How have you made out with your physical wellness?
If you missed my article from two weeks ago, I shared some suggestions on how to improve this aspect of your wellness. Now, we are going to focus on your mental wellness. This includes your thoughts, feelings, emotions and reactions to life and is very important to take good care of because it impacts the quality of your life.
“Your thoughts create your reality. Your mind is more powerful than you know,” said Neale Donald.
So how exactly can we improve this aspect of our wellness? I have found three key factors that help create and maintain excellent mental wellness. The first is daily meditation. This in simple terms is taking a moment to go into inner silence and allow your thoughts to move on by like clouds in the sky and to allow inner silence and harmony to take over. This will calm the nervous system down and in turn will bring on a feeling of calm and relax. You can do this several times a day for a few minutes, the length of time is not important but instead the act of inner silence is. I suggest you concentrate on your breathe for a few minutes and this will take the distractions away.
Feel your body breathe from your belly all the way up your lungs to your mouth and nose. I like to use a drop of frankincense essential oil to inhale in the palm of my hands to induce relaxation and harmony as it it the oil of meditation. Second, is practicing conscious gratitude.
Zig Ziglar said: “Gratitude is the healthiest of all human emotions. The more you express gratitude for what you have, the more likely you will have even more to express gratitude for.”
This is a simple daily practice that you can do each night before sleep. I like using a special notebook, I call it my My Gratitude Journal to write in and I list five things that I am grateful for. These do not have to be big items, in fact it is all the small things that add up to create the biggest momentum. Expressing gratitude for the food in your fridge, or the sunshine of the day or the affection of your cat or dog are all things to pay gratitude for.
Last, is to exercise the mind with positive thoughts and affirmations. If I’m feeling down or negative, I like to put a drop of wild orange essential oil in the palm of my hands and take a few minutes to inhale. This will affect the limbic system of the brain which is responsible for feelings and emotions and will uplift your mood.
This is a great opportunity to create some positive affirmation statements to speak wellness into your mind which will eventually overpower the negative self talk. The brain is like a muscle that must be trained. Be gentle with yourself and when negative self-talk occurs treat it like a cloud going by and consciously affirm your positive self talk with your affirmations.
Some of my favourite affirmations are: Everything is working out for me. I am loved and appreciated. I am a kind, caring and successful person. Whatever resonates with you but make sure you believe what you are saying. I hope this has been of value to you and you take the next few weeks to implement these tips into your daily routine. In two weeks, we will continue with spiritual wellness.
Janice Ashley Burbella is a wellness educator, leader and owner of Peaceful Poplar, a place to learn, relax and rejuvenate the soul.
