1)Return to awareness
When you are centered, you feel relaxed, calm, and quiet inside. There were a lot of reasons this past year to feel the opposite, in a state of restlessness, distraction, and stress. It’s good to remind your nervous system what it feels like to be centered. Make it your policy, as soon as you notice that you are not calm and centered, to find a quiet place. Close your eyes, take a few deep breaths, then meditate until you feel centered again. When you open your eyes, be sure to take a moment before going back into activity.
2)Minimize stressful input
In times of crises people stay glued to news and social media even though they are feeding a person’s stress level. Anything that makes you feel pressured, threatened, or anxious automatically contracts your awareness. Make a conscious effort to reduce stressful news items and if possible do without them.
3)Act on your highest values
Spiritual values haven’t changed over the centuries. They are expressions of love, devotion, service, compassion, and kindness. But values remain dormant if you don’t act on them. In constricted awareness you are wound in a tight protective posture, so spiritual values have less of an outlet, or none at all. To expand your awareness, act on the values you hold most dear. No one is asking you to be a saint. But there is always an instance during the day where a kind gesture or word, an expression of affection, or a small act of service gives you an opportunity to live out your values.
4)Express your inner world
The most enjoyable way to expand your awareness is to express yourself joyfully. Creative outlets are one way that works beautifully, but that’s just one path. You need to express whatever you most value in yourself. This could be love, caring, kindness, or selfless service. The key is that you feel the real you coming out, because the real you is the source of bliss.
5)Renew yourself
The present moment is the only place where life is renewed. It is the location of flow. It is where invisible possibilities become real as thoughts, feelings, words, and actions. But if you carry the baggage of old beliefs, anxiety, worry, inertia, habits, and conditioning around with you, you will never experience the present moment, and therefore you will not be renewed.
Life is abundant, but that’s only an inspiring notion until you experience it first-hand. When you have a glimpse of beauty, love, innocence, wonder, or joy, pause and value it. Say to yourself, “This moment reflects the real me.” These are the moments that renew you, because they are when you walk in the light.
