Five Choices Bringing Me Peace in the Pandemic
For the past couple of weeks, I have had a surprisingly strong sense of peace and emerging energy. I say surprisingly because most people are feeling worn-out, agitated, and anxious. This angst is understandable, even justified, given the pandemic, protests, riots, and constant barrage of divisive banter in the media. So why am I feeling peace and emerging energy instead?
The answer is multi-fold. I’ve taken several self-care action steps to detoxify and increase my energy. For example, I am:
1) Decreasing social media
Specifically, I deleted Facebook and messenger from my phone so that I wasn’t reflexively binging social media. This one simple step has made huge difference. Study after study has shown that social media usage increases cortisol. Cortisol is damaging to our bodies at many levels.
2) Meditating much more
I meditate in a variety of ways. The most prevalent is listening to morning meditations I find on youtube before I even get out of bed. I’m doing this almost everyday. I also sometimes use online guide meditations as I’m falling asleep.
3) Increasing exercise
I”m doing a mix of simple calisthenics, jogging, and weightlifting. Simple is the operative word here. I don’t have a big fancy plan. I just make myself move more than I have been. Many times more exercise is as easy as, I’m going to walk the dog for few minutes rather than just let him out in the back yard.
4) Connecting with awesome people.
I schedule two or three long phone calls a week with people who I find refreshing. We reflect and trouble shoot around our well-being. I’ve reconnected with old friend and we actually have a standing appointment to talk with one another every Monday morning. These ‘check in’ calls for lack of a better word a incredibly refreshing.
5) Re-investing in having a ’sit spot’
This has been a biggie. In almost every community I’ve lived I had a spot in nature that was my “secret spot’ or my ’sit spot’ where I regularly went to sit, observe, meditate, and learn. This is ONE of the most important life maintenance tools I have ever had. In the spirit again of keeping things simple, I’ve chosen an old oak tree in my backyard as my sit spot. (In fact, the pic with this post is me at my tree) To quote Winnie the Pooh, “Sometimes I sits and thinks and sometimes I just sits…” Either way, this time in nature is detoxifying and refreshing.
The key in implementing all of the above is keeping thing simple. My yoga teacher trainer, Courtney Robinson, always stresses what if you could do just 1% better. As I often remind myself “progress not perfection” is what moves things forward.
Another key is compounding simple choices. There is a synergy to that fact that I’m doing all of these things together. Does that mean you need to bite off five self-care choices? No. But I just want you to understand that my experience has been that stacking a few choices yields a geometric result not a linear result.
I would love to hear from you.
What is life-giving for you? What allows you to let go and let God? What decreases your stress? What pumps up your energy? Please share in the comments below.
PS: Tomorrow I’m releasing a self-care game to make little choices fall off a log simple. Keep your eyes open for it.
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