Think, Feel, Breathe, Heal
Ever wonder why your mind seems to be on overload most of the time? Would you like to get off that merry go round and come back to a calm and relaxed place? We all seem to have thousands, even millions, of thought racing through our minds every day. Often negative thoughts repeat themselves in a never-ending loop. If we listen to these painful or fearful thoughts long enough we start to feel worse and worse; we can even make ourselves sick and depressed.
It’s natural to think ahead; plan ahead. But to obsess about the future in a negative way does not create anything better. Like the Buddha says, “if you do what you’ve always done, you’ll get what you’ve always gotten’. Some wisdom!
Here’s a hint: to change a habit you have to know it’s a habit. Not many of us want to admit our addiction to worry (there aren’t any 12 step groups for worriers anonymous), but if you pay attention to your thoughts through out the day; heck, even for an hour, you will be surprised see the results. OK, so that’s the bad news. The good news, even great news is there is a simple way to get your self back on a positive thought track. Anyone can do it, any time, anywhere.
- What you think about, you bring about. You think stress, fear, worry; you get more of the same. Catching yourself in the act of negative thoughts, can change the thought right then and there! You may not be able to change the situation, but you will change how you feel in that moment, and you being to create a new habit.
- Feeling & Breathing. Start by feeling your feelings; don’t try to change or fix them. Close your eyes and take a moment to completely acknowledge they exist. Feel them head to toe, inside and out. Be with the feeling, then take a big breath and release all that feeling energy out into the Universe. Take another deep breath and let go again, until you feel a little better. Next, simply acknowledge your new feeling, without judgment. Just feel and breathe. Notice that your feelings shift and change. You start to feel lighter, better. Repeat this process 3, 4, 5, 6 times until you are centered in a better feeling place. There’s no wrong way to do this and its not complicated. With practice you can shift the little stuff (like a bad driver cutting you off) and graduate to the bigger stuff.
- Heal. Each time you consciously choose to acknowledge your thoughts and feelings, you are on the way to healing yourself, your life. For many, learning the role that our thoughts and feelings play in our lives can be a scary enterprise. You may need the help of a professional for the more pervasive patterns entrenched in your life. For the most part we can use these simple steps to release self sabotaging thoughts and stuck feelings and receive back the energy that we use to keep them at bay. Better feelings create healing; we release the fear and suffering and just the new energy to feel better, breathe more deeply and enjoy our lives more fully.
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