Whimpulsive

Some simple rules for inner peace

Current Mood: Mischievous

I wish my parents had told me ten great rules for happiness which their long experience in life had taught them. I wouldn’t have listened, of course. just as my own children wouldn’t listen if I offered the information to them and will have to learn from experience the same way I di.  So, since they won’t listen, I’ll offer them to you instead.

• Walk. A lot. Our bodies were evolved by walking, with just a little running thrown in.  When you walk, you can still think and see lots of interesting stuff. The body loves it. It brings peace.

• Bathe, don’t shower.  Yeah yeah, I know the stories of how showers are better for you but a bath open your pores so all the dirty sweat can get out. It relaxes your muscles and you can get away from things. Showers always feel like a chore to me.

• Get over the past. Also the future. All the fun is in the present. Regret and fear define past and future tripping.   Yes, I’m aware that it’s not as easy to do as it sounds but once you get going, the present just keeps opening up to immense pleasure and mystery.

• Dump the lame language. It matters. Thought creates reality. Say “and” instead of  “but”  (‘But’ just negates everything you and they were saying and thinking.) ‘I want’ has much more power than ‘I need’. Ditto ‘won’t’ or ‘don’t want to’ over ‘can’t’. ‘Should’ really bites.

• Use ‘I’ when talking about what you know, rather than that endless, abstract, ‘you’ thing. And prune those pain-n-death cliches, like ‘dying of thirst’ – the reality is you’re not that far away from a glass of water, you’re not going to die from thirst!. Say ‘yes’ a lot. Say it as the first word of the day. ‘Yes’ is the great enabler, door-opener and mind-opener.

• Complain only to the one who can do something about it.

• Screen news. You learn almost nothing from crime/disaster stories. Search for the amazing, good ones, like a new missing-link skull from Africa or a politician telling the truth (this one should take you a while!).

• Get funny. Laugh and smile, even if you have to force it at first. It kicks in. Yes, you do have the power to shift your mood and attitude.

• Accept all traffic and parking situations without disappointment. Think of time spent in traffic as time to look upon the present with happiness.

• Do frequent rituals of thanks. Thank all the little and big things: thank mint tea, thank the birds and grass, thank coffee and clouds, thank summer, thank your teeth, etc.

• Forgive it all. C’mon, just do it. Immense benefits result. If you believe they hurt you, then you don’t have the power and can’t go on. It doesn’t mean you’re a sap and they can walk all over you some more. It means you’re taking the power to use it for learning.

• If you do therapy, remember to stop. Therapy is a time of discovering grief, fear and anger and learning to defend yourself. The purpose is to love better. It’s easy to start defining yourself by your wounds and talking it up forever. Therapy is so you can get over the past, grow and keep recreating yourself.

• Pain, mistakes and loss are vital to growth and learning. Apparently, dead people in that place they call heaven can avoid these. We can’t. Think back on your worst pain, loss and error. Notice that the best times happened soon after. Pain is nature’s way of telling us to let go of what’s not working.   We go on to what works and are happier.

• Admit mistakes. Apologize.

• Promise yourself a cookie. Offer yourself rewards for just about everything you do, even if it’s only a video rental and some chocolate. It’s a fun game.

• If you’re partnered, still take your own space and do your own thing. Keep a big part of yourself for just you. Your partner doesn’t want all of you anyway. Take classes and trips only you take. Have friends only you have. Have secrets only you know. In freedom, you grow and change, so you bring new, exciting stuff to the partner.

• Easy with the Puritan stuff. In general, you can trust your instincts. TV and sugar may be bad, but if you get rigid about it, you just feed a reverse process where your body learns to fear its environment, so stress builds up. Relax. The Romans had a saying, “Too much religion causes evil.” Too much anything causes it.

• The Best Things in Life Aren’t Things. Enough really is enough. Living simply opens up the present.

• Find the off button. Be still. Just sit. Watch your thoughts happily. It’s a mystery how it works, but meditation leaves you with unaccountable strength and peace.

• Lose the third-party talk. Gossip may seem exciting at first. It may seem to create intimacy with another or to make oneself seem wiser. In fact, it’s a tremendous drain on personal power, even if you’re talking about distant figures, like politicians or celebrities. This one discipline seems to make the soul especially happy.

• Sex is the big gift from nature and the gods. Enjoy. By the way, this is how children get here. That’s the other big gift (or curse!).

• Without malice, tell the extreme truth. It will cost you most of your friends. It will also attract new, much better friends and you won’t have to spend so much energy managing your story and trying to be someone you’re not. Especially, tell the extreme truth about yourself. It’s really laughable once you start. You’ll be slow to criticize others after that.

• The gift of getting older is realising it doesn’t matter what they think of you. It only matters what you think of you. That’s a good definition of self-esteem. Also of happiness. We’re here to be happy.

What simple rules do you have for your own inner peace?

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Tags: attitude, children, truth