Your Inner Forests

Poet, W.S Merwin writes,


"I want to tell
what the forests
were like
I will have to speak
in a forgotten language."


What forests have you forgotten in yourself?
In other words, what aspects of your life have you loved and forgotten to include to make your life more rich and lush?


How do you get back to what's green and new inside of yourself?


I realized as I was reading a blog about changing around habits to make them more enjoyable, that I hadn't written for a long time, and that writing, and reading poetry remind me of my inner forests, which is how this blog entry came to be.


What haven't you done in a while that connects you with your inner aliveness?


Take a moment and reflect and then, if you'd like, make a plan to go do it. Make time for it in your day. Schedule it, if you need to. Sometimes, (according to Charles Duhigg in his book, The Power of Habit), we have to switch around the times we do the things (old habits) in order to benefit from what we enjoy doing. e.g. reading at the gym vs setting aside time to read at night.


Write down everything you love to do and try to do one of these per day.


OR


Paint, draw or visualize yourself drawing in the green all around you, nourishing your body, cleansing away any feeling that does not need to be within you, letting yourself feel replenished.


OR


Try the 4 N's each day:
1. Do something Nice for someone
2. Nurture yourself.
3. Be in Nature
4. Do something Novel


OR
Switch around your routine so that you do what you love while you can focus on it. 
Examples?
Talk to friends only when you can really pay attention and not do something else at the same time.
Eat mindfully: smell, chew slowly, and truly savor your food.
Read when you can truly focus and not just at the gym. Better yet, grab a bunch of those trashy magazines you might love and make a time in your day solely for reading trashy magazines!


Enjoy your forests!

www.heatherschwartzpsyd.com

Just 90 Seconds

Emotions are scary. Especially the negative ones. No one wants to feel them. We fear we'll feel them forever, cry forever, if we experience them. We bury our sadness, stuff our anger, crowd out our fear. And, yet, new research by neuroanatomist, Jill Bolte Taylor, Ph.D., suggests that it only takes 90 seconds, yes, just 1 and 1/2 minutes -- or less -- to experience the chemical process running through our body.


Taylor calls it "The 90 Second Rule."


Say you're feeling anxious about an upcoming review at work or a school paper. Rather than focusing on the story of the anxiety, focus instead on the feeling. You can focus on body sensations, or just the sense of being anxious. You can time yourself, have someone time you, or just estimate the time. Breathe deeply. 

Keep focusing on the feeling, accepting it all. If your mind wanders, bring it back to focusing on the feeling. The feeling might initially increase. Then, it fades. That is, unless you're replaying the story or narrative around the event. But, why would you want to strengthen the neural pathways in your brain which create unhappiness when you can experience relief?

Most people, in under 90 seconds, experience relief and openness; no need to feel scared of the big, "bad" feelings anymore.

It's empowering!