Finding Peace When The Day Is Stressful

 

This picture is of Fish Creek in the summer in Fish Creek Provincial Park.

Many folks carry a lot of stress around with them…from work, from family, from financial worries or health worries.  When stress is building up, even those things that are usually seen as “normal” add to the stress. 

I worked with a teacher for two years in the early 2000’s. One of his best lessons for me was to teach me to deal with stress by finding peace.  He would lead me through meditation to different places to see where I felt the most comfortable….a beach on the ocean, a lake where animals come to drink, a mountain ledge easily accessible, a cloud, beneath a tree, and we tried different trees, on a rock, up a tree, by a creek, in a forest glade, by a waterfall, in the middle of a meadow, and even on a monastery.  Each meditation relaxed me and gave me shades of peace.  The place where I felt the most peace was by running/moving water with a forest close by. 

For years, as I felt stress, I closed my eyes and went to that place where the water was running with the forest in the background.  As time passed, the vision of the place changed.  Sometimes it was an ocean with waves rolling up on the shore and the forest in the background. Sometimes it was a large lake that was mirror still with a forest growing almost to the water’s edge.  The vision slowed my thoughts, cooled anger and frustration, and relaxed my muscles, especially in my shoulders.  

In the beginning, it would take up to 25 minutes to get peace.  If it was a tough day, then it took longer.  Eventually I could find peace in two to three minutes, and what a difference it made to my work performance!  

The lessons that my teacher taught me about finding peace in a stressful day are:

• In meditation, people will tell you to go to your comfortable or safe space.  One does not know what that space is until all the options are explored.
• Finding one’s peaceful, safe place is a process and the safe place may change over time.
• There is not a magic time that it takes everyone to get to their peaceful place.
• Like many actions, getting to the peaceful place takes a lot of practice.
• Arriving at the peaceful, blissful state is worth the work.

Blessings.

Judy

Happy Thanksgiving Nov 24 2022 For My American Friends

 

I wish Happy Thanksgiving to all my friends in the United States!  This has been a difficult year for many, and my hope for the next year is:

• good food for all
• great housing for all
• great jobs with great pay in a great company
• time for walks in the park or out in the country
• time to read a good book, or play with your kids
• friends that love you and support
• family that respects you and cherishes you
• warm houses for those that live in the snowy climates
• healing for all that are ill
• peace as you go about your day

I wish you all abundance this Thanksgiving Day

Feeling Kindness

Picture from unknown source

Over the last several months, I have been going through some health challenges.  I have been so grateful to the doctors and clinic staff for the kindness that they show me.  Nothing we do is a rush and the feeling in each specialized clinic is quite warm and friendly.  When I commented on the atmosphere, the nurse said that friendliness and kindness were easy to do and that she wished all people were kind.  

For some reason, her words stuck with me and I started looking at different articles online about kindness, and goodness, and compassion, and balancing one’s problems while being kind to others.  I love the article below, and hope that it helps you.

The following information came from an article on LIFEHACK at http://www.lifehack.org/387767/15-quotes-about-kindness.  It seems that we are lacking kindness and compassion in the world so I thought it was worth sharing. 

15 quote about kindness

1. “No act of kindness, no matter how small, is ever wasted.” – Aesop 
2. “Our human compassion binds us the one to the other – not in pity or patronizingly, but as human beings who have learnt how to turn our common suffering into hope for the future.” – Nelson Mandela 
3. “There is nothing more truly artistic than to love people.” – Vincent Van Gogh 
4. “Those who make compassion an essential part of their lives find the joy of life. Kindness deepens the spirit and produces rewards that cannot be completely explained in words. It is an experience more powerful than words. To become acquainted with kindness one must be prepared to learn new things and feel new feelings. Kindness is more than a philosophy of the mind. It is a philosophy of the spirit.” – Robert J. Furey 
5. “The smallest act of kindness is worth more than the greatest intention.” – Kahlil Gibran 
6. “How lovely that everyone, great and small, can make a contribution toward introducing justice straightaway. And you can always, always give something, even if it is only kindness!” – Anne Frank 
7. “Carry out a random act of kindness, with no expectation of reward, safe in the knowledge that one day someone might do the same for you.” — Princess Diana 
8. “A good character is the best tombstone. Those who loved you and were helped by you will remember you when forget-me-nots have withered. “ – Charles H Spurgeon 
9. “Treat everyone with politeness, even those who are rude to you — not because they are nice, but because you are.” — Author Unknown 
10. “During my second year of nursing school our professor gave us a quiz. I breezed through the questions until I read the last one: “What is the first name of the woman who cleans the school?” Surely this was a joke. I had seen the cleaning woman several times, but how would I know her name? I handed in my paper, leaving the last question blank. Before the class ended, one student asked if the last question would count toward our grade. “Absolutely,” the professor said. “In your careers, you will meet many people. All are significant. They deserve your attention and care, even if all you do is smile and say hello.” I’ve never forgotten that lesson. I also learned her name was Dorothy.” — JoAnn C. Jones, Guideposts, January 1996 
11. “By swallowing evil words unsaid, no one has ever harmed his stomach.” — Winston Churchill 
12. “Sure the world breeds monsters, but kindness grows just as wild… ” — Mary Karr, The Liars’ Club: A Memoir, 1995 
13. “The kind of beauty I want most is the hard-to-get kind that comes from within; Strength, Courage, Dignity.” – Ruby Dee 
14. “I’m convinced of this: Good done anywhere is good done everywhere. For a change, start by speaking to people rather than walking by them like they’re stones that don’t matter. As long as you’re breathing, it’s never too late to do some good.” – Maya Angelou 
15. “Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle.” — Plato D

Many blessings,

Judy