In response to episode #02 of Beautiful Monday (food for thought for your week), Kerry commented
‘This is clearly a skill I don’t have. Are you holding classes? 🤣 xx’
This was a response to the discussion between myself and Chris about his new T-Shirt emblazoned ‘calm is the new superpower’.
These Monday lunchtime chats are designed to present a thought provoking idea or just some food for thought with the intention of being positive, helpful and constructive. All I wanted to do really was share the things that help me in the hope that they might help others.
When it comes to cultivating calmness, I know what works for me and I know when I need to work on it. I know I don’t always manage and I know when I’ve temporarily lost faith in this idea, usually because I’m burned out and I’ve exhausted myself. To give ‘advice’ was not really my intention, but in the desire to be helpful, this was my reply to Kerry.
‘You can try simple things like just giving yourself a pause before you react to anything, good or bad, which can be just enough to buy yourself time to choose how you respond. Setting an intention to be calm for your own wellbeing can help. Other things that can help nurture a greater sense of calm overall will vary from person to person, but things like yoga, meditation, relaxation breathing exercises, progressive muscle relaxation, hypnotherapy audios, relaxing music, walk in nature, bubble bath, … can help. Whatever fits with your lifestyle and time constraints.
Personally I think it’s a balance for each individual to find 2 things –
1) What makes you feel calmer overall?
2) What can stall a reaction in a stressful situation ?
And just try those things… recognise when you need them and pick one.
I find hypnotherapy audio really helpful because all you have to do is listen to it and go to sleep. Minimal effort on my part. Sometimes all of the above can feel like a lot of work, so I find either handing it over to someone else and just doing what I’m told (like a yoga class) or something I can do passively (like a hypnotherapy audio) helps when I feel very depleted…
Also for me, the recognition that a stressy reaction from me to a situation – even if I’m right – is a massive drain on my personal energies. Staying calm is an investment in my personal ability to both solve problems well and enjoy life. Accepting that I needed to develop this skill has probably kept me alive in recent years, and certainly kept me functioning in a way that everyone needed me to. Rather than just accepting I would always just be anxious and angry. It was choice not to feel like that…
I don’t know if that helps you. I hope so… 🤗‘
You can watch the video and join in the conversation here
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