Hello loves,
Please forgive this month’s theme coming to you a bit late but I’ve been coping with an intense head pain episode that has shown me I needed to do less, unplug, and deeply nest. The post concussion syndrome is a constant teacher for me; showing me the way towards healing, slow living, and living the softest life possible.
I want to continue our theme from January as we lean into simple practices that align us with our inner peace and ground us in the moment. As always, I welcome your musings—please share.
Happy February to you all and I will see you where the magic happens. May we all continue to love ourselves so kindly that each of our choices are nourishing to us, and all of humanity. Reach out if you need any extra care, private sessions, or Pop Up classes.
*I added my latest favorite recipe at the bottom. We can’t get enough of it. Enjoy!
~Simple Things~
1. Become more patient—The quality of patience goes a long way toward your goal of creating a more peaceful and loving self. The more patient you are, the more accepting you will be of what is, rather than insisting that life be exactly as you would like it to be. Patience also involves seeing the innocence in others. It is a lovely practice. Instead of defaulting to annoyed, frustrated and stressed, lean into observing innocence. If you look deeply enough, you can almost always see the innocence in other people as well as potentially frustrating situations. When you do, you will become a more patient and peaceful person and, in some strange way, you being to enjoy many of the moments that used to frustrate you.
2. Create ‘Patience Practice Periods’—Patience is a quality of heart that can be greatly enhance with deliberate practice. Create practice periods, periods of time that you set up in your mind to practice the part of patience. You can start with as little as five minutes and build up your capacity for patience, over time. Start by saying to yourself, “Okay, for the next five minutes I will practice patience and release all annoyances.” Your intention to be patient, especially if you know it is only for a short while, immediately strengthens your capacity for patience and softens you. Patience feeds on itself; the more you practice, the more patience becomes second nature.
3. Be the first one to act loving or reach out—Many humans hold on to little resentments that may have stemmed from an argument, a misunderstanding, the way we were raised, or some other painful event. Stubbornly, we wait for someone else to reach out to us—believing this is the only way we can forgive or rekindle a friendship or family relationship. Whenever we hold on to our anger, we turn ‘small stuff’ into really ‘big stuff’ in our minds. We start to believe that our positions are more important than our happiness. They are not. If you want to be a more peaceful person you must understand that being right is almost never more important than allowing yourself to be happy. The way to be happy is to let go, and reach out. Let the other people e right. This doesn’t mean you are wrong. Everything will be fine. You’ll experience the peace of letting go, as well as the joy of letting others be right. You’ll also notice that, as you reach out and let others be ‘right’, they will become less defensive and more loving toward you. They might even reach back. But, if for some reason they don’t, that’s okay too. You’ll have inner satisfaction of knowing that you have done your part to create a more loving world, and certainly you’’ll e more peaceful yourself.
4. Ask yourself the question, ‘Will this matter a year from now?’—Almost always the answer will be ‘No’. Whether it be an argument with your spouse, child, boss, a mistake, a lost opportunity, a lost wallet, a stain on a couch, a work-related rejection, or a sprained ankle, chances are, a year from now you aren’t going to be holding space for it any longer. This can give you an enormous amount of needed perspective. One might find themselves laughing at things they used to take far too seriously.
5. Surrender to the fact that life isn’t fair—Recognizing this fact can be a very liberating insight. When we get stuck in believing/thinking that life should be fair and angry when/if it isn’t, we spend a lot of time wallowing and/or complaining about what’s wrong with life. We commiserate with, discussing the injustices of life. One of the nice things about surrendering to the fact that life isn’t fair is that it keeps us from feeling sorry for ourselves by encouraging us to do the very best we can with what we have. The fact that life isn’t fair doesn’t mean we shouldn’t do everything in our power to improve our own lives or the world as a whole. To the contrary, it suggests that we should. When we don’t recognize or admit that life isn’t fair, we tend to feel pity for others and for ourselves. When we do recognize that life isn’t fair, however, we feel compassion for others and for ourselves. And compassion is a heartfelt emotion that delivers loving-kindness to everyone it touches.
6. Allow yourself to be bored—Our lives are so filled with stimuli these days, not to mention responsibilities. It has become an actual challenge for many to simply sit still and do nothing, much less relax—even for a few minutes. Many times I am asked ‘What are you doing this weekend?’ or ‘What are your plans?’ I am always so happy to answer those questions with , ‘Nothing’ and it is a positive statement, not negative. What I offer all of you is to allow yourself to be bored. Do nothing. If you allow yourself to be bored, even for an hour, and don’t fight it, the feelings of boredom will be replaced with feelings of peace. And after a little practice, you will even learn the art of relaxing.
7. Lower your tolerance to stress—It seems we have it backward in our society. We tend to look up to people who are under a great deal of stress, who can handle loads of stress, and those who are under a great deal of pressure. Often we celebrate the phrase, ‘I have a very high tolerance to stress’ and many want to raise their tolerance to stress even higher so they can handle even more! Our current level of stress will be exactly that of our tolerance to stress. Start noticing your stress early, before it gets out of hand. When you feel your mind moving too quickly, it’s time to back off and regain your bearings. When your schedule is getting out of hand, it’s a signal that it’s time to slow down and reevaluate what’s important, rather than power through everything on the list. When you’re feeling out of control and resentful of all you have to do, rather than rollup your sleeves and ‘get to it’, a better strategy is to relax, take a few deep breaths, and go for a walk. Soften into another practice rather than building upon the stress and lower your tolerance by lowering your stress.
8. Once a week, write a heartfelt letter (with pen and paper)—This practice has changed many lives and assisted people in becoming more peaceful and loving. Taking a few minutes each week to write heartfelt letter does many things for you. Picking up a pen slows you down long enough to remember the beautiful people in your life. The act of sitting down to write helps to fill your life with gratitude. Once you decide to do this you will be amazed at how many people appear on your list. Even if you don’t have people in your life to whom you feel you can write, go ahead and write the letter to someone you don’t know instead—perhaps to an author who may not even be living, whose works you admire. Or to a great inventor or thinker from the past or present. Part of the value of the letter is to gear your thinking toward gratitude. Writing the letter, even if it sent’ sent, would do just that. The purpose is to simply express love and gratitude. Often this practice starts a spiral of living actions whereby the person receiving your letter may decide to do the same thing to someone else, or perhaps will act and feel more loving toward others.
9. Life ins’t an emergency—Many humans turn little things into great big emergencies. We take our own goals so seriously that we forget to have fun along the way, and we forget to cut ourselves some slack. We take simple preferences and turn them into conditions for our own happiness. Or, we beat ourselves up if we can’t meet our self-created deadlines and standards. The first step in becoming a more peaceful person is to have the humility to admit that, in most cases, you’re creating your own emergencies. Life will usually go on if things don’t go according to plan. It’s helpful to keep reminding yourself and repeating the sentence, ‘Life isn’t an emergency.’
10. Spend a moment every day thinking of someone to thank—This is a very sweet, and simple, ritual that takes seconds to do. Gratitude and inner peace go hand in hand. The more genuinely grateful one feels for the gift of life, the more peaceful they feel. As you think of people to be grateful for, remember that it can be anyone-someone who allowed you to merge into traffic, someone who held the door open for you, or a physician who saved your life. The point is to shift your attention toward gratitude, preferable first thing in the morning. It is easy to allow one’s mind to slip into various forms of negativity. When this occurs the first thing that leaves is the sense of gratitude. Often people take the people in their life for granted, the love that is often felt is replaced with resentment and frustration. Practicing this ritual reminds us to focus on the good in our life. Invariably as we think of one person to feel gratitude for, the image of another people pops up, then another, and another. Pretty soon the mind wanders to other things to be grateful for—health, family, home, career, friends, freedom, and on and on it goes. If you wake up with gratitude on your mind it is pretty difficult to feel anything but peace.
Love forever,
Dove