Part Two: Review
Understanding Gratitude:
- Gratitude is the quality of being thankful and appreciative.
- Grateful people are happier, less anxious, less depressed, and enjoy life more.
- Being grateful helps you learn acceptance.
Understanding the Senses:
- The five senses are sight, sound, touch, smell, and taste.
- Your dominant sense can have a direct impact on your mood and emotions.
- You can use your dominant sense to help in the healing process, by accentuating positivity to it.
Understanding the Breath:
- “Where energy flows, the mind goes”…
- The breath is intricate to our survival, and we can use the breath to help us to heal our mind.
- The extended exhale is one of the best ways to calm the mind and relax the body.
Understanding Self Love:
- “You can’t really love others, until you truly love yourself”.
- Developing self love is great way to learn acceptance.
- It’s not easy to just love ourselves, but by using a movement with breath, and flowing with the body, we can learn how to understand that love on a deeper level.
Understanding the Importance of Focus:
- In order to stop the influx of negative thoughts, it is helpful to use focus techniques to draw the mind to ONE thought.
- When you focus on one thing, and one thing alone, the mind simply can’t allow any other thoughts in.
Understanding Meditation:
- Meditation is one of the best ways to connect the mind with the body.
- Mindfulness is nothing more than "being aware".
- Meditation is being fully in the "present moment".
- You can use focus techniques to help guide you into meditation.
The Importance of Recognizing Body Tension:
- The mind-body connection is the connection between the physical body and the emotional body.
- Emotional tension exists to help keep us safe, as we will tense up when the brain thinks we are in a position of danger or uncertainty.
- Use a constant reminder to “Recognize and Release”. Recognize the tension you are feeling, then take measures to help release it.
Understanding the Importance of Feeling Safe:
- Relaxation techniques can help us feel more safe and secure.
- By building up one’s inner strength, confidence, and courage, we can build up our ability to feel safe.
Understanding Affirmations:
- Stating affirmations is a great tool to reinforce positivity in the body.
- What defines us is NOT what we think about, but what we act upon.
- Be sure to be non-judgmental on questions asked about yourself. Be that outside observer looking in. You are not here to judge, but to gather information about yourself.
- Get to know how your body reacts, both physically and emotionally, when faced with certain questions or situations, as this is key to your own understanding.
- Notice how the body responds to affirmations.
Understanding the Power and Benefits of Smiling and Laughter:
- We can create positivity within ourselves, by simply combining the positive energy (that we create), with positive talk. This creates a perfect place to focus on building inner strength, confidence, courage, happiness, and joy!
- When we are happy, we let go of the little things as we figure out what is important in our lives...and the tension subsides.
- When we are happy we feel safe. And when we feel safe, the body will not only let go of tension, but of anxiety, depression and any other negative aspect in life.
- Laughter really IS the best medicine.
- Smiling and laughter release endorphins, dopamine, and even serotonin into the body.
- A fake laugh can have the same benefits as a REAL laugh. The mind doesn’t know the difference.
Understanding How to Build Inner Strength, Confidence, Courage, Happiness and Joy:
- You can lack inner strength, confidence, courage and happiness when you suffer with anxiety.
- Practicing the exercises daily can help promote more strength, confidence, courage and happiness in your life!
- Strength builds confidence. Strength and confidence builds courage. Strength, confidence and courage builds happiness.
- Challenges will always come, this you can be certain of, and when they do, we may lose that strength, confidence, courage and happiness in ourselves for a bit. But, when we train our brain to more easily recognize what strength, confidence, courage, and happiness feel like, we can refer to them a lot easier.
Learning How to Detect and Deflect Anxiety:
- We can’t control what life brings us, BUT we CAN control how we react to it!
- As you feel anxiety, try to pinpoint WHERE in the body you are feeling sensations, as well as what physical and emotional sensations you feel.
- Learning how to deflect anxiety or panic will take some time, so start using some tools to get you on your way. Stating affirmations, watching TV, listening to music, stretching, relaxation poses, and walking are a few ways to help lessen an attack.
- The earlier you can feel anxiety approaching, the earlier you can deflect it. Become familiar with how you body reacts when it starts to feel anxious. Tap into your body…
- The mind needs to be busy all the time. The more you keep it busy on productive things, the less time it will have to wander and worry.
- Getting involved with your community, starting a hobby, take on a fun job or volunteer, get out more with family and friends, and getting out into nature are key ways to help keep your mind busy, and away from anxious thoughts.
- When challenges arise, try to stay as relaxed as possible, and breathe, as an anxious mind won’t always think clearly.
- We ALL have challenges. NOBODY is immune.
- No job or relationship is worth getting anxious or panicky over.
- Continue to practice daily, the exercises in this section, to build up you inner strength, confidence, courage, happiness, and joy.