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5 POWERFUL DAILY SPIRITUAL PRACTICES TO IMPROVE MENTAL HEALTH AND KEEP YOUR PEACE OF MIND
Natalya Pazdnikova's Guide on Daily Spiritual Practices to Improve Mental Health
Importance of Daily Spiritual Practices for Mental Peace in Modern Times
Having a personal support system is important! A support system of daily habits to maintain a high vibrational state and help keep your peace of mind. Yes, positive thinking is important but what to do when you feel powerless over your own thoughts? What if anxiety takes over and you can’t even try to think positively? What if you feel so depressed that trying to be positive feels insane and inauthentic? Developing a routine of daily spiritual practices to habitually follow is crucial to improve mental health.
First, we need to bring you to the state of NOW. We have to get you back in your body and in a state of peace. Thoughts are not running fast here; this is the normal state we need to learn to maintain. This is the state that is so easy to forget while living in modern technological times! We live in tough times! The era of the internet and mass information. While progress is a good thing, it doesn’t come without it's side effects! Statistics on mental health disorders, suicides, and divorce have only increased in recent years, and will continue to rise.
Why though? What is the root cause of this growing madness? In my opinion, it’s the the gap between our technological development and the development of our brains / physical bodies to handle such large amounts of information. We are very capable, don’t get me wrong! We are capable of much more than we are ever going to realize, BUT our brain is not prepared to receive, analyze and store such massive amounts of information on a daily basis. It speeds up more and more, and even makes you feel like a productive thinker, but eventually it loses control as growing anxiety turns into panic attacks.
Your state of depression and anxiety didn’t build up in just one day. It took some time to create such a mental condition, just as it will take some time to come back to a state of ease again. In any case, you must keep up with your mental hygiene routinely with daily spiritual practices because this is what it takes to keep yourself sane in the 21st century. It takes some solid understanding of importance, self-love, and dedication, but hey, this is your chance to take responsibility for your life. And since your mental state is fundamental for everything else in life, your goal setting and execution will become much easier!
5 Simple Yet Powerful Spiritual Practices To Start Your Daily Routine
Don’t put too much pressure on yourself for anything that comes after your #1 priority - to achieve a peaceful, clear, and happy state of mind! The daily spiritual practices that I mention below can be used for various reasons and in various ways. There is so much room for creativity and psychic advancement! In this article, I am going to talk about the need of these spiritual practices for fundamental purposes to improve mental health.
BREATHWORK
My absolute favorite! This spiritual practice is extremely powerful and everyone who ever tried it would agree with me. Breathwork is universal. Yes, some people claim that there are right ways to do it, but you can experiment and find the best way that works for you personally (just don’t breathe fast when you have an anxiety attack - slow deep breaths will do the work). I find that breathwork gives you that which you need in the exact moment you need it. Meaning, if you need some relaxation, then that’s what you are going to get. If you need energy, then you will feel energized.
Breathwork will not only bring so many benefits to improve mental health, but it also oxygenates your whole body. Breathwork has all the reasons for you to not only try it, but also to keep it as one of your daily spiritual practices. I personally use a guided breathwork session from Wim Hof that you can find on YouTube. It takes 11 minutes out of your day only to help you be happier and gain a richer life experience! Remember, there are no shortcuts. You want to build a strong mental foundation, so give yourself time! I just had to say that. You will surely see the effect of a proper breathing exercise session right away!
Breath is everything. It is so inclined with life itself that I personally find this as one of the most efficient and magical of all the daily spiritual practices I share. If you want to see life in HD quality and heighten your 6th sense, breathwork is the way to go:)
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MEDITATION
Meditation is probably one of the best daily spiritual practices to train your focus and claim control over your mind. Meditation is super hard when we make it so. This spiritual practice is actually not that difficult when we soften our focus.
Thoughts are the lightest form of energy compared to feelings and the physical body. Thoughts are meant to be ‘light.' When we think excessively, we create tension in our heads. We are not meant to energetically tense the upper area of our bodies. It goes against gravity! When you meditate, you need to do the complete opposite and lessen that resistance by mentally relaxing, rather than trying hard to fight and push your thoughts away. Meditation can feel like a nightmare until you learn that one simple fact.
Meditation is a fundamental spiritual practice acknowledged by so many different religions and it's becoming more and more popular in modern days for a reason. First, we are all desperately in need of meditation. Second, it is probably one of the best daily spiritual practices for training your focus. There are so many different ways to meditate. Find your own way, or even better, create your own way! Choose something to focus on: a feeling of absence or void, a sound, a breath, a still visual - all you need to do is to remain focused on it. Your mind will wander, you just need to gently bring it back. That’s it! Nothing more, nothing less. This is the practice itself - you are taking your mind back no matter how many times it wanders, and it will wander a lot.
The goal is not to shut your mind completely. We will never be able to have no thoughts at all. The goal is in practice itself. You are winning back the control over yourself.
Don’t try to achieve anything with meditation. Just do it without pressure and expectations. Don’t expect meditation to give you results and improve mental health right away. The more ease you bring to the practice, the more results you will see. You are training your focus with this spiritual practice, so the more your mind wanders, the better - as long as you bring it back. That is it. The goal is not even to clear your mind but rather bring your attention back enough times, so that when you finish your meditation session, choosing what thoughts you welcome becomes your lifestyle.
Our brains are genius machines, and in order for us to use them at a higher capacity, we need to learn how to do it. Otherwise, the robot apocalypse is around the corner and those robots will be us, possessed by our minds, negative thoughts and obsessive ideas.
MANTRAS
Mantras are wonderful :). I personally have one mantra that I like to listen and sing along to. I have no idea of the meaning behind it's repetitive words, I just know it means something good :). And this is not a completely random one - I actually really like the sound of the words, the motive and the voice of the girl who sings it. It perfectly resonates with me vibrationally, and I really enjoy listening and singing along to it.
It is impossible to (mindfully) sing mantra and think of something else. Therefore, it is like meditation but with the healing effect of sound and it's physical vibration that goes through your body as you sing. Do not underestimate the power of how the sound and vibration can change your state of mind and improve mental health. I know that very analytical people will not give it too much serious thought (I am one of you), but it does work, and it works pretty well.
The vibration of your voice itself has a positive effect on your body and state of consciousness, and so does the meaning of the words you are choosing to repeat! You will take the best out of this daily spiritual practice if you try to speak it with true conviction and intention.
If you are not comfortable with mantras in foreign languages or religious mantras, you can come up with your own and it might just be the best idea! You need a short phrase that will resonate with you and will give you a better feeling. For example, “life is great," but if you are feeling low, this one might not feel so authentic. Instead, try something like “everything is working out for me even if I don’t know it." Or, if this doesn’t feel true, try “I WILL figure it out." Get creative! The point is to sing and have fun with it.
Of course, this is similar to listening to music and singing along, but songs provoke thoughts that we want to avoid. Some songs trigger our negative emotions, that we want even less. But still, if mantras seem too weird for you right now - listen to good positive music that lifts you up and sing along :)
APPRECIATION
This one is amazing! What is better than feeling appreciation? This is one of the highest vibrations, so we all love to experience it. The state of appreciation is a state of “I am glad I am alive." We get to accumulate little feelings of appreciation and reinforce them towards the feeling of appreciation of life itself.
Find things to be appreciative for, there are so many! What about a hot bath? It is a miracle. Just think about it. Until very recently only royals could afford to have the whole bathtub filled with hot water! In some countries people don’t use bathtubs but only showers, and in others, there is not enough water for such a luxurious experience. Now, I get it. You are so used to it that it is hard to appreciate, but that is the whole point of this spiritual practice. If you don’t appreciate the experience of life, how can you feel “happy to be alive?" We got to reinforce it!
Some people keep an appreciation journal and dedicate time every day to write their appreciations down. This practice has undeniable benefits to improve mental health. Writing helps the mind register new energy, plus time dedicated to it guarantees that you are not skipping the practice, and eventually guarantees the results you want! It would be even better if you take this practice out of time constriction and make it a lifestyle. Expressing gratitude takes an ongoing self-reminder. Constantly look for the things you can appreciate around you, register them, and spend time thinking of them. Are your shoes comfortable? Because if they are, how great is that? Uncomfortable shoes are very, well, uncomfortable! You get the point.
The most humbling experience is to spend time in nature. I have my nature walks, where for 1-2 hours alone, I consciously appreciate everything around me: every flower, bird, tree, and every cloud. It might sound like I'm mad to some, but by the end of the walk I feel like Snow White because nature does communicate back, and no dog will pass by without wanting to play with me :).
So if you don’t know how to begin feeling appreciation and expressing gratitude, I would suggest spending a weekend in nature, maybe go camping, or on a long hike.
MINDFULNESS
Think of mindfulness as an ongoing meditation to keep your peace of mind. It is a lifestyle, not a practice, yet you do need to practice it to improve mental health. To practice mindfulness means to practice present moment focus in whatever you're doing. Keep your thoughts in the now. Not the past or the future, but right in front of you, in the present moment.
I feel like I talk about mindfulness so much on a daily basis that I have nothing left to say :). Do you need to be enlightened about the importance of present moment awareness? Do you know that thinking is just one skill of your brain and that your awareness goes beyond thoughts? The state of pure awareness is not the state of non-intelligence. On the contrary, the more you accumulate your awareness to your present, the wider your perception gets, and the more you are connected to the common infinite intelligence.
The thinking process seems very productive to us, and it is, when you think purposefully. Think when you need to accomplish a task that requires thinking. The rest of the time enjoy the feeling of connection to life, flowing, creativity, joy and wisdom. Not everything requires your thinking, but everything requires your presence (aka awareness). To be aware, and to think, is not the same thing.
Let me give you an example: if you have ever experienced lucid dreaming, you know that you don’t really think in the dream state. You don’t have thoughts. You don’t make plans or analyze what is happening. You remain in a conscious state without a thought. Does it stop you from being aware of everything around you, and from consciously navigating yourself through the dream and from feeling emotions? Nope. And that only proves that intelligence goes beyond thought, while overthinking can be already considered a mental illness.
I hope I awakened the desire in you to create and dedicate yourself to a daily spiritual practices routine that will not only improve mental health for the long-term but also enhance your metaphysical experiences. If you are seeking to deeper understand yourself, then no amount of meditations, affirmations, reading books and articles will be as effective as the life transformational work that I, as a Certified Psychologist and Spiritual Awakening Coach, can assist you with. Click on the picture below to book a Self-Discovery Game where you will be able to UNDERSTAND, LOVE and ACCEPT yourself on a whole new level ⬇
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