REBOOT YOUR LIFE: How to make a new habit permanent

This article was published in The Mindful Word journal of engaged living (http://www.themindfulword.org)

Rebooting your life is a gift to yourself.  It reconnects you with your spirit, the wisdom and joy that lives in you and the truths that ground your choices. It’s a personal antivirus program for you to be free of what distracts, disorients and keeps you from your best and highest good.

Rebooting is most successful when you commit to creating time and space every day for 21 days to breathe and be present to yourself. Begin with two or three minutes on the first few days.

Then allow yourself a five-minute breathing time on the remaining days. Find a quiet place to listen to the breath flowing though you. Be still and open to the thoughts that are present. You job is to keep listening to your breath as each thought appears.

Day 1: Your magnificence is cause for thanksgiving. Name at least one quality about you that is magnificent. Savour and appreciate it. How will you let that quality be radiant in your life today?

Day 2: Your story reveals wisdom and spiritual truth. What part of your story nags at you for attention? Choose to listen for the invitation it presents you.

Day 3: Forgiveness is a learned path to freedom. What do you need to forgive in yourself or another person? Forgiveness is a choice to be free. It releases life-giving energy to be present to today and the future.

Day 4: Love needs to be named. Stand in front of a mirror looking at yourself and speak out loud something lovable about you. Celebrate it by sharing your new appreciation with another.

Day 5: Delight affects how you participate in your own life and the world. Choose to allow yourself to be delighted by something or someone today. Tell another person about your delight.

Day 6: Detach from a toxic person. You do neither of you a favour by allowing toxicity to invade and muddle your life. Detach and entrust them to the goodness and care of the Universe. It’s a life-giving gift to both of you!

Day 7: Create a new conversation. Instead of allowing old conversations and hurts to keep playing in your heart and mind, make a choice to create a new one in which you welcome positive energy.

Day 8: Playfulness is vital to your wellbeing. Do something playful today that makes you smile. Notice how it affects your experience of the rest of the day’s activities.

Day 9: Frustration closes you off from yourself and others. Pay attention to what frustrates you. Letting go of it allows you to be more fully engaged with what brings you alive.

Day 10: Trust your intuition—it’s part of your positioning system. Respond to an intuitive reaction or thought today.

Day 11: A teacher awaits in your greatest failures. Invite awareness of what your greatest failures teach you about your values, hopes, purpose and joy. Express gratitude for the teacher within.

Day 12: Feasting with others is soul food to your life. Experience time today with another person as a feast with each other. Unplug your technology and relish being present with another.

Day 13: Acknowledge the fears that resurface in your life. They’re an invitation to move beyond them. In going to the edge of your fear you discover what centres you. In the naming of the fears their power over you is loosened.

Day 14: Awe shifts your perception of time and your place in the world. Reflect on the things, people or places that fill you with awe. How will you choose to live with an intentional openness to awe today?

Day 15: Stop clutching! When you stop clutching at what you think you know you create an open and appreciative way of living. The Universe then surprises you with new invitations to life.

Day 16: Preoccupations are best dealt with by setting them aside. Allow the beauty of those you love to interrupt your preoccupations. Express your gratitude for such love in your life.

Day 17: You’re hardwired for compassion. What act of compassion will you participate in today? Notice how each such act enriches your sense of self and your connection to the lives of others.

Day 18: You’re made in the imagination of the Universe. Be awake to imagination alive in you, allowing it to become a new lens for how you engage challenges, other people and yourself. Celebrate it!

Day 19: Love needs your voice and heart. Express your love to someone you love today. Tell them one of the reasons you love them. Notice how your heart space and theirs becomes more richly intertwined.

Day 20: Your goodness helps to polish the world. What will you do today to polish the world—perhaps an act of mercy, kindness, love or playful delight? The energy of your goodness is life-changing.

Day 21: Celebrate and express gratitude! For your wellbeing and the blessings given and received in your generosity of spirit and heart.

Notice the choices you have made. Be aware of how more fully enlivened and alive you are and choose a trusted friend or mentor to share your new insights and learnings with. Rebooting is your spiritual and wisdom gift to yourself.

Battling an addiction? Read AMERICA THE ADDICTED: Must we wait until we hit bottom? for an interesting insight into addiction

image: Melissa Picard (Creative Commons BY-NC-ND)

The post REBOOT YOUR LIFE: How to make a new habit permanent appeared first on The Mindful Word.

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