5 Activities That Promote Inner Peace

Start today and feel better — starting today

What would it be like if you could achieve some inner peace? Our current times have left many of us feeling emotionally exhausted. And some of us have felt this way prior to Covid — through guilt, pain, and resentment that has been carried throughout life.

Can you relate?

Are you tired of responding impulsively, negatively or by overreacting? We all can find ourselves affected by negative moods at times. Especially in these times, when it’s so easy to be triggered in so many ways.

Sometimes it doesn’t matter how much work you have done on yourself, these old habits can easily creep back in. And steal your joy. When you are thrown off-centre, you become challenged to effectively cope with what life presents you.

I feel it is extremely important to take control over ourselves, tap into our inner power and find the peace that is desired. And when you are not feeling great about yourself — both mentally and physically, this could be easier said than done.

How do you turn things around?

By going within… which means you need to look at every aspect of yourself, spirituality, physically, emotionally, mentally, and intellectually. Begin to really understand yourself and who you are — and embrace yourself.

It’s not about fighting or beating ourselves up — that will only keep you stuck. Now is the time to move forward into who you will become.

How do you move forward?

By working with practical tools and techniques that will support you on your journey. What I share below are simple ways to help you process the daily stress in your life. When you learn NEW ways to cope, you will begin to come from a place of creation instead of reaction.

You will come from a place of where you want to be and not from a place of where you have already been.

Triggers are where we’ve been and by becoming aware of this — you can start to separate yourself from your emotions. And learn to not react — but respond.

This is a process — and what I will share can become NEW habits and daily practice. It’s not a one and done. If you slip, you learn to catch yourself before you fall.

Many of us, especially women, are used to supporting others. Now it’s time to support ourselves. Stop putting ourselves on the back burner — as things are heating up.

Do you feel the heat?

Maybe your life is blowing up — forcing you to change in some way. Maybe you are feeling a stirring to change — you want something more. You might not even know what that means, but feel it’s time for some kind of change.

That change can be personally or professionally — or both.

Below are some simple techniques that will support you on this journey and help you cope with the stress and anxiety you may be facing. This will allow you to bring more peace into your day.:

1. Mindfulness

When you’re mindful, you’re fully present. You can even become completely aware of your sense of smell, touch, taste, hearing, and sight.

You can practice mindfulness when you eat when you listen to music when you take a walk. It’s simply about engaging all of your senses to push everything else out of your mind. There is less time to worry when you’re focusing on the reality you’re living in — instead of thinking about what-ifs or should-haves.

We are programmed through society and even though family and friends to what’s going to happen, or already did happen. This brings fear and worry. Being mindful allows you to live in the moment, not in the past or in the future.

2. Deep Breathing

Deep breathing is an activity that promotes inner peace and tranquillity, similarly to meditation and mindfulness. It relaxes the vagus nerve, which is our fight or flight nerve.

There are a wide variety of deep breathing exercises that you can use. I recently learned of a creative spin on this technique:

Imagine your breath as colors. Assign one color to positivity and one to negativity.

As you inhale, see yourself drawing in blue air — it’s all positivity. And as you exhale, imagine a rush of black air being expelled from your lungs — it’s all negativity. Inhale positivity and exhale negativity.

This simply adds an extra layer of stress relief to the deep breathing practice. The purpose of deep breathing to promote inner peace is that your mind is drawn to the process of breathing — and all it’s life-enhancing properties.

As you visualize the colors, take a deep breath in through your nose, expanding your belly and not your chest. You can put your hands in both places to make you more mindful of your breathing. Then hold til the count of 4 and exhale through your mouth. You can even exhale with a bit of force — make some sound, liking a whooshing noise. Let it out. Repeat this five times.

3. Gratitude

If you want to promote inner peace and bring more joy, then you need to focus on all of the positivity in your life. A gratitude journal is an excellent way to remind yourself of everything you love in life. Once you start writing out what you’re grateful for, you will find it easier to see more positives.

It’s all about training yourself to be more aware of the positive things in life.

This gets the Reticular Activating System (RAS) in action. The RAS is a bundle of nerves in our brains. It filters out what we are not focused on so that what we are focused on can get through. For example, you are looking for a NEW car and then you see that car everywhere.

And on the note of gratitude, when you focus on what you are grateful for, more things come into your life to be grateful for. The opposite is also true — if you see the negative, then it appears like life just isn’t working for you.

4. Meditate

The power of meditation cannot be underestimated. While experts may spend hours in meditation, you don’t have to. You can create a daily schedule that dedicates only 10 to 15 minutes to meditation.

Meditation is about connecting with yourself and learning to be present. As you meditate, you can focus on a mantra or you can focus on your breath. There are even guided meditations. Look to phone apps or even YouTube.

When you focus on a mantra or on your breath, it allows you to push everything else out of your mind. It’s not about clearing the thoughts — it’s about distancing from the thoughts. When thoughts pop in — let them go. Don’t get caught in them.

As you inhale/exhale, push negativity from your mind and embrace inner peace. Meditation is a great solution when you’re feeling stressed out. It’s something that you can do anywhere and everywhere.

Sometimes I’ll take 5 minutes at work or when I am parked in the car. It’s also very energizing if you need a healthy pick me up.

5. Be True To Yourself

How can being true to yourself be an activity? When you are in harmony with yourself — you will be mindful of how you think and feel. And then you act in line with your core values. And honor yourself by setting boundaries.

Many of us put ourselves last, as I mentioned earlier. We push ourselves and don’t take care of ourselves. Poor sleep, unhealthy diet, unwinding with alcohol on a regular basis does damage to our bodies, our brains — and ultimately our lives.

Staying small, feeling stuck but afraid to change, living inside our comfort zone, not growing and not setting boundaries all add stress to us daily. This is why I am adding this as step 5.

Put yourself on this list of techniques — to bring more peace into your life. When you are true to yourself, you are ultimately embracing yourself and loving yourself. You start to see your life in a NEW way — you bring more joy in as well.

You start to create who you now look to be…

If you are facing changes or looking to change, through any challenges I want you to know that life can get better. It’s your choice — as it’s all in the way you look at it.

Will you choose to see change as the beginning and not the end?

I am releasing a NEW course on stress management this month. It’s time to get a handle on stress, anxiety and overthinking. Stress affects our body and our brains. It is a cause of illness and disease. More info to follow soon.

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And I encourage you to read the work of my fabulous writer friends: Trista Ainsworth, Gurpreet Dhariwal, Amy Marley, Aurora Eliam, CMP, Kathryn A. LeRoy, Ph.D., Selma, Keno Ogbo, Melissa Bee, Francine Fallara, Erin King, Karen Madej, Sumera Rizwan, Britni Pepper, Chowa Sekai, Ksenia Sein, Alison Tennent, Livia Dabs, Neha Sandhir S, Lanu Pitan, Sherry S, Agnes Louis, Chris Hedges, Paul Myers MBA, Terry Mansfield, Rasheed Hooda, Henery X (long), Timothy Key, Tim Maudlin, Bob Jasper, Joe Luca, JeffHerring.com, Indra Raj Pathak, Dr Michael Heng

Always celebrating, Dr Mehmet Yildiz, Founder & Leader of ILLUMINATION

Until next time ~

Sending you light, love — and some help to bring in some peace.

Be Well,