Is your life a rollercoaster of thoughts and emotions? Maybe you have grown impatient with yourself and you wonder when you are going to get your act together?
Good luck doing that without taking a step out of the ordinary and leaving the habits and grooves of life behind. You are stuck in a muck of your own design.
Stop the poor me. Stop the noisy inner critic. Neither ever works for the better. Instead, raise your head up, look into a mirror and see the great possibility in those windows of your soul. You are in truth a soul in the midst of a human experience. Not the drama you find yourself caught up in.
Isn't it time to get over the idea that you can do the same old shit and expect different results. Your thoughts can perseverate endlessly like squirrel stuck in a spinning wheel. Your feelings too often are bleeding all over the place. Your hurt inside is distancing yourself from your own heart.
Does any of this fit? Don’t think for a moment you have a corner on dysfunctioning. You are like everybody else driven by your past programming and your lack of effort to search inward. This can be fixed.
Right now make a commitment to yourself that things are changing today. No back door escape kind of commitment, more like one that is cemented into a cornerstone of a great building.
Put up the yellow tape and warn all your occasional friends that you have become a danger zone of unpredictability and spontaneity. They will stay away because they will fear you might be infectious. You don’t need the distractions.
Now let’s get to work.
First your thoughts are driving you crazy and limiting every aspect of who you are. Let’s do something about that right now. Take the time to listen inward and get to know the BS you’ve been tell yourself.
Come-on, haven’t you had enough of those damn reoccurring themes? Thoughts like you don’t deserve, you’re not enough, you don’t matter, you don’t want to be seen or whatever other horse pucky themes parading around in your mind?
Aren’t you tired of the aching heart that longs for more expression? What about your dreams? Are they on life-support? Are you settling, way too much, for so little?
Step back for a moment. Take a look at yourself objectively and with compassion. What do you see?
Now listen inward to the greater truth of your soul that quietly calls you to be more. There is a knowing kindness within that really wants to show you a better way.
Yes that crazy ego will often disrupt your tuning inward. The ego can’t stand it when you find a moment of peace or are enjoying the gift of insight and awareness. This deeper knowing means you will make healthier choices. The ego prefers you living in fear.
Here are 5 simple chill-out tools you can use to shrink the chaos and bring much more peace and happiness into your life.
1. Stepping Back is a simple-to-explore method of self-observation. In this practice you imagine This may actually work best by going into a relaxed state and visualizing a part of you moving away and watching yourself. This observing part of you can be imagined as your higher mind, our your soul separating from your personality, ego and body.
When you get good at this you can be in the midst of a life drama and still step away and watch yourself in action or later replay a recent situation and be the observer of what happened and how you felt.
Do this observing free of judging yourself and with a sense of curiosity about who you are. This chill-out tool develops your ability to be a kind witness, who is aware of yourself and how you do life.
2. Mindful Listening is a way of tuning inward and getting to know your thoughts and feelings. You have almost constant thoughts, many of which shape how you experience life. Thoughts can range from being highly critical to encouraging. These thoughts you have then create emotions. If you understand your thoughts, you can see where your feelings come from.
This tool is best practiced by finding a quiet place, getting comfortable, and then listening inward. As you listen you will see how you talk to yourself with your thoughts. Then you will feel the river of emotions as they flow in response to these thoughts.
With awareness of your thoughts and feelings you can consciously shape your experience of life. Your self-talk works best when it is compassionate and encouraging.
3. Voice of the Soul is the quiet powerful voice inside that you need to build a relationship with. This is your wise voice, the voice of your higher nature, your soul’s voice and is the voice that always makes your life better.
The more dominating voice is ego’s and it is all about fear, protection, power and control. The goal with this chill-out tool is to go beyond the louder voice of fear and to listen for the quiet wisdom the soul has to offer.
It is helpful to build a relationship with your soul. Enter into daily discussions with this knowing part of you and be guided toward the life you want to create. The soul’s voice is calm, peaceful, quiet and encouraging. The ego’s voice is anxious, pushy, noisy and can be demanding.
4. Self-Love is a way of being in your body with heart that will enable you to have great courage and live with much passion. Your body is a great partner on the journey of your life. It is where you feel, brings you energy, takes you places, and most of all it communicates with you in all honesty.
When your body is uptight it is speaking to you. When you feel upset the stomach lets you know. When your heart is hurt it aches. When you have done too much it feels tired.
So as a chill-out tool pay attention to your body and see what it is trying to tell you. As you pay attention you get better at understanding what it is trying to tell you. The body can be trusted more than the ordinary mind because the body is incapable of being dishonest with you. The mind is a different story.
5. Walk In Nature combines the quieting down of a relaxed walk and the healing and harmonizing affects of nature. Both are powerful in themselves but together they can deliver the knock-out punch to anything that is unnecessarily disrupting your life. Take it easy and let nature do its magic.
You can always get a break from the stresses of life by going for a quiet walk in the outdoors. You can count on this type of walk to ground you when you feel a need to find your balance. Go easy, relax and breathe a little more deeply. Soon you are on a cruise down Peace Lane.
This chill-out tool can be effective even when walking around outside in the midst of an intense urban environment. Walk out the door, breathe the air, notice the sky, feel the warmth or chill and just walk in awareness. If you see something beautiful linger and appreciate.
All right, what are you waiting for? Chill-out already.