I’m proud because I designed a journal. A gratitude journal.
Being grateful is wonderful to commit to a healthier lifestyle. Being happy with our life is something many are striving for. We don’t need to look on the outside but instead put our focus on what we have already. Shifting perspective is the aim of this journal.
You can start now your own journey with it. Cherish your life in the present moment.
Believe me, this is just the start. My time off-work made me start to write again and there is much more to come, I promise.
A journal is indeed not a masterpiece of writing but for me it is my first printed book with an ISBN on it and I am beyond proud. This is one of the lessons – be grateful for each step, why should I belittle myself if it is an achievement on my way?
Of course I can only write for myself and I changed my mindset to focus on the good and not the bad.
Instead of “it is not a great book where you say about a plot for ages” I’d rather tell myself “be proud of this step on your way. You figured out how to design and create something that’s finally printed and hey, it looks awesome”.
What are the things you are proud of right now?
Let me know in the comments – share your wonderful achievements from your personal way.
And of course here is the link to it if you’d like to have a look.
One big topic in the whole mindfulness area is “Searching for Peace within”.
This is what spiritual masters are telling us. You can buy stickers, telling everyone that peace is to be found within yourself, almost everywhere. The truth is, the majority of people is living with a chaos within instead.
I am one of them. I try to tame the chaos, sometimes more and sometimes less. It depends on my mood, the time I find just for myself and on how I feel.
When I’m relaxed I don’t bother myself with the search for something higher. I assume that there seems to be at least a bit of peace inside of me as otherwise I wouldn’t be relaxed, right?
When I’m completely stressed out and need it the most, then I find everything inside of me but peace. I find thoughts running in circles, I find anxiety, I find millions of things I wanted to start, finish, read, write or think about. But the peace that should be found there seems to be buried under all of this.
Sometimes I start to think that I would be able to find it when I could also sit under a palm tree, a turquoise ocean in front of me and a yoga shed behind me. The truth is, I wouldn’t find it there either.
We cannot leave our mind behind – wherever we go we carry all our thoughts with us.
– Lena Kraima
The chaos would travel with me, wherever I go, I’ll take my mind and soul with me.
A more practical approach to mindfulness is to start with small pieces.
We all strive for the big picture, the successful, happy, content and calm person who seems to rest fully within.
There is barely a person like that alive – don’t get confused by snapshots of the lives of others. We all don’t know what is going on within a person, sometimes we don’t even know what’s going on with ourselves.
Instead of searching for peace start with changing your thoughts, with tiny baby steps. Don’t overload yourself with ‘I should be grateful, I should be helpful, I should be, …’. This is how you get lost.
This is a wonderful page to dive deeper into this topic of mindfulness.
How to include mindfulness into your daily routine?
These are small examples on how to change the way of thinking without failing. The more often we do something, the more likely it will turn out to be a daily habit. Live it instead of forcing it.
Morning Routine
Each morning after you wake up drink a glass of warm water and ask yourself what you are grateful for in these few minutes. (Is it the sun raising, the smell of the winter morning air on the open window, a snoring of your cat, the smell of coffee from the kitchen, that you have warm water without many efforts,… there will be million of examples.) What are you grateful for?
If you find more time include a morning meditation into your daily routines.
An all-time favourite, remind yourself of what you think and become an observer
Watch your thoughts as if you watch yourself from an outside position. Don’t allow negative thoughts and instead replace them by positive.
Daily routine you can include any time
Shower meditation – therefore you don’t even need an extra five minutes, you just take the time which is normally probably filled with a ’to-do’ list in your mind.
Read something inspirational- it can be a book or also newsletters, there are some great ones to subscribe to.
Eat mindfully – whatever meal it is. People sit and check their phones instead of enjoying the food they have in front of them. Mindful eating is not only a good habit, it is also a healthy habit. You body will thank you.
Focus on one thing at a time. Multitasking is not a virtue – better and more mindful is to finish one task before starting the next and put your full attention into each.
Connect to Mother Earth – nature is relieving stress, it is recharging our batteries. Of course we cannot access a forest daily when we live in the city but even the smallest corner of a park can be your place, standing on a river and listening to the water, there are always possibilities to connect. Stare at the heaven above you, watch clouds or birds flying by.
Move your body. I don’t want to call it exercise or sports because whatever it may be, it will be beneficial. You can dance for 10 minutes if that’s what you prefer. Take the stairs instead of the elevator, walk or cycle to work, do some yoga, there is no wrong or right, the importance is to keep your body active and move your muscles.
Whenever needed
Deep breathing exercises…this one shouldn’t be too complicated because we need to breath anyway. Instead of reading the news on the train to work, take 5 minutes and immerse yourself into deep breathing.
The more we focus on what we think and how we treat ourselves, the more likely we will find some peace. It all starts within us. That’s the most important part, if stress starts within us (and yes, it does) it will be less if we overlay it with happiness so that stress can’t find its way up. If you are happy you won’t be easily stressed. There is certainly peace within everyone, we just need to set it free. Take away stress, take away pressure and anxiety, also take away criticism and self-doubt, take everything away what you stacked onto the peace and you will find it.
I am a perfectionist and this perfectionism is my stopper – once you know it you can work with it.
Learn that you are allowed to relax even though you could work, or clean or write or whatever – there will always be something to do and if I never take time for myself I won’t relax at all. It is hard to let go of something and there were times when I wasn’t able to sit on my couch as long as there was something to clean and sort in my flat, means I barely sat there just to relax. But believe me, the dishes won’t run away, they wait until you come back to the kitchen and they are not worth giving them the allowance to disturb your peace of mind. The little dust layer you see on a shelf won’t kill you while sitting in meditation, it will wait until you are ready to wipe it away.
Let the “peace within you” be a part of your life – don’t neglect it because you are too busy to enjoy peaceful moments.
– Lena Kraima
Mindfulness is nothing out of reach and surely not unreachable. Every tiny step towards being mindful is already lived mindfulness.
Don’t be blinded by big words, extensive ceremonies or spiritual rituals. All of it won’t diminish your mindfulness – you do what you can and this is perfectly fine.
We all struggle and fail and we all search for a deeper meaning in our life, don’t we? But what is that deeper meaning – it differs from person to person. In the end all that counts is that you are feeling good! Go for what makes you happy.
Namaste you beautiful souls and thanks for reading <3
If you start to learn how to think in a positive way this can lead to a ton of positive changes in your life.
A hopeful outlook can not only be useful for your psychological well-being but also for your physical health.
We all know that certain circumstances can arise and makes it difficult to keep an inspirational positive mindset but the good part is that these situations will pass. The more you find a way of making positive thinking a daily habit, the more you will be able to face these “downs” in life from a different perspective. A positive mind guides you through hard times different than a negative mind.
I want to give you a couple of ideas on how to work on a positive mindset – it is not complicated, believe me.
Take ownership for your behaviour
At the point when you experience issues and challenges throughout everyday life, don’t assume that others are responsible for it. Recognise your part in the game and take ownership. It is rarely others who make your day a disaster, it is in your hands or better said it is in your mind.
Giving instead of taking
If you start to see what you have instead of what you don’t have, then you start to see the good. And even better, you also see what you can give. We are all living with quite high standards compared to others, instead of buying the fifth winter coat, give away the fourth you have to someone in need.
This view will open up a whole new way of feeling grateful – which leads to the next point.
Surround yourself with positive people
I bet you have heard already about toxic people, like consistent whiners, persons who love to complain even on the brightest sunniest day. Their negativity can become part of you. Better invest energy and time with positive loved ones to improve the probability that their positivity will turn into yours as well. It is difficult to be negative when everybody around you is spreading positive thoughts.
Make a daily gratitude list
On the off chance that you begin keeping a day by day appreciation list, you’ll begin seeing precisely the amount you must be grateful for. This can assist you with zeroing in on the positive in your life as opposed to pondering all the terrible things that have occurred in the day.
Getting prone to show a demeanor of appreciation makes positive thinking more about a propensity.
With achieve I mean achievable. There’s nothing worse than unrealistic goals. It will add up on being frustrated and raise negative thoughts. Make small steps towards your goal, like a checklist it will give you a positive mindset as you check completed steps. We tend to want more than we are capable of and this causes negative stress.
A simple trick really is break the goal down into the steps needed to achieve it and then work them off.
Reading
Invest energy every day in something that energizes your positive mindset.
Inspirational books, statements, follow motivational social media accounts, read positive news – all of this can assist you with being more positive.
If you listen to bad news the whole day you surely will be depressed, so balance it, there are many positive things happening every day. One is that you are alive.
I would recommend to end your day with positive thoughts as well, immerse yourself in a good book before you sleep. IT helps you not only to sleep better but also to wake up more positive.
To successfully erase negative thinking you need to actively react to these thoughts when they appear. There are thought patterns which need to be broken, like the word ‘never’. It will never work out, I will never succeed, these thoughts will bring you into a kind of vicious cycle.
Instead replace them with ‘this time it didn’t work out, so I analyse why and won’t make the same mistakes next time’ or ‘I failed because…so I know what do to different to succeed’.
All in life is a lesson learned, this is how you started to talk, to walk, to ride a bike.
Think about what results a permanent negativity could have
If you regularly turn towards a negative mindset, it can turn into an inevitable outcome.
For instance, you think, “I likely won’t learn how to cope with the stress at work because it never subsides” and therefore you don’t invest energy into reducing the stress. Thus, your will find yourself in the same surrounding until retirement.
Wouldn’t it be better to take this stress and start to analyse it? Why is it there, from whom is it coming (maybe it’s your own stress out of a subconscious perfectionism), can you minimise it?
Make a rundown of all the manners in which a negative mindset effects your life. It probably impacts your whole life. At that point, start to replace the negative mindset with a positive mindset, step by step.
Tell others something positive
Instead of just thinking that your’ neighbours new fence looks great, why don’t you tell them? Your colleague achieved a tremendous result, then congratulate. It sounds like small acts but these small acts of kindness create a positive mindset, not only for yourself but also for the persons around you. You remember, surround yourself with positive people? Be one of these positive persons yourself.
#BeTheChangeYouWantToSee
Be good to yourself
People often think they don’t need for instance a massage, but they gift it to their friend. Why do you think that you don’t need or deserve it?
Taking care of yourself is a big step towards being positive and thinking positive.
Mens sana in corpore sano – a healthy mind in a healthy body
Our ancestors knew it already and we seem to have it forgotten while striving for a career, a family, a whatever you are striving for.
Our body and our mind needs nourishment, only then we are able to reach our goals and cope with what we face along the way.
