How to Grow More Joy in Your Life: Stop Worshiping Your Worries.
When you think about a garden, what makes it grow? Soil, water and sunlight? If you want your garden bed to produce the fruits and vegetables you desire, then what makes it flourish is your care and attention.
And this is also true of our inner gardens. (And not just the literal billions of tiny flora living in and on our bodies!) Our thoughts, feelings and beliefs shape our physical reality.
Worry lines etch our face. The weight of guilt rounds our shoulders. When we see danger everywhere, the world is a dangerous place. “Women seem wicked when you're unwanted. Streets are uneven when you're down.”
Have you heard this saying before? Energy flows where attention goes.
You feed your energy to what you pay attention to. And what you feed grows. So, what are you growing in your garden?
As women, many of us spend a large amount of time and energy “worshiping our worries.” While most of us don't fear starvation or wild animal attacks, our modern lives come with myriad anxieties. Toxins in our kid's food, water and products, unpaid medical bills, breaking down vehicles, the rising cost of living, WWIII, child trafficking…there are literally thousands of things you could worry about every single day!
And, as mothers and wives, we feel it is our very duty to worry about these things. (Who else is going to worry about them if not us?!) There's a boogeyman hiding around every corner, in your kids cereal box and in their shampoo bottle - and it's our job to find them!
All of this hypervigilance has us wound so tight that we walk around like a coiled snake ready to strike. Wouldn't it feel good to just relax?
I'm not saying we should become lackadaisical, disregarding our duties to care for our family’s health and safety. But, it is possible for us to unwind and let go of our worries; to live in and enjoy the present, rather than constantly worrying about all the “what-ifs.”
So how do we do this? By changing our thoughts, feelings and beliefs! And right now you're saying, “Yeah, easy for you to say! But it's not an easy thing to do.” But, by changing a few simple daily habits you can regulate your nervous system and send the correct signals to your body to tell it that all is good!
Try on these 7 daily practices and see how your mindset shifts!
Daily meditation and/or breathwork practice
Just 15 minutes of meditation or breathwork daily can have profound results on your nervous system! If you are new to meditation, I recommend starting with a guided breathwork practice. There are free practices online and apps available to guide you, or you can sign up here for my Ecstatic Habits workshop where I teach a guided morning breathwork practice.
Daily movement practice
This can be something structured, like yoga or Pilates, or something intuitive, like dancing to your favorite playlist. Either way, intentionally moving your body everyday is a great way to move stuck energy and emotions through you. To take this to the next level, get in touch with where your worries live in your body. Once you identify where you're storing specific anxieties, try to focus on intentionally working those feelings through that place in your body through your movement practice.
Daily device detox
Not only is the blue light from the screens of our devices extremely harmful to our circadian rhythm, especially at night, but the constant notifications keep our primitive fight-or-flight systems on high alert. At least 12 hours a day of device detox is best. Try putting your phone, tablet and laptop on sleep mode from 8:30 p.m. to 8:30 a.m. and see just how much better you feel everyday!
Detox from fear-mongering world news
The media knows that fear sells! Whether it's social media, television or an internet news source, try to severely limit your exposure to the ever-more anxiety-inducing stream of “news”. The media has been telling us that the world is going to end and we're all going to die for many years now - and yet here we still are! Swap your current news media for a set of podcasts with a positive outlook on life, and see how the world suddenly looks like a much safer place to live in.
Swap a culture of commiseration for a culture of congratulations
When you speak about your life to others, focus on all of the good news you have to share. As women, we have been sourcing connection through commiseration for several generations now. This is serving a necessary social function, however it has destructive consequences. Try to source connection with friends and loved ones with talk about how great life is rather than focusing on the negative aspects.
Focus on the present more than on the future
Focusing on the future actually creates anxiety (just think of the Anxiety character in the Inside Out 2 movie). Take up a regular mindfulness practice to bring yourself to the present moment. Living in the present brings a state of joyful wonder to your life, like when you were a child.
Replace your stories of scarcity with stories of abundance
This mindset shift can have a profound effect on your outlook on life. Look for places where you feel constriction and lack, possibly in the finances or support department. Replace your scarcity commentary with abundance commentary. Rather than thinking about how much you don't have of something, think about how much of it you do have of it. And if you have zero of something, think about how abundant you are in other areas of your life. In the universal law of abundance, scarcity begets more scarcity and abundance begets more abundance!
Remember, our time and attention are our most precious resources in this physical life. So, let's use them for creating more joy in our lives!
