The simpler things in life can truly bring us respite from daily woes and hardships. Even the most unsettling events of our lives can be ameliorated by fostering our inner beauty?beauty that includes compassion, humility, and forgiveness. Fostering our inner beauty is key to helping overcome both our own and other’s life challenges with grace and dignity.
Amit Sood, author of the Mayo Clinic book called Guide to Stress-Free Living inadvertently joins us today to teach the stress reductive value of plain old good emotions. His wisdom will shower you with strength, resilience, and love, enabling you to overcome any barrier with an open heart and a broad smile. Plus, your positive emotion will serve others as they tread, or even flail, through life’s obstacles.
Smile
Smiling simply feels good. When I worked at the hospital, I would encounter stress from the daily humdrum routine. The boredom exasperated my anxiety, and I found myself struggling to ease the burden of the anxiety that plagued me on a daily basis. I sought every positive emotion I possibly could?from listening to clips on near death experiences to showering my coworkers with love and compliments. I thought by embracing the positives, the stress would somehow alleviate.
During this time, I discovered a way to foster a positive connection with my work. Namely, when I came into work each day, I would smile at everyone passing by. Sometimes I wouldn’t get a smile in return, but when I did, I felt a surge of beautiful energy. After watching near death experience videos, I came to realize that the simplest acts of kindness we do mean the most in the end. I chalked up each smile as a broader taste of the spiritual, for both me and the person I smiled at.
Amit Sood delivers wisdom on the value of a smile. He says to try to replace the worry lines on your face with smile lines whenever you so feel inspired. Your spirit will shine in the process.
Wish Others Well and See Yourself Sharing their Soul Essence
When I encounter someone, my default is to demonstrate patience. I like to view people from a relaxed, nonjudgmental frame of mind. This tendency has naturalized within me, and I typically succeed in viewing people with neutrality of ego.
Yet, each person, each living being, represents a part of what mathematicians call eternity and spiritualists call God. Each living being possesses value that cannot be understated by the troubling circumstances of life. Each soul is precious. I once read that if you improved at least one other person’s life in even a small way, then your life has been worthwhile.
Amit Sood unveils the secret not for just seeing people neutrally, but for wishing the best on others. Imagine all those people who surely must love that person you encounter, and pretend that you share the same spiritual essence and familial lineage as that person you encounter. Amit Sood advises you to conjure up positive wishes for that person and to send them that person’s way, silently?wish that person peace and love. Try to find something good about that person to focus on, and dwell on that positive characteristic for a while.
Enjoy Meals and Exercise
For the longest time, I didn’t exercise. Later, I met an exercise guru who imparted the wisdom that one should exercise for at least an hour a day. Encouraged, I began exercising regularly for a minimum of an hour to a maximum of three and a half hours a day while taking full-time studies at the university. It seemed that the more I exercised and the more the benefits began to appear, the more addicted to the gym I became. My exercise peaked to five hours a day some days. With heavy weight lifting and lots of cycling, even my fashion and style life arrived at the point where, no matter what clothing item I tried on, everything seemed to look fantastic. Furthermore, just the act of exercise released the tensions of the day and refueled me. I was truly in the moment.
Amit Sood advises us to enjoy our routine acts throughout the day, such as eating and exercising. Try to make these experiences enjoyable and rewarding, any way you can. Ask a loved one or friend to join you at the gym. When eating, slow down your chewing and savor the food. Consider starting your meal with a prayer of thanks or just thoughts of gratitude for the plenty before you.
Express Gratitude Through a Gratitude Journal
I discovered that journaling is the only thing that alleviates my anxiety when it gets out of hand. Unfortunately, meditation worked only once at stopping a full-blown anxiety attack. Journaling, on the other hand?a form of distraction?alleviates my anxiety every single time. Before I started journaling, I would have to anxiously count sheep up to over a thousand just to fall asleep. Now, with journaling, I recover from the anxiety completely, hopping into bed refreshed and ready to read spiritual books.
Also, with journaling, I initially thought that I needed to express hurts from my past as a form of recovery. Writing about painful experiences seemed to alleviate the anxiety, but after reading Amit Sood’s book, I discovered that journaling about gratitude and positive emotions is more helpful at reducing stress than journaling on painful experiences. So, I started journaling about gratitude, and sure enough, the anxiety alleviated.
Amit Sood talks about journaling. He advises to write one thing to be grateful for in a journal at the end of each day. Even if the experiences of the day seem negative, try to extract something positive out of them. For instance, getting a low C-grade on a test means that you at least passed. Also, having to undergo the drudgeries of work could be thought of, at least, as having a job and a steady paycheck. In everything, whether it be good or bad, there resides something positive to express gratitude for. Seek and find that meaning in whatever you do, and peace will be with you.
