7 Ways to Scatter the Clouds of Stress and Let Your Joy Shine Through
Are you actually living?
Most of you will answer ‘yes’. But, living is way beyond your heart beating in its perfect rhythm, your breath completing its cycles, and the activity of your brain. You are actually living only if waves of joy wash every cell of your body. You are living if you relish every moment of your life.
Now, ask yourself the same question. Do you get the same answer again? Mostly not. Your inner voice will clearly tell you that you don’t actually relish your life. But, why is it so? The answer to this question is – Stress.
Work stress, relationship stress, the stress of expectations, and stress everywhere. Stress has so engulfed you that you have lost your connection with the joy of living.
Here, we’ll discuss 7 ways of stress management, through which you can scatter the clouds of stress and re-establish your connection with the joy of living.
- Cultivate ‘Acceptance’ for things beyond your control:
There are many things in life which we can’t exercise any control over. But, still, we often wish to change or modify them. This wish results from ‘non-acceptance’, which is one of the biggest reasons for stress. This implies that for reducing your stress levels, it is important for you to relinquish non-acceptance. For this, you should try cultivating acceptance for things that are beyond your control. Further, you can start cultivating acceptance by accepting small things at the beginning such as accepting a loved one’s little behavioral traits which you find irritating.
- Surrender to the Source of Life:
“The ship is going by a powerful engine and you are busy rowing”. These words by ‘Mooji’ clearly highlight the state we all live in. Although the powerful engine (the source of life) is leading us through life, we are still busy rowing (worried about the things happening). We often lack having a strong faith in the source of life. As a result, the slightest jolts from life make us dwindle and buckle under stress. But, if we keep a strong faith in the divine source of life and surrender to him, much of the stress we experience, vanishes away. This is because as we surrender, we begin to feel protected by the ever-powerful and protective embrace of the divine. So, you can manage stress and re-establish your connection with the joy of living by surrendering to the source of life.
- Live in the present moment:
“Life happens only in the present moment”. When you live in the present, you sparkle with the fervor of life and stress stays far from you. But, sadly! Most of us spend our lives swinging between the past and the future. We stay so engrossed in thinking about the past and the future that the precious now slips through our fingers like particles of sand. As we lose the present moment, stress and anxiety stealthily march their way into our lives. This makes it extremely important for us to ensure that we don’t leave the sense of the ‘now’ at any time. For this, it is best to practice mindfulness. It involves performing every action in the light of consciousness. As the light of consciousness shines through us, the thoughts of the past and the future gradually fade away. For instance, if you are reading, try doing it mindfully. Pay close attention to the formation of the alphabet. This gradually brings you home into the now and your connection with the joy of living starts getting re-established.
- Maintain a gratefulness journal:
It is the tendency of the mind to think more about negative things than the positive. Thus, we often focus more on things which make us feel stressed than the things which make us feel happy. You can cut through this tendency of the mind by maintaining a grateful journal. In this journal, you should try to list the simple things in life which are worth being grateful for. For example, to be alive is one of the biggest things to be grateful for when nearly 1,50,000 people die every day across the globe. Further, as you continue to maintain your grateful journal every day, soon you’ll realize that you have much more to be grateful for that to stress about. This way, you can keep your stress levels at bay with your gratefulness journal.
- Express yourself through creative means:
Inducing a state of thoughtlessness is one of the most effective means of stress management. When you enter a state of thoughtlessness, stress-provoking thoughts cease to exist. As a result, you find immense relief from stress and unlock the gateway to a happy living. Further, when we talk about ways to induce thoughtlessness, expressing yourself through creative means tops the list. This is because engaging in creative endeavors washes your mind in waves of peace. It gets so absorbed in creativity that all your thoughts vanish away. So, you should try expressing yourself through creative means such as dancing, singing, painting and cooking.
- Include playtime in your schedule:
‘Playing’ is a magical potion for scattering the clouds of stress and re-connecting with childlike inner joy. The scientific evidence behind the efficacy of the magical potion is that it promotes the production of happy hormones in your body. As is evident from the term ‘happy’, happy hormones such as Serotonin, Dopamine, and Oxytocin, make you feel happy by reducing the levels of primary stress hormone ‘Cortisol’. Thus, you should inculcate playtime in your schedule.
- Embark on an inward journey with ‘Meditation’:
The more you connect to your inner core, the less stressed you are. So, it is vital for you to embark on an inward journey with ‘Meditation’. It is an ancient technique that involves focusing subtle attention on the breath, accepting your thoughts, and letting them just be. Further, meditation not only offers immediate stress relief but it also empowers your resilience against stress. As a result, you become empowered to manage stress well. When we talk about learning how to meditate, there are two prominent tools which you can utilize for this purpose. They are- Meditation Apps and Guided meditation YouTube Videos. You can utilize any of these tools to pave your way to stress management with meditation.
To conclude, stress disrupts your connection with the joy of living. It is because of this disconnection that you don’t actually live your life fully. This makes it important for you to manage stress. You can do so effectively with the help of the 7 ways mentioned above and re-establish your connection with the joy of living.