6 Practices to Shine Daily

I am pursuing personal health, spiritual wealth and happiness. Here's a bit of what I've learned in the past 6 months:

Take good care of your body

Your body truly is your temple. Honor it by feeding it nutritious foods and plenty of water. Keep it active and energized by exercising, walking, stretching and getting enough sleep. Learn to decode its many messages. You can literately shift your mindset and how you feel by changing your biochemistry and getting more active. Learn to appreciate the amazing miracle your body is. Don't wait for disease to settle in before taking mindful actions towards your well being.

Meditate daily

Meditation frees your soul and lets you enter the silence of the mind; it is a way to get into the space between your thoughts. Meditation clears the mind, self-regulate it in some way. It allows you to think more openly, be more creative and act from a space of compassion. The more I meditate, the more my many recurrent thoughts resemble a distant roaring sound I can isolate and push at the back of my mind. Do it, it is as wonderful as it sounds.

Choose how you want to feel

We often begin our day with a list of things to do, goals to attain, objectives to pursue. Satisfaction involves striking as many items on the list as possible. But how important feeling good "doing the things you have to do" is to you? Do you ever ask yourself this question? I never did until recently and it completely changed how I go about my day. I am more productive and focused, happy, less stressed. How I choose to feel when I take care of things is now as important as the outcome, which makes it way more rewarding - it's like getting two for the price of one.

Commit to be fully present 

Being fully present is the opposite of doing things on auto-pilot. It makes whatever you do more enjoyable, makes time stop, or feels like it's flying by so fast, depending. Doing things you don't really enjoy even becomes a time to focus, acquire discipline and persist, which can catapult you right into the Zone. Make it a priority to be fully present to yourself. And stop multitasking - what makes it so indispensable you keep going back and forth all the time, forbidding you to devote your full attention to a single thing for more than 5 minutes at a time?

Keep the faith

Faith connects you to what you need; it's a conviction that something is. Know in your heart it will materialize and get a sense of joy deriving from your conviction and determination to make it happen. I sometimes look at faith as some sort of delayed gratification, just like saving money now to spend later or putting up with a job to help you boost your career later. It does wonders for self-motivation and in developing will-power.

Say thank you

Gratitude is the way to go to get more into your life and to be happy. I love this quote from Oprah: "Be thankful for what you have; you'll end up having more. If you concentrate on what you don't have, you will never, ever have enough." Whenever a flow of negative thoughts start whirpooling in my head, I stop and think to myself: "There are certainly more than 2 million people who would gladly switch place with me - in an instant. Is this worth worrying? Is there something under my control I can do to make it better?" And I start counting my blessings. 

How about you? Do you have a daily practice that helps you shine your light bright? What have you committed to do for yourself on a daily basis? Don't hesitate to share your stories and thoughts in the comments below.

Thanks for reading and sharing.

To your expansion, 

Patricia

http://etsy.com/shop/patriciawoodjewelry

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