Maintaining My Sanity - Mindfulness, Meditation and Forest Retreat ...

With All the Craziness in the World How Do You Maintain Your Sanity?

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I feel fortunate to live in the Boreal forest off the beaten path. My home here is my retreat, my sanctuary, to get away from all the craziness of the world! Even just entering the forest after a trip to the city or such, my mind becomes peaceful. I am able to step out of my door into a wilderness setting where I can easily commune with nature.

I have also developed a meditation practice that helps me along the path of awakening and to experience more peace and joy in my life. It is from this meditation practice that I am able to go within to that quiet tranquil place away from any craziness that may be going on around me. It is there that I know everything is alright. I even had an incident once where I had tripped and banged the back of my head on the bath tub. I was unable to move and was thinking this might be the end. Instead of panicking, I went to that quiet place inside and waited to see if I would pass away or the effects from banging my head would pass away. Fortunately the effects from banging my head passed away.

Knowing what it is to be on the edge, I attribute my hold on sanity to having that strong base in meditation, knowing which path to travel and having purpose. I spoke of my experience when I felt like I was loosing control in an earlier post here where I mentioned a very valuable lesson I learned -

What ever you focus on, you give power to.

How many times do we worry about something or get riled up and find that most of what we worried about didn't even manifest.

Want to find out how often that is or have a way of releasing some of those worries? Try a Worry Outcome Journal. Or take your worries and schedule a time when you will worry about them, a time about 6 hours later. You may be pleasantly surprised when that scheduled time to worry comes around and the worries have already dissipated and you see there really wasn't much there to worry about in the first place.

That sort of fits in to practicing mindfulness where you focus more on what is happening in the present.

Another cool trick to snap you out of worrying or if you feel anxiety coming on, is what Chelsea Ritschel wrote about here called the 5-4-3-2-1 tool which basically pulls you into the present by using your senses to find and name 5 things you see, 4 things you hear, 3 things you feel, 2 things you smell, and 1 thing you taste.

If you like this tip and want some more there is a Harvard Health article here which even has a PDF you can download here Benefits of Mindfulness - Practices for Improving Emotional and Physical Well-Being which gives you Mindfulness Techniques, Mindfulness Meditations and other practices.

For those of you that want to use astrology as a tool to guide you into deeper understanding, you may want to look at the new age we are transitioning into The Age of Aquarius where there is extreme change as we phase out of the age of Pisces to the age of Aquarius. With this turmoil of our fast pace world, where circumstances often feel like they are beyond our control, it never hurts to have more understanding. It could help you align with the coming new Age of Aquarius which is said to

point to the direction of our own evolution in consciousness. We are each being asked to make a choice. We can cling to the old outdated values or adopt the new evolving ones. Our happiness and peace depends on our choice and the change will take place whether we like it or not. src

And what about other forces in the world?

The effects of the moon, which it is said:

the moon's energy amplifies our emotions. When it's full, it can bring all of your emotions to the surface. When it's a new moon, it's time to be more calm and reflective.

The energies that come with the full moon can effect our mood and behavior. Tune in and see if it is effecting you?

This is the time of the "Worm" Full Super Moon - March 9th, 2020.

Why "Worm"? Because of the practice of Native Americans to name full moons to help track seasons. The Farmer's Almanac states:

This full Moon traditionally goes by the name Worm Moon, which refers to the fact that earthworms and grubs tend to emerge from their winter dormancy at this time of year, marking a sure sign of spring!