5 Keys To Add Happiness And Inner Peace To Your Busy Schedule | Gema Ramirez

In a world dominated by rush and mobile devices, Happiness and Inner Peace have become luxuries to be found in the few, precious moments that you manage to steal from your busy routine. Being in silence, in nature, in the quietness of your Soul… finding the space to connect with the feelings of Joy and Tranquillity that you yearn for have become the extraordinary out of the mundane city life. When in reality, those moments, those qualities, are the ones that bring well-being and mental health to you and your life.

What to do when time is limited? How can you incorporate that Happiness and Inner peace into your busy schedule? How can you make them part of your daily life so that your hectic life becomes full of more and more moments of Peace, Joy and Love?

The following 5 keys can bring calmness and bliss to your busy life without having to book time off or go on a retreat during your holiday period. Happiness and Inner Peace can be found within, even when the outside is chaos.

1. SMILE

“Let us always meet each other with smile, for the smile is the beginning of love” – Mother Teresa of Calcuta

Learn to smile, always and for no reason. If at first it´s difficult, keep doing it. A smile opens the door to your Heart and the heart of others, it´s contagious and it improves your mood, your health and your relationships. If you don´t have time to do anything else, start by wearing your smile in all occasions.

ACTION: start smiling at all times and to everyone, especially when meeting someone, for the next 90 days.

2. DO RAMDOM ACTS OF KINDNESS

“Kindness in words creates confidence. Kindness in thinking creates profoundness. Kindness in giving creates love” – Lao Tzu

Smiling and offering kindness do not cost you anything. It makes you feel better and they also bring warmth to the hearts of others, which at the same times, give you satisfaction.

Kindness is the soft force that introduces Love to the life of anyone who starts practising it. Kindness will soften your heart and quieten your mind. Kindness will bring you a smile and will surrender your ego to Love.

ACTION: commit to do at least one random act kindness each day for 90 days.

3. ACCEPT THE FLOW OF LIFE

“Acceptance looks like a passive state, but in reality it brings something entirely new into this world. That peace, a subtle energy vibration, is consciousness” – Eckhart Tolle

We make plans, we do affirmations, we have dreams, we set goals, we create vision boards… yet more often than not, life brings us events and circumstances that takes us off track. Then off go the goals and the dreams are postponed till next year. Depression sets in and the feelings of unworthiness and failure return. Yet when you learn to accept that life is out of our control, you can manage your dreams and goals in a timely manner. Learn to focus on the things you can control and let go of those you can´t. Accept the unplanned events that come and focus on the solutions, not on the problems that created them or in the current situation. Like Buddha said, if the challenge has not got a solution, then why worry… if the challenge has got a solution, then why worry. Worry adds to the stress of life, takes years out of you and with time brings in health issues. Accept that life runs its course and that maybe, going off track or living an apparently unpleasant event, could be the best things that ever happen to you. The Dalai Lama said: “When you lose, don´t lose the lesson”. Accept that Life knows better. That sometimes, Life has in store better things for you than those you had planned for yourself. Keep planning and setting goals, keep dreaming… yet let go of the attachment to the outcome and Trust that Life has your back and knows better.

ACTION: Create an affirmation to repeat each day regarding Acceptance. Repeat the affirmation each day for the next 90 days.

4. LIVE IN THE PRESENT MOMENT

“If you abandon the present moment, you cannot live the moments of your daily life deeply” – Thich Nhat Hanh

The Mind is such a clever tool. It remembers the past and it can create new stories in imaginary futures. This is great, but not so if we are always stuck in either the stories of the past or the stories of the future. The mind evades you from the here and now, from the task at hand, from the present moment. It either takes you to the past to warn you of things that happen and how they will happen again or it takes you to the future imagining how things could be better or worse only if…

Both places, past and future, bring you stress and unhappiness if you stay in them for too long. Developing a practice for mindfulness and living in the present moment makes you a present person, someone who is here enjoying what´s happening right now. How many times you have missed a whole day because you were worrying? You miss what´s happening in front of your eyes when you are not present.

Being present does not require you to sit for hours meditating, you can be mindful when you are walking to work, when you are washing your dishes, when you are reading your book, when you are writing that report. Simply breathe deeply and intend to be here and now. The more your practice, the easier it becomes to focus the mind.

ACTION: start practising mindfulness today by incorporating it to any routine activity. Do this for the next 90 days.

5. DO EVERYTHING WITH LOVE

“Love and Compassion are necessities, not luxuries. Without them humanity cannot survive” – Dalai Lama

Love is the most powerful force in the Universe. Love changes everything and heals all. Love is the force that creates matter and the basic compound of everything that we see. When you change your mindset to do everything with love, your life changes dramatically, radically and instantly. Lovingly doing the things you like may be easy, the problem arises when you have to do things you don´t enjoy or like doing.

These are the times when doing things with love is so important. Imagine that report that you hate writing every Monday, or that long commute to work that you so dislike… imagine that person that makes you cringe and you have to meet often… Your mind goes into a swirl of negative thoughts and destructive inner talk that transform your day into a living nightmare. Imagine learning the habit to love all that you do, all people you meet… Imagine centering yourself into the Beauty of your Heart, with a huge Smile and going into the situation you don´t like with the mindset of a Lover and the attitude of someone who is in Love with Life and everything that it brings.

You can train yourself to breathe deeply three times into your Heart, bring the emotion of Love by thinking of that someone you so adore and bathing into that feeling for 2 to 3 minutes, always breathing into your Heart. Finish with another 3 deep breaths and notice how you feel. Bring that feeling with you into your report writing, your ugly meeting or your long commute and stay in that state of Love.

ACTION: write in your diary a reminder for DOING EVERYTHING WITH LOVE, every day for the next 90 days

Notes on the ACTIONS:

a. Commit to changing your mindset and habits for the next 90 days

b. Buy yourself a LOVE journal and write each day how you feel, what you did different, how your life is changing by applying these changes, any anecdotes

c. Find an accountability partner and share your impressions with this person

d. Record your progress, the more you track your changes, the better your chances to succeed.

Article by Gema Ramirez