Activities such as camping or praying have a positive impact on your mood


Imagine you have just arrived at a camping site for the weekend. What’s the first thing that you notice when you get out and look around? The incredible QUIET. No phones, no television, no constant hum of electrical appliances. Getting away from so-called civilisation is a marvellous way to relax and to restore your sense of balance. Escaping the cars, buildings, cement, people and all their attendant noise and demands guarantees a drop in blood pressure and a new perspective on what’s important in your life. Being outside in nature encourages you to look around with fresh eyes, to switch off your everyday mind.

Find peace camping by a mountain creek, in the desert or near the ocean. Wear soft old T-shirts and baggy pants; leave the hairdryer, make-up and high-heeled shoes behind. Enjoy peaceful days without hearing a single mechanical sound, just the call of birds and the rhythm of your own footsteps. Get in touch with the silence within yourself and know that everything in life has a purpose. Food tastes better, the sun feels warmer, and you’ll sleep better than you ever do at home.

Having a vision statement can help you cut through meaningless activity, and focus only on those things that will energise you and feed your spirit. Draw three columns on a piece of paper. Head each with the following: ‘I am’, ‘I want’ and ‘I can’. Now, write down the answers, using the active, present tense.

For example, ‘I am a hard-working, loyal person. I want peace of mind and the calm satisfaction that comes from knowing that I have done my best. I can make a difference in my life and in other people’s lives.’ Now, hold yourself to this one, articulated decision. Tape it to your fridge door or use it as your screensaver. This one-decision–one-vision technique is different from serial goal-setting. It’s your quest for yourself and it helps you realise you can be more than you are. A vision statement makes you feel more alive, prompting you to rise to the occasion when you least expect it. When a step has to be taken, take it: there is no one totally right time for anything.

In a world of rap lyrics, phonetic spelling and general ‘dumbing down’, we are not as familiar as we once were with the profound and inspiring effects of language. It is ironic that, on the one hand, we have in common a deep hunger for meaningful connection, a need for the calm and comfort that words can provide, but on the other, we are often frustrated by an inability to communicate. This is particularly true for those of us who are uncomfortable or unfamiliar with the formal rituals offered by organised religions, yet who nonetheless crave the feeling of community and inspiration found in spiritual practice.

Learning a simple blessing can go a long way towards satisfying this hunger and restoring the sense of ‘God being in His heaven, all’s right with the world’ that Elizabeth Barrett Browning wrote of. Blessings can be found in a variety of writing, spiritual and secular. One of the most deceptively powerful, simple phrases I have ever read is this ancient Celtic prayer: ‘All will be well, and all will be well, and all will be well.’ To me, this is a blessing, a grace, a mantra and a comfort, all rolled into one. Find a line or a phrase that is meaningful to you. Learn it off by heart and use it often during the day as a soothing benediction before eating or leaving the house, perhaps, or as you wake and when you lie down to sleep. Use it often. Here are some ideas to get you started.

Don’t think about the future; just be here now. Don’t think about the past; just be here now. (Ram Dass)

To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under heaven. (Ecclesiastes 3:1–4)

Shanti, shanti, shanti. (Peace, peace, peace) – traditional Vedic prayer.

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