Month: November 2019

Spiritual Balance – Week 45: Practice Mindfulness

On By AlfonsIn Healthy habits, Tai ChiLeave a comment

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You hear people talking about ‘mindfulness’ a lot these days. Some of it is hype, but it also is for good reason. For centuries philosophers, artists and monks have stressed the importance of being in the moment. Of fully living in the ‘now’. One key Zen principles is to ‘be in the here and now’.

Be in the here and now.

Mindfulness has many benefits to offer. It helps us be better at what we are doing, because we give it our full focus. It helps to calm our mind, because we don’t get distracted and torn between many things at the same time. And it helps us to be happier, because we put our full attention to the moment and with that have deeper and more satisfying experiences.

Uli teaches mindfulness for kids at our Elementary School and it helps kids who are struggling with their attention to re-center and to manage their emotions better. What she does are very simple exercises, but they have a strong and hopefully lasting impact on those kids.

Put some mindfulness into your life as well. That does not at all mean, that you need to book fancy classes or expensive coaches. It much rather means to simplify your thinking and to bring it back to the details of the current moment.

Focus on the task – What are you doing right now? What precisely? Are you on auto-pilot? If so, turn it off and go manual. Bring your attention back into what you’re doing. Deliberately execute every single step of your current task

Experience the environment – What sensations are you exposed to? What do you see, hear, feel and smell? Is it cold or warm right now? What is the feel, weight and texture of the tool you are using right now? What smells and sounds are in your environment?

Tune in to your body – How is your body feeling? Do you have tensions anywhere? Are you standing or sitting upright or slouching down? Are you smiling or frowning? Remember, your outside reflects on your inside, your posture reflects on your mood.

Listen to your breath – Your breath is your simplest but most powerful and important tool. First of all, without proper breathing you will die in minutes. But further, your breathing controls your mood, your stress level and even hormone levels like adrenaline. Learn to breathe deliberately and consciously. Learn to listen to your breathing. Learn to control your breathing and to let your breathing control your mindset. Start by just listening, then expand to gently controlling and adjusting the speed and pattern of your breathing.

Mindful exercises – Some exercises help you to be in the moment. Tai Chi is known for that effect, meditation as well. Yoga can get you there if you do it right. Most martial arts, taught by a true teacher, will lead your there as well. Running on the treadmill and watching the news or reading won’t. Those are good for cardio, but if you exercise distracted, you miss out on the awareness and mindfulness. I even stopped listening to music while I’m running on the trail. I loved it, but listening to the sounds of nature and feeling the gravel under my barefoot running shoes is even better.

Be mindful of what you do – every moment and every little detail of it!

 

Did you like this article? Want to read more?

I will keep posting articles here and I have them lined up way into summer 2020. However if you want to get it all in one comprehensive, structured, and grammar-checked (!) view, check out our new book:

 

Put on your oxygen mask first - book cover

Put On Your Own Oxygen Mask First

A practical guide to living healthier, happier and more successful in 52 weekly steps

By Alfons and Ulrike Staerk

ISBN 9781077278929

Find it on Amazon: Paperback, Kindle

 

If you like what you’re reading, please consider leaving a review on Amazon. If you don’t like it, please tell us what we can do better the next time. As self-published authors we don’t have the marketing power of big publishing houses. We rely on word of mouth endorsements through reader reviews.

Spiritual Balance – Week 44: Make Time for Creativity

On By AlfonsIn Healthy habitsLeave a comment

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We are all creative and we enjoy, even crave expressing ourselves through that creativity. You might not know, but you are creative as well. It might be painting, writing, making music, sculpting, writing poems, working with flowers or gardens. Whatever it is, find the creative expression that is yours and embrace it.

Identify your creative passion. Embrace it. Block time. Have a regular date with your creativity. And don’t do it for anyone other than yourself.

For the longest time (about 50 years), I thought I didn’t have any creative talents or passions in me. Then one day it dawned on me, that I actually enjoy writing. And I have done it in one way or another my whole life, starting from early childhood. I have not given it the space it deserved or the acknowledgment I should have, but I’ve subconsciously done it anyway.

For Uli it’s painting and flower arrangements, for our 7 year old son it’s building stuff, and our daughter is just writing on her first horse book at the age of 9 (she only has about 10 pages so far, but that’s not the point).

Find out what fuels your creativity. If you already know, awesome. If you don’t, experiment. Try things out. Take a few classes. See what sticks.

Not knowing and exercising your creative passions leaves a big gap in your life.

Once you identified your creative passion, make time for it! Whether you block an hour every day, a few evenings during the week, or some time on Saturday and Sunday doesn’t matter. What matters is that you book that time with yourself and stick to it. Make an appointment. Have a date with your creativity.

Enjoy to witness as you create something new that you are passionate about. Most important, don’t worry about others. All that matters is what you think about your works and how you feel about the outcome.

Right now I’m sitting on a deck, in the sunshine, on a trip to Germany. The whole family is taking a nap while I can indulge in my creativity, writing down these thoughts.

‘An audience of one’ is a great book to explore that thought a little more.

Whatever it is for you, writing, painting, music, photography – do it, make it a point in your life!

 

Did you like this article? Want to read more?

I will keep posting articles here and I have them lined up way into summer 2020. However if you want to get it all in one comprehensive, structured, and grammar-checked (!) view, check out our new book:

 

Put on your oxygen mask first - book cover

Put On Your Own Oxygen Mask First

A practical guide to living healthier, happier and more successful in 52 weekly steps

By Alfons and Ulrike Staerk

ISBN 9781077278929

Find it on Amazon: Paperback, Kindle

 

If you like what you’re reading, please consider leaving a review on Amazon. If you don’t like it, please tell us what we can do better the next time. As self-published authors we don’t have the marketing power of big publishing houses. We rely on word of mouth endorsements through reader reviews.

Spiritual Balance – Week 43: Go Outside Into Nature

On By AlfonsIn Healthy habitsLeave a comment

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Find some time to get out into nature!

Science has shown that getting out into nature on a regular basis boosts your health, and mental wellbeing. Make it a point to spend time in nature on a regular basis.

Get out into nature. The less manicured, the better. Pay attention to what you see, to the smells and sounds. Breathe! Live!

Walk your dog, hike, bike or play with your kids outside. Tend to your garden or backyard, get your hands dirty with soil. Whatever gets you going, do it. If you can’t get yourself to walking regularly, buy a dog.

Make it walking time in nature though, not the concrete deserts of the city. Human beings are animals at their cores. We need nature, we need the green and we need to see some natural messiness. Parks are ok, but the more natural ‘wilderness’ you can find, the better.

Find trees, mosses, green, dirt. Go out in nature and explore the small and big wonders.

There seems to be a fancy new term and movement for everything these days. Naturally there is also a fancy japanese way of walking in the woods. It’s called Shinrin-yoku (森林浴) and really only means to walk in the forest, be mindful of what you encounter and watch your breath. I leave it to you to decide is you need a Shinrin-yoku instructor or just some sturdy boots. Personally I opt for the latter, but I’m also a simple person.

Go low-key (dog walking) or fancy (Shinrin-yoku, forest bathing), whatever meets your needs, but do it!

 

Did you like this article? Want to read more?

I will keep posting articles here and I have them lined up way into summer 2020. However if you want to get it all in one comprehensive, structured, and grammar-checked (!) view, check out our new book:

 

Put on your oxygen mask first - book cover

Put On Your Own Oxygen Mask First

A practical guide to living healthier, happier and more successful in 52 weekly steps

By Alfons and Ulrike Staerk

ISBN 9781077278929

Find it on Amazon: Paperback, Kindle

 

If you like what you’re reading, please consider leaving a review on Amazon. If you don’t like it, please tell us what we can do better the next time. As self-published authors we don’t have the marketing power of big publishing houses. We rely on word of mouth endorsements through reader reviews.

Spiritual Balance – Week 42: Get Inspiration

On By AlfonsIn Healthy habitsLeave a comment

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Just as our body needs food and nutrients, our mind needs inspiration. We usually get that inspiration from being exposed to new experiences, information and stimuli. The more we work in our comfort zone of the things we already know and the routines we already master, the less our minds are challenged, inspired and nurtured.

Seek out new experiences that challenge your existing beliefs. Nurture your mind. Get inspired and work hard for new insights, instead of being dulled by passive consumption.

Treat yourself with a new stimuli every day. Opt for active experiences and information over passive consumption. Active stimuli are those that you need to process and work for like learning a craft. Passive Stimuli are those that you can mindlessly consume like watching TV.

Ditch your TV (we did that many years ago and never regretted it), delete your computer games, limit your social media times.

Instead seek experiences that extend what you already know, push your boundaries and challenge your comfort zone.

There are many ways to stimulate and inspire yourself. Pick a few and make time for them. Pick a fixed time in your day or week that is devoted to those experiences and inspirations to make sure you prioritize them.

Reading – Read a non-fictional book about an area that interests you, or even a completely new topic. Read a chapter every day and reflect on it.

Learning a craft – Learn a new craft or a new hobby. Push yourself to learn and grow all the time. Maybe your job provides those opportunities, if it doesn’t, either seek out new challenges in your work or find them in your personal time.

Pursuit of mastery – Push for mastery in something that you are passionate about. Find something that excites you long-term and go deeper and deeper, exploring the core ideas and concepts (for me it’s my martial arts journey that kept me exploring and discovering for over 25 years now).

Different perspectives – Talk to interesting new people and try to understand their views. This is not about talking to the same people you already know and meet all the time. Those are often echo chambers, only confirming what you already believe. Rather seeks out new perspectives and opinions and reflect on them. Avoid negative people though, they are not worth the negative impact they will have on you.

Seek surprises – Expose yourself to situations that surprise you. Travel, seek out new experiences. Change your context and challenge your frameworks. Break complacency whenever it creeps up.

 

Did you like this article? Want to read more?

I will keep posting articles here and I have them lined up way into summer 2020. However if you want to get it all in one comprehensive, structured, and grammar-checked (!) view, check out our new book:

 

Put on your oxygen mask first - book cover

Put On Your Own Oxygen Mask First

A practical guide to living healthier, happier and more successful in 52 weekly steps

By Alfons and Ulrike Staerk

ISBN 9781077278929

Find it on Amazon: Paperback, Kindle

 

If you like what you’re reading, please consider leaving a review on Amazon. If you don’t like it, please tell us what we can do better the next time. As self-published authors we don’t have the marketing power of big publishing houses. We rely on word of mouth endorsements through reader reviews.