One good resolution you can make for 2016 is to be responsible and take care of yourself. You need to understand that you are not just your body but something that resides, learns, acts and experiences through the body. Keeping the body fit and healthy is a means to keeping yourself healthy.
Health includes physical, mental, emotional and spiritual. These are like the four spokes in the wheel of life. Each one of them is complementary and cannot replace the other. Instead of trying to understand and classify what comes under each, you need to understand and grasp the concept behind the four facets of health mentioned and look at your health Holistically.
Spending 9 minutes with yourself and engaging in introspection can help you find what’s holding you back from a balanced and stress free living. Following these below steps can be extremely valuable, as you seek to determine the right directions for your life:
1. Free Yourself:
Free yourself from security, attachments, power and N number of other addictions, if any. Don’t let them forcefully control situations in your life. It destroys your peace of mind and keeps you from accepting and loving others. Your addictions dominate your consciousness and create an illusion around you. Embrace the wisdom that your experience offers you every moment. Become aware of the existence of every other person as a human being just like yourself. All people have their own agenda and complex pattern of existence and living. Reprogram yourself to be liberated from your learned behavioral patterns in relationships and interactions with others.
2. Be Here Now:
Don’t let yourself be be bogged down by something that has happened in the past. Always remember that you have everything you need to enjoy here and now. Accept yourself, both the body and the unknown you, residing there in complete unison. Experience consciously whatever you say, think and do, as a necessary part of your growth. Take full responsibility for everything you feel. Realize that it’s your own present moment of experience that determines your actions and influences the actions of other people around you.
3. Interact with Others:
Don’t suppress your emotions. Open yourself to people who matter and be willing to fully communicate your deepest feelings. Don’t live in the illusion of trying to make others happy or feigning dislike or like about everyday matters. Just be plain transparent. Recognize that every other person is also as unique as you. Your interactions with people are going to create beautiful experiences which you can create and share only in company and never alone. Drop the idea of being separate from your loved ones and others surrounding you. Feel problems of others with compassion without getting preoccupied emotionally.
4. Let things Happen as they Happen:
Let go of control of things. Open yourself to the unexpected. Learn to see how things work instead of trying to make them work. Just observe how events are taking shape. You will be amazed to find out that everything happens on its own without you having to manipulate, dominate and control other people and situations. Faith, patience and trust can get you a long way when it comes to achieving your goals. No matter how hard you work, if you cannot allow things to happen, you will always fall short of the success and fulfillment you need. Action is important, but you also have to balance it out with your ability to allow.
5. Practice Spirituality that is Practical:
Spirituality is purely practical self-training technique that aims to enhance the well-being of an individual. You need not be religious in order to practice spirituality. It doesn’t matter if you are an agnostic, atheist or skeptic. Spiritual exercises like tai chi, meditation and yoga have the same physical and mental benefits for everyone. Moreover, practicing spirituality is not only about sitting and doing meditation but learning and practicing true human behavior. Appreciate good things in life and be kind to yourself and everyone. Stay humble and look for little ways to serve others. All these are qualities of a true spiritual person.
6. Consider all your interactions with others as Productive:
Everyone you encounter, adds a new experience to your life. One way or another, they help you learn the lessons you need, to become a better human being. Rather than having judgmental thoughts about those you regard as separate or different, view others as an extension of yourself. Once you reconnect with yourself and accept other human beings same as you, it will help you to better understand their actions and expectations.
7. Maintain Physical Balance:
The benefits of maintaining physical health extend beyond weight management. Regular exercise decreases risk of diseases and help you feel better physically and mentally. It improves your overall quality of life and reduces the chances of becoming depressed. As a result, you will be able to do activities you enjoy, throughout your life. A recent study from University of Illinois suggests that people who regularly engage in physical activity and keep their body active, have improved brain function resulting in better cognitive flexibility.
TAKE A BREAK.
Don’t think that spirituality is about being esoteric and the renouncing the world. It is all about remaining conscious and aware of the self and the people around you.
You can make your everyday life very worthwhile and fruitful by spending 9 minutes for yourself and with yourself every day. Do not just blindly follow this or read and ignore this. Evaluate it on the basis of its usefulness and its practical application in life. Once you start spending time with yourself, you will realize that all the answers that you need, are hiding within you.
