Slowing down rather than rushing

Our lives are guided by natural rhythms that are particular to each of us and cannot be altered by force of will alone. Life itself is a journey made up of processes and events that manifest before us only to be swept away when time marches on. Whether we envision ourselves creating a career, building a family, or developing the self, we instinctively know when the time has come for us to realize our dreams because all that is involved comes together harmoniously. When the time is right, the passage of destiny cannot be blocked. Yet as desperate as we are to touch these beautiful futures we have imagined, we cannot grow if we are not fully present in the evolutionary experience.

The present can be challenging, uncomfortable, and tedious, but life unfolds as it will, and the universe will wait patiently as we make our way into the unknown.

The fate that awaits us is not dependent on our pace, so there is no reason to rush through life to reach those pinnacles of success associated with the paths we have chosen. Enjoying and fully experiencing the journey of life is as important as achieving goals and reaching milestones. There are lessons we can learn during the moments that seem insignificant that we cannot learn at any other time.

However, appreciating these takes patience because human beings tend to focus on the fulfillment of expectations, rather than the simple joys of being. Like many people, you have no doubt longed for the ability to fast forward through certain periods of your life. Yet haste is, by its very nature, vastly more stressful than serene fortitude. When you feel yourself growing impatient because the pace of your development is deceptively slow, remember everything that will occur in your life will occur in its own time.

Quelling your urge to rush will enable you to witness yourself learning, changing, and becoming stronger. There is so much to see and do in between the events that we deem definitive.

If you are patient enough to take pleasure in your life’s unfolding, the journey from one pinnacle to the next will seem to take no time at all.

Text from Daily Om.

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Happiness is a daily practice.

Discover something daily that makes you happy and become witness to your life transforming. Our lives are rich with potential sources of happiness, but sometimes we become victims of negative thinking because we believe that focusing on all that has gone wrong will provide us with the motivation we need to face the challenges of survival. When we choose to focus on what makes us happy, however, a shift occurs in the fabric of our existence. Finding something to be happy about every single day can help this shift take place. The vantage points from which we view the world are brought into balance, and we can see that being alive truly is a gift to be savored. There is always something we can be happy about—it is simply up to us to identify it. On one day, we may find happiness in a momentous, life-changing event such as a marriage or the birth of a child. On another day, the happiness we experience may be a product of our appreciation of a particularly well-brewed cup of a tea or the way the sun shines on a leaf. Keeping a happiness journal is a wonderful way to catalog the happiness unfolding all around us so that joy has myriad opportunities to manifest itself in our lives. Writing about the emotions we experience while contemplating joy may give us insight into the factors compelling us to resist it. Happiness may not always come easily into your life. You have likely been conditioned to believe that the proper response to unmet expectations is one of sadness, anger, guilt, or fear. To make joy a fixture in your existence, you must first accept that it is within your power to choose happiness over unhappiness every single day. Then, each time you discover some new source of happiness, the notion that the world is a happy place will find its way more deeply into your heart. On this day, find one thing to be happy about and let it fill your experience. Based on a text from Madisyn Taylor.

How fast is your Recovery Time?

Do you know the #1 difference between star athletes and the runners up?

It’s not strength, speed or agility. It’s not training. It’s not even motivation or how badly they want to win.

What about a Fortune 100 CEO? Do you know their secret to competing in the global marketplace? Hint: it’s not knowledge.

And how about elite sales teams? How do they continually make critical sales while others can’t even get their foot in the door?

The answer?

Their recovery time. The speed in which they rebound from setbacks and mistakes.

If you don’t recover fast enough, your small mistakes or setbacks can spiral into bigger ones. Champions know this.

How fast is your recovery time?

When you experience a setback – a rejection from a prospective client, getting admonished by your boss, losing your cool when talking to your teenager – how long does it take you to recenter yourself, mentally and emotionally?

The answer depends on the strength of your internal saboteurs. They waste a ton of your mental and emotional energy which in turn prolongs your recovery.

How do you train your mind to respond reliably, even in the toughest circumstances? How do you develop the ability to handle adversity with a clear, calm, and laser-focused mindset?

This takes mental fitness.

Mental fitness is the greatest predictor of how happy you are and how well you perform.

People with high mental fitness take fewer sick days than their co-workers and are less likely to become burned-out. Salespeople with high mental fitness sell 37% more than teams with lower relative mental fitness. CEOs with high mental fitness lead teams that are more likely to praise their workplace as a high-performance environment.

Mental fitness leads to lower levels of stress hormones, better immune system function, better sleep and smaller risk of hypertension, diabetes or stroke.

Mental fitness can actually help you live longer!

It is worth exploring, it is worth spending time strengthening the muscles to build yourself up and live mentally fit.

Excerpts from Shirzad Chamine

New Situations & New Habits

In unfamiliar, high-stakes situations, you’re hard-wired to default to the solutions you’ve relied on in the past. But challenging times are when you need to learn, change, and adapt the most.

Overcoming this “adaptability paradox” is all about acting with intention, creativity, and objectivity. Start by practicing learning agility: learning from experience, experimenting with new tactics, approaching new situations with a growth mindset, seeking feedback, and applying these lessons to new situations in real time. Next, practice emotional regulation: the ability to recognize, understand, and manage your emotions—and to channel them into productive behaviors.

To develop this emotional intelligence, you might keep a diary of moments when you feel emotionally triggered and describe the thoughts and bodily sensations you experienced and actions you took in those situations. Finally, practice dual awareness: consider both the internal circumstances (experiences, thoughts, emotions, and responses) and the external ones (an objective reading of the situation and what it calls for) simultaneously.

By pausing to take stock of both yourself and the situation, you will better understand not only your true feelings, motivations, and intentions, but also what the situation demands—and how your habits and tendencies can serve you in the moment.

Adapted from “How to Become More Adaptable in Challenging Situations,” by Jacqueline Brassey and Aaron De Smet

The Beauty of Imperfection

Below, four simple ways to introduce wabi-sabi at work, at home, in your relationships and in your personal life.

1. Be intentional with self-care

These days, self-care has almost become synonymous with bubble baths, scented candles and face masks. But to do it the wabi-sabi way, set aside time for quiet introspection and immersion in natural environments. A daily meditation practice is a good counter-balance for our busy modern lives. Being out in nature also helps remind ourselves of the impermanence of existence.

2. Create a living space that is in harmony with who you are

With many of us spending a lot more time at home, it’s important to carve out a comfortable living space where we feel happy and are at ease. Whether that’s inviting the outside in with the use of natural light and fresh greenery or ensuring that all electronic devices are kept out of the bedroom, you’ll want your living space to be your sanctuary. One simple way that homeowners make a house feel like a home is by having objects that are meaningful to them and tell a story of who they are.

3. Show up with authenticity

While we are often our truest, most relaxed selves around friends and family, it can be hard to let our guard down at work. Because most workplaces are geared towards optimum performance and productivity, many of us think that we have to hide or at least edit who we are in a professional setting. But that’s not true. To practice wabi-sabi in the workplace is to be able to embrace the messiness of the creative process: to allow yourself (and others) to be imperfect, and to see setbacks not as failures, but as opportunities for growth.

4. Appreciate the mundane

Just as the wabi-sabi aesthetic places value on the rustic and the imperfect, it is also a reminder to cherish the seemingly prosaic moments in our interpersonal relationships. Whether that’s sharing a laugh with your best friend or taking time each day to re-connect with your partner over dinner, there is value in the plain or unremarkable. After all, life is not always about the big “Instagram-worthy” moments, but the many tiny, beautiful moments in between.

Text from Silverkris Magazine

Spotting the Hidden Gems.

Life is full of buried treasures. Chances are, you’re sitting on some right now. Sometimes we have an experience that we don’t understand, but if we look deeply, or wait long enough, a reason for that experience will usually reveal itself. All the events in our lives lead to other events, and all that we have manifested in this present moment is the result of past events and experiences. We cannot easily tease apart the many threads that have been woven together to create our current reality. Experiences that don’t make sense, as well as any that we regret, are just as responsible for the good things in our lives as the experiences we do understand or label as “good.”This is especially important to remember at times when we feel directionless or unsure of what to do. It is often at times like these that we take a job or move to a place without really knowing if it’s the right thing to do. We may ultimately end up leaving the job or the place, but often during that time we will have met someone who becomes an important friend, or we may have an experience that changes us in a profound way. When all the pieces of our life don’t quite make sense, we can remember that there may be some hidden gem of a reason that we are where we are having the experiences we are having. It’s fun to look back on past experiences with an eye to uncovering those gems—the dreadful temporary job in a bland office building that introduced you to the love of your life; the roommate you couldn’t tolerate who gave you a book that changed your life; the time spent living in a city you didn’t like that led you into a deeper relationship with yourself. Remembering these past experiences can restore our faith in the present. Life is full of buried treasures. Chances are, you’re sitting on some right now.   Text from Madisyn Taylor

How well are you managing your Energy?

It’s not how many hours you put in that determines how productive you are, it’s how much energy you’re able to invest during the hours you work. Master this one simple concept, and you’ll not only be more effective, you’ll also be much happier. The challenge is not to get better at managing your time, which is finite, but rather about managing your energy, which you can systematically increase and regularly renew. As human beings, we need four very different sources of energy to operate at our best: physical, emotional, mental and spiritual. None is sufficient by itself, and they all influence one another. Too often, we take our energy for granted. We assume that if there’s more demand, our capacity to meet it will just naturally expand. But if you often find yourself feeling tired or overwhelmed or stressed out, you know that’s not true. The fact is that if we’re not intentionally finding ways to increase and renew our energy, we’re depleting ourselves. If we’re not getting stronger, we’re getting weaker.

At the physical level—the foundation—too many of us treat our bodies as if our health is our birthright. We work too long and too continuously, which takes a toll even if your job is sedentary. And we rest and sleep and work out too little. A new study released several weeks suggested that people who work more than 10 hours a day have a 60 percent higher chance of a heart attack. A different recent study found that people who get up and move frequently during the day have more protection against a range of illnesses. Overwhelming evidence suggests that nearly all of us need at least seven to eight hours of sleep to be fully rested and able to function cognitively at our best. Yet the average American gets less than six and a half hours, and that number continues to diminish. At the emotional level, all our urgent busyness fuels a state of heightened impatience, anxiety and frustration. In physiological terms, it’s called the fight-or-flight response, which serves us well when the threat is life or death. The problem, in fight-or-flight, is that our brains don’t operate as well. We become more reactive and far less capable of thinking logically, imaginatively and long term. Worse yet, the adrenalin-induced rush we get from elevated stress hormones can literally be addictive. At the mental level, the primary form of overload we’re all fighting is information. Technology makes it possible to be connected all the time, but also difficult to ever disconnect. Many of us cope by trying to multitask. We end up splitting our attention between multiple activities, and almost never full engaging in any of them. By practicing fractured focus, we progressively lose the ability to absorb our attention in one thing at a time. Ironically, we’re also less productive when we try to multitask. The researcher David Meyer has shown that when we switch attention midtask to take on another, the time required to finish the first one increases by an average of 25 percent. At the spiritual level, we undervalue the fuel we derive from deeply held values and a clear sense of purpose. When something really matters to us, it becomes a powerful source of energy and direction. Rather than responding reactively to every new demand, purpose serves as a road map for setting our priorities. The good news, we’ve discovered in our work at The Energy Project, is that small, intentional changes can make a very big difference in our lives.

Just for starters, consider these four strategies, one for each of the four energy dimensions: Physical It makes sense that the bigger the demands in our lives, the greater the need for renewal. We do just the opposite. Start taking a break at least every 90 minutes. You can get a lot of renewal by completely disengaging from work even for very short periods of time. Emotional Start paying attention to how you’re feeling, moment to moment. How you feel profoundly influences how you perform. When you notice yourself moving into negative emotions, apply this principle: Whatever you feel compelled to do, don’t. Instead, smile, take a deep breath and wait to act until you’re capable of thinking clearly. Mental Stop trying to multitask. You can’t, efficiently or effectively. Instead, work as much as possible in short, uninterrupted sprints. Focus intensely for no more than 90 minutes, and then take a break. At a minimum, do the most important thing first every day, for at least 60 minutes. Spiritual It’s very easy, under pressure, to do whatever will solve the problem in the moment, without regard for the long-term consequences. Instead, ask yourself this simple question when you have a difficult decision to make: “What’s the right thing to do here?” The more intentionally you make decisions, the better they’ll be. Take just one behavior from the Energy Audit that you’re not currently doing but know you should, and start doing it at a specific time every day for a week. You’ll notice a difference in your life. Is there an area of your life you feel more challenged than others when it comes to personal energy? What are your struggles?

Excerpts from Tony Schwartz

Everyday Alchemy.

It seems that everywhere we look, we are being sold a myth of fear, separation, and scarcity. The media continually reminds us that we are pitted against one another. In truth, however, we are one community, and all is well. There is enough, and we are enough. When we bring the practice of collaboration and reciprocity into conscious view a kind of alchemy occurs. To make this magic happen, we need to shift our worldview from the “you-OR-me” world of scarcity and competition to the “you-AND-me” world of collaboration. In a you-OR-me world, reciprocity and collaboration don’t fit. However, a you-AND-me world is full of collaboration and reciprocity! In that world, our resources are not only enough; they are infinite. Through a myriad of examples from Mother Nature, we can see that different species of plants and animals already know how to coexist; each providing something essential to balance the environment resulting in an ecosystem that supports the whole of life. As in Nature, so too in our communities, especially now. This global crisis has inspired many new forms of collaboration because we have had to become even more resourceful as we strive to support each other, our children, our families, and our businesses in these challenging times. It’s so important that we “see no stranger” despite endeavors to drive wedges between us and to convince us otherwise. Virtually every day of my life I witness the power of collaboration that bridges these so-called divides that the media continues to try to convince us of. Truly,  in our every breath we embody reciprocity. Reciprocity is like the breath we breathe in—no more than what we need, and we breathe out exactly the amount that must be released. Remember, in reciprocity, there is nourishment and joy. I am here for you, and you are here for me. Based on text by Lynne Twist

My Inner Warrior.

When we recognize our warrior self, we can exhibit strength without sacrificing tenderness.

The human soul is dynamic, adapting readily to the changing conditions we encounter as time marches unerringly forward. Though we may use a single set of characteristics to define ourselves, we slip easily into contradictory roles when circumstances necessitate doing so. When we feel called to explore the way of the warrior, we may feel a strong sense of dismay because we have no wish to disavow ourselves of our softer side. Yet embracing the warrior spirit is not a matter of denying gentleness or compassion -- all human beings embody all traits to some degree, and seemingly contradictory aspects can coexist peacefully within us. 

We can exhibit strength without sacrificing tenderness precisely because both are elements of the self and both have a role to play in the complexity of existence.

Balance is the key that unlocks the door of peaceable coexistence where opposing characteristics of the self are concerned. The warrior spirit, when allowed free reign, is overpowering and all-consuming. If it is to be an affirmative force in our lives, it must be tempered with wisdom and moderation. Our inner warriors are ready to react instantly to conflict, chaos, and confusion, while nonetheless remaining committed to a path of goodwill and fairness. They lie at the root of our dedication to integrity but do not drive us to use our strength to coerce others into adopting our values. 

The warrior may be nourished by raw emotions with the potential to cause us to lash out, but it channels that energy into positive and constructive action. 

Your inner warrior is one source of strength you can draw upon in times of great need. When you employ your warrior spirit thoughtfully, it manifests itself as clarity, focus, determination, courage, constancy, and an unflappable zest for life. The warrior views roadblocks as evolutionary opportunities and is not afraid to pursue a purpose to its climax. There is more than enough room in the existence of the warrior for softness and benevolence, and the warrior's willingness to stand up for their beliefs can aid you greatly as you strive to incorporate these ideals into your existence. 

Exploring this unique side of yourself is a means of broadening your reality so you can internalize mindfulness while meeting life's challenges with an intensity of spirit that never wavers.   

Taking Time For Myself.

Making time for the activities that contribute to your spiritual growth has little to do with being selfish.

Modern life compels us to rush. Because we feel pressured to make the most of our time each day, the activities that sustain us, rejuvenate us, and help us evolve are often the first to be sacrificed when we are in a hurry or faced with a new obligation. It is important we remember that there is more to life than achieving success, making money, and even caring for others. Your spiritual needs should occupy an important spot on your list of priorities. Each task you undertake and each relationship you nurture draws from the wellspring of your spiritual vitality. 

Taking the time to engage in spiritually fulfilling activities replenishes that well and readies you to face another day. Making time for the activities that contribute to your spiritual growth has little to do with being selfish and everything to do with your well-being. Regularly taking the time to focus on your soul's needs ensures that you are able to nurture yourself, spend time with your thoughts, experience tranquility, and expand your spiritual boundaries.

 It is easy to avoid using our free moments for spiritual enrichment. There is always something seemingly more pressing that needs to be done. Many people feel guilty when they use their free time to engage in pursuits where they are focusing on themselves because they feel as if they are neglecting their family or their work. To make time for yourself, it may be necessary to say no to people's requests or refuse to take on extra responsibilities. Scheduling fifteen or thirty minutes of time each day for your spiritual needs can make you feel tranquil, give you more energy and allows you to feel more in touch with the universe. Writing in a journal, meditating, studying the words of wise women and men, and engaging in other spiritual practices can help you make the most of this time.

Making time to nurture your spirit may require that you sacrifice other, less vital activities. The more time you commit to soul-nurturing activities, the happier and more relaxed you will become. 

The time you devote to enriching your spirit will rejuvenate you and help you create a more restful life.