Instructions
Connect With Your Inner Essence
1. Personal growth happens inside, in your inner self. It isn't something that someone else can give you. You have to diligently create it for yourself. To do so, you have to carve out time to get to know yourself.
Sitting meditation is a common way of going inward, but, depending on your personality, spending several minutes to a couple of hours in quiet contemplation may be more excruciating than self revealing. So, instead of picking out a mindfulness practice from "out there" and applying it to your life, find out what makes you feel you're in alignment with your inner self. For instance, as a dancer, you may find you come closer to your heart when you're moving your body to the rhythm of drums. Or, if you're athletic, you may feel the most connected to your inner essence every time you go out for a jog first thing in the morning, before the rest of the neighborhood wakes up.
Don't dismiss such things as hobbies or not serious mindfulness practice. If you feel spiritually recharged after a particular activity, that's your clue that those actions are part of your path to personal growth. Cultivate them.
2. Dare to dig deeper. Besides making time to connect with your inner essence through a mindfulness practice, also examine how you relate to your daily experiences.
Most of us are in a never-ending cycle of reacting to life's events. For example, if someone cuts you in traffic, you may feel angry, curse or flip your finger at the other driver. Sometimes, without knowing, you let the situation fester, to the point where you find yourself yelling at your spouse or kids, unaware you're still reacting to something that happened in traffic hours ago.
In fact, it doesn't matter how many times you yell at the other driver or your family. Until you find the true source of your anger, you won't be able to resolve it.
So, while you're out there dancing the samba, swimming laps or sitting on your meditation cushion, practice being with your feelings. What is the anger that you felt at a stranger's choice to cut you in traffic really about? A lot of us carry unresolved issues from childhood into our adult lives. We don't realize they stunt our personal growth by keeping us stuck in a past situation. It may be important for you to address such issues so you can heal and move forward.
3. Cultivate self compassion. In your journey to improve your personal growth, you will stumble. You may even fall. That's how we humans evolve. Yet, some of us would like to function like well-programmed machines. Don't fall prey to that self-defeating idea.
On the contrary, practice opening your heart to your own self. As you build your relationship with your inner essence, learn to care for it as you would a loved one. If you feel hurt or disappointed, don't abandon yourself. Use your mindfulness practice time to talk to the part of you that feels sad. Touch it with your warm breath; allow yourself to grieve, so healing can occur.
Personal growth is about making a diligent effort to get to know your true inner essence and to embrace it without judgment.
Tags: mindfulness practice, with your, your inner, daily experiences, inner essence