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How do I handle being stressed out and manage to keep going even when everything seems to be too much!? There have been so many challenges for me lately that cover a myriad of things such as money, security, comfort, people, communication, health and more. Its fair to say that I have had to hold more stress in all its forms this past year than i have for many years previous, combined! Thankfully i have learned many ways to help stay calm and happy, some of which may be natural qualities, and others have needed a certain amount of effort to stay on top of things. I would like to mention the most important of these things and share them with you all!

Meditation

Meditation is one of those things that is the easiest to do, and yet at the same time the hardest to keep doing when things get tough. The more tense i become, the less i want to meditate when i wake up. Thankfully I have now realised and learned that when i feel this way it is even MORE important to meditate than when i feel happy and relaxed. It is clear now that if i push myself to meditate even when i don’t feel like it, i am almost immediately rewarded for doing so. The many positive effects of Meditation are not always easy to explain or understand unless you have tried it. Suffice is to say that the feeling of calm, inner peace, and a clear mind are just some of the important benefits that i receive when i meditate. Each day I make so many important decisions and choices, and it is very clear that i make better choices when i am calm and centred. This can make a HUGE difference to just about everything because its very easy to waste a lot of time, money and energy on things that may not have been a very good idea in the first place!

I try to meditate for 30 minutes every morning. I would like to meditate for one hour and i used to do so. Nevertheless, 30 minutes is enough to make a palpable difference to my state of mind, and my inner peace. If you have never meditated before i would highly recommend giving it a go, even if its just for 10 minutes in the morning. Anyone who says they don’t have time does not understand how much time you save when you do meditate due to the increase in efficiency, productivity, and overall energy levels. Working smart and working well saves me a HUGE amount of time every day!

Bhajans / Singing

I learned my first bhajan around 10 years ago. Bhajans are a type of Indian devotional singing that is similar to chanting, whereby we play music and sing many songs that uplift and open our hearts. They are essentially a song about God, and love... and when i sing them either by myself or with others, we get truly high in spirit and my heart opens wide. Having an open heart is about as important as breathing to me. As Madonna sung:

You're frozen... when your heart's not open, You're broken... when your heart's not open

Dance

There are many kinds of dance, and one which i have been partaking in lately is Ecstatic dance! A good friend who lives nearby to me holds weekly ecstatic dance sessions with around 10 friends. It lasts about 4 hours and we all dance in the same cosy space in his home. The music is beautiful and deep and lets us all express, release and experience joy. We are always uplifted by the end and it really helps life to become filled with more joy and happiness. I look forward to the next session in just two days!

Cacao

I have recently stopped smoking cannabis, which used to be a drug i used regularly to help me reduce stress. Whilst it has been quite effective and helped me to cope with so much, it has also had its negative effects on mood, health, and decision making. Therefore i am now using the sacred cacao to help me lift my mood and open my heart when i feel like i need some help. I am lucky to have a friend who holds sacred ceremonies and has a very good quality and pure cacao from Peru, and she shares it with all of her friends who all fully enjoy the great mood enhancing benefits of the cacao bean.

Diet

I have come to learn that what i eat has a huge effect on my mood and my stress levels. This is one of the hardest things to do well as it is all too easy for me to crave comfort food, which may taste good, but often leaves me feeling pretty terrible afterwards. In fact only yesterday i succumb to the desire for a Chinese meal for lunch. i hadn’t eaten Chinese food for years until yesterday, and even though i fully enjoyed eating it, the resulting affect, tiredness, and food coma that experience afterwards does often leave me wondering why i had it in the first place.

The bottom line with diet is that whenever i eat well, i feel well. I feel light, happy, and full of energy. A good diet is SO important to being happy and stress free. Note that i am also talking about physical stress on my body as well as mood and emotional tensions. If you would like to understand and experience this, just try eating raw food for a few days and you will understand!

Perspective

Whilst we often say that our lives and circumstances stress us out, its also really apparent that more than that it is actually my perspective on things that stress me out. Its not so much what happens to me, but how i view it all that really counts! We can frame our world in any number of ways, it is actually our choice! We can see the very same things as positive or negative depending on how we choose to frame it. A great example and one im sure many of us on blockchain can relate to is crypto trading. A friend of mine was writing to me a few days ago about how annoyed he was that he sold a lot of Hive when it was at 60 cents, and then just a few days later it had doubled! Of course that can be annoying, if we choose it, and so i responded by remind him that at the same time he had also made a 500% profit as he bought it when the price was very low.

WE have to catch our mental narrative in order to realise the kind of messages we are telling ourselves. It takes some awareness and effort to re-frame our world, and affirmation is one way that can really help! If you want to turn your perspective into a positive, all you have to do is keep repeating the perspective until you have retrained your mind and thinking to accept it!

Friends

Having a few good friends is so important. Most people need others to feel happy, its human nature really. Only the most enlightened of sages and holy people are really able to be truly happy and fulfilled when alone. For the rest of us normal folks, we need good friends and company to really feel happy. We all know HOW HAPPY we feel after we have finally been able to share and connect with others, it gives us energy and a mood life for quite some time.

Staying active

There is nothing like good old simple exercise or activity to help me feel good, it can be anything, a walk, bike ride, garden work etc.. The simple truth is that when i am more active it released very beneficial hormones and chemicals in my body that really elevate my mood! I feel SO much more awake, alert, happy, and energised if i am active every day. Conversely, there is nothing like sitting on my backside watching netflix or other mindless videos to make me feel very bored, and lonely. Its really simple and i think most of us know and agree that exercise is so important.

Writing Lists

When i have a lot to do i write lists with every small and big thing i need to do. I have realised that when i don’t do this I end up having to keep thinking and reminding myself of the things i need to do, and that stresses me out! im scared to forget something, and also everything seems much more daunting until i write them all out so i can see what they all are on one page. IT really helps and also allows me to get more done as i don’t forget anything and tend to want to do more so i can cross things off from my list! Its so simple and it works!

So that is my list! Whilst there are other things i could speak about, i feel these are the most important and have had the most positive impact on my life. Stress starts and ends in the mind, so we really need to just find ways to help our minds point in the right direction. It feels like our mind and thinking is like a train with great momentum. If we do nothing to steer it in a positive direction it will just keep going, more and more, until we basically break! Once we do learn how to redirect the momentum of our thinking we can very quickly turn things around and steer our thinking in a different direction. WE just have to give our minds the space, love, time, and structure that it needs to start working for us rather than against us.

Id like to leave you with some wise words from a man who has inspired me beyond words:

Keep your mind like water in the River

Human mind changes thousands of times every minute. Our mind is very vibrant and fast in the way it works. But when something happens that you did not expect, you are freezing your mind which is against its very nature. You must let go of things. Have you seen how water flowers in a river? Events in life is supposed to happen at a particular time and then it passes away. Why do you want to stick to the past? Its gone and it expects you to go on the flow. Move on smoothly. Give up sticking to your desires, love and what ever. Nothing is true in this world. You have ability to untie your frozen mind and you can do it now.

Ignorance is the cause of all depression and stress. Keep learning life

When you don’t get what you desire in life or feel that you are gone through unbelievable incident, try to understand life better. Look for similar people who suffered like you but lived for the cause of humanity.

Never worry about about what others think of you. All that matters is what you think about yourself.

Keep learning a lot about life and in life. When you are depressed, list down the reasons for it. Then, list down 10 things you can do to change your life for good. I always request people to take up a new course or go to new places.

Much love to you all, wishing you a beautiful day! If your day doesn’t yet feel beautiful maybe you can come up with a few things right now that help you to discover it. It is here right now all around us waiting to be discovered!