The New Year always feels ripe with promise, rich with desire and full of potential. I don’t believe New Years Resolutions work, and instead prefer to set intentions (read more here). Exploring and setting intentions and employing tools and techniques that will shift your entire life towards greater happiness is a great investment in your time for 2015. I’ve popped down what I believe to be the most potent things you can do in 2015. Enjoy!
EXPLORE
We adore traveling at The Broad Place, and there is no richer experience than being outside your comfort zone, your routine, faced with the unknown that a day abroad holds, absorbing all the little details that you notice when you’re in the present moment and not in regular life. We personally adore being places where culture far different from that of Australia is rich and diverse. Where the cities are cramped, where the food is fragrant and full of flavour, where the streets are dirty and gritty. Places where you sweat just picking up a glass of water or the air is so cold that speaking means puffs of steam come from your mouth. Spots where the surf is great, the salt crisp on your body and coconuts are a foodstuff in every meal. Places where no one speaks English and you have very little idea of what it is you are ordering from the menu. Cities where the concepts of that culture are so ingrained that it’s like being on another planet. Where it’s a giant hot mess of colour and scents.
We urge you to make 2015 a year of travel, make it cheap and gritty or make it expensive and extravagant. We are making this easy with the launch of our Exploration Manuals that will be launching with Ubud, Indonesia in a few weeks time. Just whatever you do, get out of your home town and country for some exploration!
STOP RUSHING
‘Come on we’re late’
‘Hurry up, we’re pressed for time’
‘Sorry I haven’t been in touch, I’m just SO busy’
‘There just aren’t enough hours in the day’
We need to banish busy and stop rushing around like crazy people! Slowing down can seem impossible at times I agree, but it is absolutely possible. The main thing is that we don’t need to add to the pressures of modern living by constantly engaging in poor language that makes us and everyone else feel stressed.
Start by becoming aware of the words you use to ‘motivate’ the people around you. I’ll be the first to put up my hand and admit to badgering our daughter and freaking out in an attempt to get her to hurry up with sentences like ‘seriously, how can your shoelaces take so long to lace, we are going to be so late, move it’. Instead, now I ask a question to get her buy in such as ‘I would love to be on time for school today, and I think you would to, how do you think we can make that happen?’
Also monitor how much you say the word busy, as we want to banish this. Being ‘busy’ means that you don’t have control of your time, your priorities and aren’t functioning that well in the world. Busy is an excuse. So cut it out of your language and be honest about why you haven’t called someone back/emailed/exercised/meditated. With yourself, and everyone else!
We have published an e-book with a whole chapter on banishing busy within our 7 Day Mind Cleanse if you are keen for more.
COME BACK TO YOUR SENSES
It’s really hard to live in the present moment isn’t it? Our minds are constantly engaged, and usually with irrelevant stuff about what might happen in the future. And if we’re imagining the future, we’re reviewing what’s happened in the past. Why is this not a great place to be? Have you ever considered that the present moment is our future and past in the making? And yet we rarely harvest the present moment for what it has to offer.
Runaway Mind plays a big part in this. It’s when our minds career off with one thought rapidly being replaced by another that usually gets worse in it’s imagined outcome.
Coming back to our senses helps this immensely.
Ask yourself
what am I seeing (sight)?
what can I smell (smell)?
what am I hearing (sound)?
what am I tasting (taste)
what am I feeling (touch)
Take at least 5-10 seconds on each, longer if you can, and then go back to whatever task was at hand. After a while, and it can take a long time to retrain your brain on something you might have been doing your whole life.
MEDITATE
There is no better tool than Vedic meditation for increasing happiness in ones life. Even if you think you can’t meditate (I sure used to before I learnt Vedic meditation) the good news is you can. Vedic meditation is a simple, effortless technique that can be mastered over a course of 4 sessions by absolutely anyone! The results, are quite incredible. So find yourself a teacher or come learn with us and upgrade your life. Read more here.
CREATE A MORNING ROUTINE
Our days can be frantic and full and it can be a challenge to feel on top of it all. Starting your day with a beautiful practice to awaken the soul and body sets you up for great success for the day ahead. A small investment in time to get your body limber, enliven your digestion and calm and ground the mind. As a practice, I can’t recommend this enough.
I’ve written an article about an ancient Vedic practice here that might work for you.