Resources
A few of my favorite resources to help you start thinking:
"Try Harder or Walk Away: The Decision" by Rebecca Lamerson
https://www.elephantjournal.com/2012/06/try-harder-or-walk-away-the-decision/
From Rebecca Lamerson article :
"Try harder or walk away—this is the only choice we make in every moment of life. We either try harder or we walk away from being present, loving ourselves, loving another, pursuing our passions or completing a task. We choose to continue doing, thinking, saying, listening, eating and being what we are, or we break up with it.
There is only one way to do everything, completely or not at all. If we half-ass life, we cheat our truth, stop growing, we suffer.
Imagine if an architect half-assed plans for a building, or an aerospace engineer half-assed the construction of an airplane. The building couldn’t stand on its own and the plane couldn’t fly. We are the architects of our lives. We have to devote entirely to our project or walk away from the drawing pad until we are willing to do the work."
" As you walk and eat and travel, Be Where you are. Otherwise you will miss most of your life."- Buddha
Learning how to meditate and practice mindfulness is one of the easiest ways that we can alter our state of feeling and experience. We often times find ourselves to be stuck in our thoughts and personal mantras or stories that we tell ourselves. Typically these thoughts and our internal experiences heavily alter our experience in the present time and we miss opportunities for love, connection, and living our lives. Additional benefits of mindfulness practice include: "self-control, objectivity, emotion tolerance, enhanced flexibility, equanimity, improved concentration and mental clarity, emotional intelligence and the ability to relate to others and one's self with kindness, acceptance and compassion". (http://www.apa.org/monitor/2012/07-08/ce-corner.aspx)
There are many online programs and applications that you can download onto your smart phone or device, my personal favorite is the "Calm" app or www.calm.com. There you can find guided meditation, body scans, calming sounds and much more. You can either join for free or purchase a membership, the choice is yours.
A FEW Book Titles to check out (if you'd like):
- "Daring Greatly: How the Courage to Be Vulnerable Transforms the Way We Live, Love, Parent, and Lead" by Brene Brown
- "The Dance of Connection: How to Talk to Someone When You're Mad, Hurt, Scared Frustrated, Insulted, Betrayed or Desperate" by Harriet Lerner
- Forward- Facing Trauma Therapy: Healing the Moral Wound" By J. Eric Gentry, Phd
"Man's Search for Meaning" by Viktor E. Frankl
"Odysseus in America: Combat Trauma and the Trials of Homecoming" by Jonathan Shay, M.D.
" The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind and Body in the Healing of Trauma" by Bessel Van Der Kolk, M.D.