Surrendering to the now so you can intuitively manage heightened emotions and stressors

Feeling stressed? Feeling anxious? Aren’t we all? Our global community is facing continuous turbulence. With the current status being less of a new normal and more of a “no normal” being able to skillfully navigate life has become a top priority. While trying to stay focused above the noise, manage your personal life, and adapt to new work-life adjustments, you are also alongside individuals both personally and professionally who are also going through troubling uncertainty.

Now more than ever, we must manage our emotional and mental state with care. With the relentless negative news and an environment which seems to change on a daily or hourly basis, it is easy to become overwhelmed by fear. The goal is to remain calm and collected while instilling confidence in others that we can get through this. But how can you do that when your own emotions and stressors are at an all-time high?

As we look to a future that is riddled with uncertainty, cultivating an active daily practice to manage perspective is critical. After all, your perspective has great influence over your decisions, the people you interact with, and the overall health of your personal and professional lives. So the healthier your mind is and the more thoughtfully your emotions are managed, the better your decision making ability will be to help you navigate the unknown.

They often say the simplest of things are the hardest – this is what many people think of first when they think of meditation. However, daily meditation of just 20 minutes has been shown to provide mental clarity that lasts though the work day and compounds upon itself. This practice can be cultivated by simply doing the following:

1. Choose a time frame every day that you will dedicate to meditation, if you can do your meditation right after waking up that is ideal.
2. Create a calm, quiet place in your home to meditate where you will not be interrupted.
3. When you go to meditate, make sure your phone is on silent. If you feel you need to set your timer, be sure that it is a soft sound otherwise it may startle you.
4. Sit in an easy comfortable position, close your eyes, and simply breathe. Deepen each breath with every inhale. Let stress, anxiety and fear go with every exhale.
5. Repeat this for 20 minutes allowing your thoughts to come and go and your mind to settle. It will seem noisy in your mind at first, but over time your thoughts will seem more like a soft song and less like a rock concert rolling loudly around in your mind.

This practice for many has become paramount in having “successful” days. Having a calm state of mind and a balanced set of emotions will allow you to dream bigger, think outside the box and help model healthy behaviors for those around you who are looking for guidance. Choose 20 minutes a day for your 2020 practice and in a mere 1% of your day you will see amplified results that have a profound ripple effect into a positive future.

Source: WeHeartIt