“Who among us hasn’t envied a cat’s ability to ignore the cares of daily life and to relax completely?” – Karen Brademeyer
I have a gorgeous 6 month kitten who is a joy to watch. Sure, there are times when she experiences certain stresses, when she is anxious, when she wants food, wants to go outside, wants to reach something she cannot reach, there are times she is frightened, from a loud noise, uncertain people etc. But, every single day without fail, she finds times to completely and utterly relax. To let go of the cares of the world. To rest with a smile on her face 🙂
It is her ability to completely relax and let go, enjoy the moment and be in the NOW that is so inspiring and also allows her to be so forgiving. If we can learn to capture this same feeling, we can use it to let go of negative feelings that would otherwise take hold, we can stop ourselves from letting our stresses affect others around us, and even in hard times, we can find reasons to love and enjoy being alive every single day.
Too many people have an uneven balance in their lives. We need a work, health (physical) and social balance, but we ALSO need to devote time each day for our mental peace of mind and our own personal development. To me this includes things like furthering your knowledge through reading or participating in deep discussions, participating in a hobby or an art, and/or taking the time to just completely relax or mediate.
Yes, often we we go through periods where we have virtually no time left for ourselves with very little choice in the matter. But we all have much more power than we may realise in creating our lives and our realities. We must make choices to build our lives and pave the pathway towards balance, so that these periods of stress are not permanent or long lasting, but exist only in small bursts amongst periods of appreciation, relaxation and rejuvenation. You may think that you have no time for yourself, but living a life of stress is no life, and will only result in you letting stress control you, eventually eating away at you so that you become a run down, hollow, shell of a person, affecting those around you rather than inspiring them, instead of a shining, energetic, bright being loving life and full of potential.
Sometimes I do not get any time for myself throughout the day, there are too many things to get done. In these cases, I like to relax by playing some chill-out music while I am doing other things that need to be done such as cooking, or work that does not require complete mental focus, or some other chores. It is great to let lose with your favourite music, but some music can hype you up or in some ways (even if it is enjoyable) cause more stress to the mind and body. Relaxed flowing chill out music however has a soothing effect that can last for a long time.
I love many different kinds – relaxing jazz music, spiritual ethnic music, and others! Here is a small sample to inspire you!
Arabic and Indian Chill Out Mix
Africa/Asia/Oriental influence Chill Out Mix
Native American Spiritual Music
Veganlosophy 