Do you happen to feel that sensation like the walls are comming towards you, threatening to squish and nail you to the ground, feeling helpless? Do you feel that anxiety that slowly crawls in on you and makes you feel jumpy and irritable? Do you feel that on a daily basis and have lots of thoughts and things around you all the time? Things that seem to need your immediate attention and energy? Stop. Breathe. Be calm.
When you stop and breathe in order to become calm, the world around you doesn’t colapse like you think it will. In fact, the world doesn’t rely on you for anything. It doesn’t even care about you at all. You invest to much energy and thought into something that goes on existing just fine, with or without you. It has been doing that before you were born and it will continue doing that after you are no longer here. Stop. Breathe. Be calm.
If you are like me, you are so used to being efficient and afraid of letting time pass by without actually doing something in the hours that come and go. So used to be held accountable by someone for doing the right things, at the right time and in the right way, that you become that someone who is constantly pushing yourself to more and more effort, detail and strain.
This is not the kind of push that gets you further in life. It’s the kind that leaves you exhausted after a day’s work and realizing that you hadn’t had so much done after all. It leaves you with three quarters off your to do list untouched and feeling guilty about not being able to do it all. It tears down your self-esteem, your focus and your happines. Stop. Breathe. Be calm.
But there is another way to do things. There is a way that helps you rise your head out of the clutter. A way that allows you to purge all that tension away and work at giving your best with the least amount of energy drainage possible. That method is simply alowing yourself to let go. Once you catch yourself being tense, stressed and anxious about the next deadline, task or about the new doctor’s appointment, allow yourself to pause and just be.
It might sound like woo-woo stuff, but is has been proven that psychologically and biologically, the mind and body need to unwind in order to function at their maximum capacity. You cannot have a relaxed mind if you clutter it with all kind of thoughts. You cannot have a relaxed body if you get tense in the neck or in your abdominal area. So, allow yourself to let go. Do it right now.
Sit back on wherever you’re sitting right now. Allow your legs to sit comfortably on the ground. Put your hands in your lap and close the eyes. Notice how you feel. Breathe in fully through your nose and breathe out also through the nose. Notice how that makes you feel. With your eyes still closed, let thoughts float around your head, but don’t create any plans around any of them. Just let them float. Breathe in. Breathe out. Feel your body beginning to relax and letting go of tension. Rotate your nose and form circles one way and then the other. Sit up tall, rotate your shoulders 2-3 times, take a deep breath through your nose and a deep exhale through your mouth (if you are at work, breathe slowly, you don’t wanna scare anyone! :)) ).
Open your eyes. How do you feel? Let me know in the comments below. Repeat for as long as it takes to make you feel comfortable (and as time alows it).
This was all for this week’s #LifestyleFriday! Thanks for being here and I'll see you next week!
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Love,
Alexandra
