Sit quietly with closed eyes and attention in your heart to ask four questions daily: “Who am I?”, “What do I want?”, “What is my purpose?”, and “What am I grateful for?” This practice helps you begin your journey of self-discovery and gain clarity.
If short on time, ask yourself “What am I grateful for?” every day, or keep a gratitude journal. This practice can shift your body into a different mode, reducing inflammatory markers and changing gene expression for better homeostasis.
Implement this practical technique: stop, notice how you are feeling (sensations, feelings, perceptions), and then consciously choose what you would like to experience or how you wish to respond. This allows for mindful engagement rather than automatic reactions.
Start by sitting quietly with closed eyes and doing nothing for five minutes. Progress to observing your breath for five minutes without manipulating it, and then to observing sensations in your body for five minutes, to quiet the mind and get to the source of thought.
Close your eyes, feel your body, and mentally set intentions for a “joyful, energetic body,” a “loving, compassionate heart,” a “reflective, alert mind,” and “lightness of being.” This practice helps cultivate these qualities daily, leading to a sense of freedom.
Engage in deep breathing, yoga, and meditation practices, as they all stimulate the vagus nerve. This stimulation is a key mechanism for self-regulation and returning to ‘home base’ for overall well-being.
Use a mantra, either aloud or silently in your mind, as a powerful centering technique. This practice helps to take you away from your habitual thought patterns and ‘karmic story,’ leading to a deeper state of awareness.
To find peace, shift your awareness from external distractions to the inner presence that is listening. Recognize that peace is already within you, merely overshadowed by distraction.
Be aware of your own presence in the ’now’ (as being awareness) and ask yourself, ‘Is anything wrong right now?’ This question helps you access an underlying state of peace, as in that moment, nothing is truly wrong.
To wake up, recognize ‘what’s my story right now?’ and consider if there are other versions of it. All experience is composed of Sensations, Images, Feelings, and Thoughts (SIFT), and the rest is often just a story or human construct.
Acknowledge that most of your reactions to the world are automatic, conditioned nerves and reflexes, making you like ‘biological robots.’ This understanding is the first step to becoming truly awake rather than ‘sleepwalking’ through life.
Be aware of the world’s culture of instant gratification, which falsely presumes material solutions to unhappiness or anxiety. Understanding this societal programming helps you avoid being ‘bamboozled’ by external influences.
When experiencing grief, aim for acceptance of the moment for what it is. This stage, following victimization, anger, frustration, and resignation, can lead to peace and an opportunity for meaning.
Recognize the five ‘kleshas’ or causes of human suffering: being asleep to true identity, clinging to dreams, recoiling from nightmares, identifying with provisional body-mind, and fear of death. The solution is to wake up to your true, unlimited potential.
Strive for enlightenment by consciously choosing freedom from the conditioned mind. This ultimate goal involves breaking free from automatic, predictable responses and accessing higher consciousness.