Thursday Thoughts ~ The power within

Another day of lock down and shut downs. How much more can people take?
Of course there are numerous reasons that we should be taking this as opportunity.For all who have died from corona virus, can you think about them for a moment? Do you think they would want “just another day” in lock down?
Of course they would, complacent we may be becoming. To underestimate what exactly covid 19 is, is probably the time it will creep up on you. Perish the thought.
We as citizens of the world must continue our efforts to bring about global containment. For this we must stay the course and remain “aware”, “vigilant”.
Annoying as it may be and perhaps equally annoying are posts such as this where the focus is about making positives out of the negatives. Thinking of how we “can make the most” out of it all.

 

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There is no pressure on any of us for the first time in a long time. The only pressure being applied is the pressure we put on ourselves. Do we feel under pressure to actually bake a cake and share photos of same all over Instagram?
Do we find that painting the house is just not a chore we are up to and we feel under pressure because everyone else is doing it?
Do we feel pressure that we are not being constructive enough during all this time at home?

Any such pressures are being placed upon you by yourself.
They are not our normal pressures that we place ourselves under. We usually are rushing for school gate time or we are rushing to make a meeting for our job. We may even be used to working under deadline scenarios at work and we always place pressure on ourselves to get finished by a particular deadline.
One of the funny things to note, we find a way to use this seemingly never ending lock down situation to keep on applying pressure to ourselves even through the small things of nowadays, bake a cake or get fit.

 

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There are no requirement for you to have a perfectly toned body after all the lock downs are over.

There are no requirements that you become a master baker during the lock down time.

There are no requirements that you become a salon stylist from doing your own hair through lock down.

As a matter of fact there have never been any such requirements of us ever. And especially now during these trying times. The requirements I have found to be most valuable in my life have been, can I find contentment within myself?

 

* Is it possible to feel “okay”?

 

* Is it possible to understand how I feel?

 

* Is it possible that when & what I feel it is “normal”?

 

There are many instances in all of our life’s that we may question some of how we feel and definitely many times we will question what we think. During such times of questioning ourselves, we might have a tendency to convince ourselves that there is “something wrong” or it is “not normal”.

The beauty of these such thoughts are, they are totally normal. We may stay closed up and remain thinking that we are best to keep these items of ourselves in private and never let ourselves out. This again could be one of our “normal” everyday pressures the we usually keep ourselves under. Our routines have been cast aside by the covid 19 situation. We have lost our daily place in the world and are living a new different life right now during these times. Our normality is gone and along with that our pressures that we used to operate under. The pressures of our daily lives pre covid 19, they are gone.
We have found new ways to pressurize ourselves. Much of social media has brought or brings these new, out of routine pressures into our lives.

What can we do to assist ourselves during lock down?

We can begin to help ourselves to relax. We can begin to use the pause we have been offered in life to our advantage.
We do not need to have learned a new skill during lock down, we do not need to emerge from lock down on some new almighty path in life.
What we can do as an alternative to how we have lived our entire life so far is, begin to know contentment. We can begin to identify how normal our thoughts and feelings are. Once we bring this new concept of the “new normal” into our lives, we can embrace it and embrace ourselves for being a very special person in the whole entire world.

Why embrace it and ourselves?

By taking a position of loving ourselves and embracing the new changes that are occurring, we can begin to understand ourselves even a little bit better.
By accepting that our thoughts and feelings are “normal” we can break down barriers and stigmas that may have been once attached to any of us. The labels that have circulated and have began even to become so huge that there might be a nightly news piece about “mental health” or “emotional well being”. These labels have been around for a long time. The lock down has perhaps brought such items into focus a little bit more.

 

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One of the best examples of going “stir crazy” or going “postal” or getting “cabin fever” has been the movie, The Shinning with Jack Nicholson. He is locked up in a hotel as a caretaker of the place for the out of season period. Too much lock down made Jack a dull boy.
The example though is a great way to reflect on how you have been handling the lock down yourself.
A great bench mark so to speak, safe to say if you are not talking to yourself as if you have company and talking to them out loud, while there is actually nobody there. Then you are probably still doing okay.

The cabin fever can get to us all.
Allow us to imagine now together that you are a person who spends a lot of time talking to yourself upstairs in your mind. That you tend to be doing a ton more of it now that the lock down is keeping you at home more. Let us imagine again for a moment that it is possible to slow down the mind and understand that it is totally normal what you do inside of your own head.
You are not someone who needs to be labelled, you are totally “normal” and fine.
The power within ourselves is perhaps much greater than you imagine. The power within ourselves can allow us to bring calm and contentment into our lives.
The beauty being that the entire world has been offered all of us a time to take advantage of this. A time to help us reflect on our memories and our feelings.
A time to begin a new hobby, the new hobby I suggest is meditation.

We have the power within ourselves to learn about ourselves if only just a little. We have been given a massive opportunity to begin such a journey during these lock down times.

Why would we even bother to do anything new?

The new is perhaps a way of looking at it. The way we can speak to ourselves and what we can do to help ourselves to become calm and content are quite simple. We will not be changing ourselves in any dramatic fashion. We will use our time to bring ourselves back to who we have always been. The perfect you that you were born as. The perfect you who entered into this world maybe even many moons ago.
Society has seduced us for a long long time into believing we should act and or behave in certain ways. This time now during the pandemic is an opportunity to get back to being you. Get back to being the simple content happy person you have always been.
The fact of being under lock down has absolutely nothing to do with who you are other than how you allow it to take hold of or affect you.

There is a power within ourselves that is something so mighty that a simple ten or twenty minute meditation session here and there can bring about a great change for the better. A great change to assist us in becoming the great people we have always been. We need not hold things in any more, we can learn during these times to FEEL.

We hold the power within ourselves to become who we have always been and cast away all and any of the pressures.
We are being given the most valuable opportunity the world has ever seen.
A major chance to regroup exactly who we are, how we are and a clear opportunity to develop ourselves through any of our torments that we never had time to get to.

 

* How do I know this is for sure?

 

* How do I know it is worth the risk?

 

I ask of you to begin, use this time to become a little closer to yourself. Use our time now to reflect on any “issues” of the past. Bring them into your world of today. Through meditation and breathing practices it is possible to free ourselves of them all. We can bring about a slow down in our entire being. We can begin as we have always been intended to be.

This is some of the power within ourselves that we can use this lock down to our advantage and begin to see how it is not merely about turning negatives in to positives. We can begin to unlock many parts of ourselves that may have just gotten buried somewhere due to how we became so used to our daily routines and pressures.

 

This is a time of opportunity for us all.

 

I have listed many simple tools in Layman’s Handbook, in life.
The book’s front cover has it written clearly across the front, “Simple tools to change how we live”.

I can honestly say when I wrote this book I knew that I would need to plead and almost beg people to make the time, find the time to begin using such tools.
I definitely had no idea that the entire global community would be offered such a great set of time to be able to take advantage of and use such simple tools.
The book is subtitled “A journey to SELF”
Self standing for SUCCEED ELEVATE LIVE FREE.

Freeing ourselves from any past hurt, pains or trauma.
Live beyond what we have become used to. Live for who we have always been.
ELEVATE ourselves to our next level in our journey.
Succeed in all that we may attempt. Succeed in bringing the real you out to the world and allow us to say hello.

Layman’s Handbook is available in EBOOK and you can download it from Amazon, should you wish to take “a journey to self”

 

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The benefits we can obtain through meditation are beyond what I can actually put in to words here. I suggest that you give it a go.
You will reap the benefits. (You can thank me later)
Meditation is a very simple practice of becoming alone with your thoughts and your feelings while maintaining a steady and conscious flow of breathing. There is not much more to it.
Find a nice piece of music and just begin breathing steady and see where you might bring yourself to in your own time and your own mind. Allow the feelings through.

This is the power within ourselves. The power to realign our entire being by simply pausing for a short time each day.
Amazing are the results.

Happy Thursday and when we come out of these lock downs, perhaps a big wide world of friendly people will be ready to greet you with open arms. No more stigma, no more labels no more prejudice.
Meditation holds a super key to unlocking yourself.

Stay safe, wash your hands
&
BREATHE.

   @TWOsonsTOOmany