Luna Lovegood
@HolmesEurus
Şu anda okuduğu kitaplar
Before leaving on this trip, I had come across a great book called Enforcing Normalcy by Lennard David, who makes a strong argument that the word normalcy did not enter the English language until around 1860. Before then, we had only the concept of the ideal, which no one would ever hope to obtain. In the United States, normal arose within a cultural context as the nation sought to control a growing urban population and Americanize immigrants from around the world. Normalcy, though, is first and foremost an idea that arises from statistics. The normal, norm, or normalcy do not exist in the real world of real people [emphasis mine], despite the fact that we are told that we can modify our behavior and train our bodies and minds to reach it. We are told to chase it — in our culture, in our families, in our lives. But when we chase it — as I did — it disappears. Normalcy is like a horizon that keeps receding as you approach it.
Reklam
As human beings, our job in life is to help people realize how rare and valuable each one of us really is, that each of us has something that no one else has — or ever will have — something inside that is unique to all time. It’s our job to encourage each other to discover that uniqueness and to provide ways of developing its expression.
FRED ROGERS
Deep belly breathing is one of the most commonly recommended on-the-spot practices to calm your nervous system and, thus, anxiety. The reason for this is that when you breathe deeply, pushing your belly out all the way like a balloon, your vagus nerve is activated in such a way that it calms your amygdala, the emotional response center deep within your brain.
Even taking five deep breaths — slow inhales that fill your belly and slow exhales that compress it — will calm your nervous system and offer a small reset that will help you move into the next moment with more ease.
4th key
The fourth key, and one that helps you shift into curiosity and develop more self-compassion, is to set the dial of your inner compass to gratitude. This means being grateful not only for the obvious blessings that abound in your life, but also for the challenges. As Brother David Steindl-Rast shares in his audio series A Grateful Heart: “Coming alive is becoming alert and aware to the thousands and thousands of blessings that we receive — even on a day on which we have to go to the dentist or on a day we are really sick.”
You can slow down for longer periods, like at the beginning and end of each day when you take time to journal, meditate, or simply be in quiet reflection. Part of the work of breaking free from anxiety includes positive action, like committing to the practices that I teach, and some of it includes taking time to slow down into a space of nourishing silence and literally doing nothing, like sitting next to a tree or lying in the grass without your phone in sight. In the space of stillness, the keys of curiosity and compassion constellate as allies to aid you on your journey of healing.