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Goodmorning,
Happy Monday!! Today I want to share with you some tools that you can consider when practicing peace in your daily lifestyle.
There are 5 Components When Practicing Peace:
1. Find a Sacred Place
Find a quiet, sacred place in which you can do your practice. It may be outdoors at a park, beach or in your backyard. Or it may be indoors in a place in your house. Find a place you resonate with that you can call your sacred place of practice. It is important to find this place so you know that when you go to your sacred place this is the place where you have peace, serenity and love.
Create your own sacred place by choosing somewhere that is a place where you feel at peace. For me, I am a real beach girl so I have a sacred place at the beach that I go to in the morning. It is a meditation rock where a lot of people go to meditate and practice yoga at sunrise. It is absolutely stunning.
Why do I love to meditate at sunrise?
Just as the sunrises, there is a sense of real peace and quiet in the air. It is very tranquil. I like to go the beach and watch the sun peak through the horizon up over the ocean into the sky. When I watch the sunrise, I sit in stillness and observe the nature around me; I listen to the waves, I can hear birds chirping and it really is a peaceful, beautiful way to start the day feeling relaxed, centered, grounded and at peace.
With every sunrise it is an opportunity to start fresh, each day is a new day. It is your opportunity to shine bright like the sun. Start the day with a clean canvas and paint it as colorfully as you like. It is a new day with the chance to start new.
Believe it or not the days when I choose to wake early and watch the sunrise and meditate I feel more awake and energized throughout the day. I feel like I have so many more hours in my day, it is very productive. The secret is to get to bed early to ensure you have enough rest to be motivated to wake early.
‘The early bird catches the worm’
Therefore rising early at sunrise and going to my sacred place at the beach where I can see the sunrise is the perfect place for me to meditate. This is just an example of a sacred space and practice. It is important to recognize each person is different and you may find a place completely different that resonates with you for your sacred space of practice.
2. No Technology
Once you have found your sacred place, make it a ritual to have no technology whilst you practice. If you are beginning your day with meditation practice, then try not to check your emails, social media, watch tv or turn on the computer before your practice. Keep your thoughts clear and alert from your morning awakening because once we check emails, thoughts are in reaction mode, we start to think about that person we need to get back to, we think about what our boss needs us to do and we build moments of stress and reactions which in turn builds action to want to be wired with emails, social media and technology. Therefore by not clocking into any forms of technology we are able to be clearer with the practice.
3. Honor
Honor yourself in the knowing that this time you have allocated just for you. There is no need to feel like you have to rush or be somewhere else. Allocate the time when you know this time is set aside just for you to be. When you take the time to do your practice, be patient, be nurturing, be loving to you and know that this is your time to just be. I like to start my meditation practices with an intention, such as;
‘The intention for my practice today is to find clarity to know where I want to go or what I want to do today’
4. Breathe
I like to begin the meditation practice in a comfortable position with palms facing upwards, ready to receive. As I begin breathing, I start to bring my focus and energies into the present now. I say my intention and then focus on the breath; and I am conscious and aware that my thoughts may jump around my head and this is normal.
However every time a new thought would pop into my mind during my practice, I would focus back on my breath, to help me focus on something that is soothing and calming. Over time I increased the amount of time in which I meditated. Now, I meditate 20 minutes a day sometimes twice a day, morning and night. But initially I started with 5minutes a day. Remember taking the time and honor the time and practice you can do for you, is the most important thing.
Start by sitting in stillness and just focusing on the breath.
5. Calm the Mind
Some people may think that in order to be able to meditate correctly you must sit in silence, empty your mind and think of nothing. Whilst this would be great in theory, I think it is important to acknowledge that each of us have a different experience in meditation practice.
It is not really that easy to just stop thinking about your thoughts; and it is not necessarily a bad thing that thoughts will pop up in meditation practice, I actually believe this is quite normal. We live a life of such busy-ness that once we sit in stillness it is only natural to have thoughts circulating through our mind. The key is to practice and learn how to calm the mind and those thoughts during meditation practice.
There is no wrong or right. There is simply stillness within.
To hear more about my thoughts around practicing peace tune into the podcast above.
Have a peaceful day and remember to nurture and nourish you,
Joey
