Working with our emotions, to understand where they come from, learning our habits of reaction, and choosing where to focus our energies is hard work!
It’s rewarding and uplifting and soul-nourishing, but it can also sometimes feel like you’re going around in circles as the same feelings and reactions keep on coming up again and again, slapping you around the face.
You might think you’ve come to understand why you fret about money so much. You’ve looked at the messages your parents gave you about lack and never relaxing in case money runs out. You’ve worked on your abundance mindset and learned to trust and go with the flow.
Then something happens ― maybe it’s talk of interest rates rising — and you’re back in the, ‘what if’ scenarios fretting you won’t be able to pay the mortgage. And the old fear of not having enough money rises up YET again.
Or perhaps it’s feelings of low self-esteem. You’ve come to understand this is a pattern. Your brain’s been trained this way by caregivers, schooling and a culture that trades on shame and provoking feelings of not being good enough.
Then you go on Facebook and see the friend request sent to someone you recently met still hasn’t been accepted and you fret that they don’t like you, or aren’t interested in you. And the old ‘not good enough’ and ‘I’m not interesting enough’ feelings come flooding back.
Focus on today
It can be easy just to give up and give in.
To believe the lie that you can’t change and never will, and there’s just no point in trying.
When this happens, try telling yourself this:
‘Just for today … I will be peaceful.’
‘Just for today … I will let my mind be at rest.’
‘Just for today … I will be grateful’.
Focus on today. What can you do today to feel more confident or abundant or calm?
It doesn’t matter how you felt yesterday; tomorrow will take care of itself all in good time.
What can you do today to understand why you’re feeling how you’re feeling?
What can you do today to find peace with your emotions?
Applied mindfulness
This is a great lesson I’ve learned from my Jikiden Reiki practice.
In Reiki, there are Five Precepts that offer a way to live with greater equanimity, guiding us along the path to inner peace:
‘Just for today; do not be angry, do not worry, be grateful, do your duties fully, and be kind to others.’
It’s applied mindfulness: being in the moment and taking each moment as it comes.
Take one day at a time and resolve to live how you wish to live ― just for today.
It takes the pressure off feeling the need to make grand, permanent and sweeping changes. To transform yourself. To put the past behind you once and for all. These are heavy burdens to put on your shoulders!
When you’re feeling stressed or overwhelmed and anxious; when your mind is running away at a million miles an hour; it can feel calming and freeing to resolve that ‘just for today’ I will focus on feeling calm; happy; safe.
These precepts help us understand that all things change — our mental states and emotions too. It’s how life is.
Yes, continue to work on yourself and to grow in emotional and spiritual maturity.
But also acknowledge with kindness and self-compassion that you do this with the choices you make and actions you take day by day.
Mind Taming Peace Mantra
Just for today I choose how I feel.
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This is an excerpt from my book Peace Lies Within: 108 ways to tame your mind and connect to inner peace
About Stella
Hi, I’m Stella Tomlinson and I guide highly sensitive women to live with peace & purpose.
I work with highly sensitive, intuitive women like you, who feel overwhelmed, frustrated and misunderstood and I help you to find the calm, ease and confidence you yearn for so you can live with peace and purpose.
I’ll guide you to reconnect to the inner intuitive guidance available to you through the sacred temple of your body; the wise whispers of your heart and soul; and the divine feminine energies of the seasons and cycles of life as a grounded spiritual practice.
And in doing so you’ll find clarity of mind, grounded inner peace, self-acceptance, a confident mindset, spiritual nourishment, and you’ll feel in flow with life.