “do the next right thing” mantra in place, that an order is in play, a simple one, that is aiding to end existing clutter and that which is creating energy blocks.
Simple mindfulness practice is ideal for cultivating stronger inner awareness of the inherent unity of your mind and body, as well as of the myriad ways your unconscious thoughts, behaviors, and feelings can sabotage your emotional, physical, and spiritual health. It is widely known that the mind is a factor in stress and stress-related disorders, and meditation has been proven to positively affect a vast sphere of autonomic physiological processes, namely lowering your blood pressure and changing your overall instinct to respond to stress primarily with emotional reactivity, or essentially, shooting from the hip before your gun is out of it’s rational holster.
There are some basic ways to apply mindful thinking and practice to your life, gently, that are “baby steps”, and therefore somewhat easier to softly slide into play along with your existing habits and routines. With the involvement of some of these strategies, you may be able to reflect upon the “routines” and “habits” themselves, and realize they are only a way you are carrying out your behaviors, almost like a familiar route to the store. You rely on that method of getting to the store, because it is familiar, and therefore more comfortable unaltered because it seems like more work to determine a more efficient way to arrive at your destination. The following are some elements to invite into your mental and physical landscape to gently assist your existing “routes”:
1. believe in something larger and more beautiful than yourself. This does not necessarily mean running to join an organized religion, or a church down the street, although it could. Consider this task can be as small as “doing the next right thing.” So believing in something greater than yourself can mean LOOK UP. Raise your chin and breathe deeply. Look towards the sky. Take in the enormity, the vastness. BREATHE DEEPLY. As you breathe deeply, you are inviting more oxygen into your lungs, and therefore adding more oxygen into your blood stream, which then facilitating the passage of oxygen and nutrient rich blood to all of your organs. It is like a power food delivery to your grateful and hungry cells. This will help relieve anxiety, and feed your mind, enabling clearer thoughts. Watch the clouds and the birds. You are a part of this vastness, this universal and larger than life beauty.
2. Help those who are struggling more than you are. Again, this is the premise of “do the next right thing”. You do not have to go donate all your money to charity or spend your weekends in the nursing home or whatever “too much to handle” thought races into your mind. Rather, hold the door open for someone navigating too many grocery bags and wearing a frustrated grimace. Smile at the jogger. Call a friend or a family member who you know has a difficult situation in their life, simply to tell them you were thinking of them, and would they like to take a walk, or do they need help with a household chore. Remember, there is ALWAYS someone who has it rougher than you do. It will not be hard to find someone to assist. In turn, this gets you out of your own hamster cage swirling mind, and puts you at service for someone who may be lonely and overwhelmed. Do this with a gentle perspective. With the commonality of each of your struggles in mind. Struggle is universal. Breathe.
3. Pay attention to your diet. Now this little nugget of advice is hardly brand new, as it is included in nearly every strategy for self help, and even in fast food commercials! But that doesn’t mean that you may totally understand how connected and crucial a healthy diet is. Quite often vitamin and mineral deficiencies manifest themselves as symptoms that affect our mood, disposition, concentration, and overall energy. An example of this is as follows: A magnesium deficiency can result in symptoms ranging from fatigue, muscle cramps/spasms/weakness, headache, personality change, etc. All too often the sufferer will be misdiagnosed, and shortly thereafter will be on a host of painkillers, or prescription drugs, or awash in feelings of depression and failure, completely overwhelmed with the belief they have fibromyalgia, when all the while, they simply needed to include more magnesium in their diet. They needed a change on their dinner plate, not at the pharmacy.
Low levels of this and other vital nutrients have been commonly linked to asthma, migraines, allergies, anxiety disorders, ADD and a remarkable amount of the most commonly diagnosed and medicated dis-eases and dis-orders.
The truth of the matter is, our success is at our fingertips. It may be as simple as drinking a huge glass of water instead of grabbing a soda, and laughing with a child instead of over analyzing the latest success manual. If you train yourself to keep everything more simple, and to do the next right thing, the light you invite into your life will begin to only change EVERYTHING. Namaste.
This article is written by Beth Faherty for Mind Power World: http://www.MindPowerWorld.com
