Five steps to start a healing lifestyle
Some days, I come home from work exhausted by worry and replay the day's events in my head. I worry about my interactions, how I think people perceived me or that I forgot some important task or phone call. Most, if not all, of the time, the worry is pointless. Still, the thoughts are burdensome and stuck on a cycle in my mind.
I realized that if I can fill my mind with negative thoughts, I know I can fill my mind with positive thoughts. The mind is very powerful. I can restore calm to my mind and body. I can heal from a long week of making bad decisions. And doing that is really pretty simple. Its starts with giving myself permission to rest and enjoy. Here is what a healing lifestyle looks like to me:
1. Laugh
One show I love watching is "Bob's Burgers." It is about a cartoon family that owns and operates a burger shop. In addition to the funny dialogue, the show has a lot of visual laughs. For one, the shop next door always has a different name. Here is a sampling of a few: "Flip Your Wig - Reversible Wigs" and "Don't Go There: Cautionary Sign Store."
Bob also tries his best to design clever and tasty burgers, with names like Poutine on the Ritz and Girls Just Wanna Have Fennel. I love that family. They make me happy.
2. Water
When I think about self-healing, the first thing that comes to mind is drinking a lot of water. My doctor told me that I should take my body weight and divide it in half. The resulting number is how many ounces of water I should drink in a day. That is a lot of water, but water flushes toxins out of the body and is just plain refreshing.
3. Massage
This could mean spending the whole day at a top-of-the-line spa or just popping in to a local spa for a service. I am so proud of myself for getting massages over the years. It is good for the muscles to get worked out.
Some of the pressure was hard, but I think it was good for me - think "hurts so good." I needed to have the muscles worked out and to get my body loosened up. I also enjoy the quiet ambience of any spa.
4. Ambience
I decided to bring some of that ambience into my own home. I have low lighting in my place, including a string of white lights cascading down the wall. Luckily, my place is very quiet and I control the heat and air conditioner. No loud noises. No bright lights or loud music. It is small and cozy and can be warm or cool depending on how I feel.
I love to be sitting in my recliner with my comforter carefully and perfectly tucked in around my legs and wrapped underneath my feet. There is nothing worse than cold feet of the end of the recliner foot rest. I have a pillow behind my head and laptop on one side of my lap, pushed off to the side to make room for my cat to curl up on the other side.
That is my heaven. Access to the Internet, warmth and closeness of my sweet fat cat, full of unconditional love. Not too much input or noise; really not that much interaction with other people. Self-healing means being with myself.
5. Sights/smells
Self-healing means looking at soothing colors and inhaling soothing scents. I have a small diffuser that pumps out soothing smells based on the type of essential oil I put in it. It has a setting to glide through different colors. In addition to the wonderful smell of essential oil, I can sit quietly and watch the soothing colors changing. There is something so relaxing about that.
No matter what type of real or imagined day I have had, I know I can come home and focus on these easy techniques. I can trust my powerful and fluid mind to respond to the funny jokes, cold water and ambience around me. The response is a daily reward to my whole self, a recognition for
a job well done and another day closer to a healing lifestyle.
