READ: Simple, Everyday Relaxation Techniques by Chantal Beaupre
March 7, 2012 by Chantal Beaupre
Filed under Health & Well-being, Personal Growth
5 Simple Relaxation Tips
Everyone experiences times throughout the day where you just wish you could relax for even a few minutes.
You already know that relaxation helps your body re-energize, but sometimes you’re so busy and caught up in the moment that you just don’t have the time to unwind.
Well, fortunately there are simple ways to relax, even during your busiest days, that don’t require a lot of time or equipment.
Here are five simple relaxation tips:
1. Where you’re in line at the grocery store. Instead of stressing out because there aren’t enough cashiers and every line has five people with heaping carts of groceries, use that time to relax your body by taking some deep breaths.
Deep breathing helps increase the oxygen in your blood. Your blood then circulates that extra oxygen throughout your body helping your inner systems recharge.
Taking five slow deep breaths will do the trick. The proper technique is to inhale and exhale deeply through your nose and out your mouth.
Not only will deep breathing help you relax, it’ll help to clear your mind, reduce brain fog, and you’ll feel much more alert and ready to tackle the next project on your plate.
Deep breathing can be done anywhere where you’re feeling stressed or just want to clear your mind.
2. When you’re at work. It’s often hard to find time to relax at work. You might even get in trouble if you’re caught “relaxing.” Oh the horror! However, there are some techniques you can do while you’re at work to help create a sense of calm that aren’t so obvious to others.
If your job requires you to sit at a computer all day, make sure you get up and move around for a few minutes every hour. This helps circulate the blood throughout your body. Just moving the blood flow will make you feel more alert and focused.
While sitting at your desk, roll your head around, from side to side and from front to back with your eyes closed. This technique helps to relieve neck tension, increasing blood flow to your brain, which is a natural and easy way to relax.
If you’re on your feet all day, stretch out your back and sides by standing with your feet firm on the floor, shoulder width apart, and twist your upper body, including your head, slowly from side to side. This will loosen up your back muscles and spine, releasing tension throughout your body.
During a break or lunchtime, go for a walk. Walking is a great way to clear your mind and your body will benefit from the extra exercise as well.
3. When you’re rushing through a busy day. Take just a few minutes to daydream and escape the busyness of reality.
Daydreaming lets your imagination flow, causing instant relief from the stress of the real world.
Think of a place or experience that makes you feel happy or calm. Imagine how it smells, how the air feels, and who’s around.
After five minutes of a calming daydream, you’ll feel relaxed, re-energized, and ready to face the real world again.
4. Wherever you’re at, smile. Smiling is proven to help relax and rejuvenate your body.
When you’re out and about, smile at others around you.
When you’re at work, smile at your co-workers. Not only will it help you relax, it’ll help relax them as well.
Smile at your children when you’re toting them around to all their different activities. This will create a peaceful environment you’ll all enjoy.
5. When the going gets tough, laugh. Laughter’s proven to be an instant stress reliever. Now I’m pretty sure you wouldn’t want to be seen as a nut case, so laughing out loud when you’re in line at the store or sitting at your desk may not be the best time. When you can, get someone involved in your laughter with you.
Tell a funny joke or story to a co-worker – at an appropriate time, of course.
Play a fun game or sing a silly song with your kids as you’re driving.
Watch funny videos on YouTube.
Engaging in these simple, everyday relaxation techniques will help to sustain and strengthen you throughout your day. It’ll also make it easier to unwind when you get home. Your friends, co-workers, and family will all appreciate the new, relaxed you!
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Chantal Beaupre is an Emotional Mastery Coach, a Naturopath, an Independent Licensed LifeSuccess Consultant, and a business partner of Bob Proctor – as seen in “The Secret” movie. Her passion is to assist, educate, and inspire consciously focused business owners and individuals to achieve extraordinary success and happiness, at home and in the work place. Recognized as the go-to self-development expert, Chantal has a treasure trove of practical, highly effective tools to help you live your life to the fullest. Website: www.chantalbeaupre.com
Read more from VividLife.me bloggers:
How to Deal with Anxiety Using the Power of Positive Affirmations by Chantal Beaupre
Conquering Anxiety With Affirmations It can be difficult to do anything with your normal passion and excitement if you are feeling anxious. Anxiety can squelch your motivation and control your life – if you let it. If you have experienced an anxiety attack, you may be fearful of having another one; but living in such fear means you are living in a state of perpetual anxiety. This can happen just because you are afraid of the anxiety itself!
Crazy Whirled by Edie Weinstein
Music feeds my soul and singer songwriters are the farmers whose craft of cultivating fertile fields of rhythm and rhyme, harmony and lyric, bring to the table all manner of nourishment. I am blessed to know many talented musicians in this genre. Among them are a foursome that call themselvesAccoustic Blender. Hailing from the Philadelphia region, they are husband and wife Jenny and David Heitler-Klevans (a.k.a. Two Of A Kind), whose music has entertained children in this area for decades, attorney Hope Wesley Harrison who also is a furniture finisher and Justin Solonynka who makes math fun as a classroom teacher. In their first (and hopefully not last) CD together, entitled Crazy Whirled, they blend social consciousness with consummate musicianship and between them, they play guitar, whistles, percussion instruments, bass and piano. Their voices merge beautifully as if they were meant to sing together.
READ: How to Deal with Anxiety Using the Power of Positive Affirmations by Chantal Beaupre
February 29, 2012 by Chantal Beaupre
Filed under •-Headline, Affirmations, Health & Well-being, Insights, Personal Growth
Conquering Anxiety With Affirmations
It can be difficult to do anything with your normal passion and excitement if you are feeling anxious. Anxiety can squelch your motivation and control your life – if you let it.
If you have experienced an anxiety attack, you may be fearful of having another one; but living in such fear means you are living in a state of perpetual anxiety. This can happen just because you are afraid of the anxiety itself!
Those who have never experienced an anxiety attack or high levels of anxiety cannot understand how hard this cycle can be to break.
If you believe you have to live in a constant state of fear and anxiety, you’re wrong. You really can learn how to deal with the anxiety in a more positive manner.
Letting Go of Anxiety
Worrying about the next anxiety attack can cause you to be in a constant state of fear that may keep you from doing the things you want or need to do. Anxiety can be crippling, but that doesn’t mean that it has to be.
It can be hard to stop the cycle once you develop the pattern of having anxiety-related feelings and anxiety attacks, but it isn’t impossible. You can overcome the anxiety cycle by using tools that are easy and convenient, and you may be able to overcome the cycle in less time than you thought possible.
Using Positive Affirmations to Overcome Anxiety
One way you can conquer anxiety is by using positive affirmations. These statements are a simple way to change your thought processes so you aren’t always waiting for anxiety to take charge of your life.
Many people create their own affirmations while other use affirmations from websites or books. It doesn’t matter where you find the affirmations, just as long as you begin using them effectively throughout your day.
Choose affirmations that speak to you and help you overcome your fear of anxiety. Affirmations must focus on the present and they should be about you, not anyone else.
Examples of Affirmations to Defeat Anxiety
Anxiety affirmations are simply positive statements that you can say to yourself in those moments when you start to feel anxious. You can use these at any time and for any reason to calm your nerves and bring peace of mind.
For example, you can tell yourself, “I can overcome my fears because I am in control,” or “I no longer need to be frightened. I allow myself to receive the light of who I am.” Any statement that replaces the anxious thoughts with a positive feeling will work.
Say these affirmations during anxious moments as often as you need to and continue affirming the positive thoughts until the anxious moment has passed.
By using these affirmations when you are feeling anxious, you are literally reprogramming your mind. In doing so, you will be able to think in a more positive manner. You can also use these affirmations to refocus your mind away from your anxiety and fear.
Every time you use an affirmation, you leave less and less room for the irrational fears and the anxiety that have ruled your life for far too long.
A Gift for You! Get free instant access to five daily rich in content lessons on how to transform your recession fears into a powerful, unstoppable, and profitable force.
Register here: http://chantalbeaupre.net/products/achieving-your-dreams-ecourse/
Chantal Beaupre is an Emotional Mastery Coach, a Naturopath, an Independent Licensed LifeSuccess Consultant, and a business partner of Bob Proctor – as seen in “The Secret” movie. Her passion is to assist, educate, and inspire consciously focused business owners and individuals to achieve extraordinary success and happiness, at home and in the work place. Recognized as the go-to self-development expert, Chantal has a treasure trove of practical, highly effective tools to help you live your life to the fullest. Website: www.chantalbeaupre.com
Read more from VividLife.me contributors:
What Is the Number One Cause to Unhappiness and Misery by Chantal Beaupre?
While I know this is somewhat painful, I invite you anyway to take a few moments to look at the world and the unhappiness and misery that overwhelm it, that overwhelm us all. What do you know notice? Where do all this unhappiness and misery come from? Do you know the number one cause?,,,
Wisdom Where are You? by Janice Chrysler
What if today was the day you went on a search for a long lost treasure known as wisdom? Where would you begin your journey? At first you might want to find someone who has taken this trip before and learn from them; someone perhaps who has known this secret for centuries. In ancient India a person who was of great wisdom was known as.,,,
What Is the Number One Cause to Unhappiness and Misery?
July 20, 2011 by Chantal Beaupre
Filed under •-Feature, Personal Growth
While I know this is somewhat painful, I invite you anyway to take a few moments to look at the world and the unhappiness and misery that overwhelm it, that overwhelm us all.
What do you know notice? Where do all this unhappiness and misery come from? Do you know the number one cause?
Many of us blame loneliness, or oppression, or war, or hatred, or violence, and so on. We are mistaken. There is only one cause to unhappiness and misery: The irrational thoughts and false beliefs that inhabit our minds – self-defeating thoughts and beliefs that are so widespread and common that it never crosses our minds to even question or challenge them. It is because of these irrational thoughts and false beliefs that we have a distorted vision of the world, that we hold a prejudiced image of ourselves.
Our conditioning is so strong and the pressure society puts on us so intense that we are somehow trapped in our own perception of the world. And as long as we will ignore that our perception is distorted, that our thoughts are irrational, and that our beliefs are false – at least, some of them! – it will remain impossible for us to escape this overwhelming unhappiness and misery.
What complicates matters further is that we have somehow been programmed not to suspect, not to doubt, but to blindly focus and trust the lessons taught by our traditions, our culture, our society, our religion, and so on. And when we feel unhappy and miserable, more often than not we feel guilty and unworthy as well because we have also learned to blame and devalue ourselves – and not the conditioning, the cultural background, the irrational ideas and false beliefs that inhabit our minds.
Good news is the irrational thoughts and false beliefs we have learned and believed for so many years, we most definitely have the capacity to challenge and replace them with self-helping thoughts and beliefs that will create true and sustainable happiness in our lives.
Difficult – and sometimes very, very difficult – you bet! Impossible, absolutely not! As Louise L. Hay so beautifully says, “A thought is is just a thought and a thought can be changed.”
“What are these irrational thoughts and false beliefs that keep us from being truly happy?” do you ask. Not only are there many of them, but I promise to explore the most popular ones with you as part of my next posts. Until then, let me leave you with this valuable advice from Dr. Wayne W. Dyer: “Don’t believe everything you think.”
© Chantal Beaupre 2011
Happiness: What Needs to Change So That We Feel Better, Get Better, and Stay Better?
July 6, 2011 by Chantal Beaupre
Filed under •-Feature, Personal Growth
Imagine for a moment that you’re sick and you go see a doctor to explain what you are suffering from.
After having listened to you carefully, the doctor says, “All right. I have interpreted your symptoms. Do you know what we are going to do? I will prescribe medication to your neighbor!”
– Thanks a million, doctor. I already feel much better,” do you say.
If you’re like me, you most probably find this hypothetical story completely absurd. And yet, this story is a perfect reflection of what we all do. We imagine that we will feel better, get better, and stay better if someone else changes, if some circumstances of our lives change.
We think: I would be much happier if this or that person changed. I would be much happier if my neighbor changed, my romantic partner changed, my boss changed, my clients changed, my children changed.
We also think: I would be much happier if this or that situation changed. I would be much happier if I had more money in my bank account, if I lost a few pounds, if my business was more successful, if I was better at writing and public speaking, if the weather was warmer and sunnier.
We erroneously believe that we are going to feel better, get better, and stay better only when someone else will have changed, only when a situation will have changed.
But what would really happen if this or that person changed? What would really happen if this or that situation changed? Alas, we would find ourselves to be as vulnerable as before. We are the ones who need to change. In reference to our hypothetical story, we are the ones who need medication.
Remember this: We do not feel good because all is well in our world. All is well in our world because we feel good. The way to change things in our lives is to first change ourselves. That’s what the mystics and the most prominent teachers keep repeating over and over again since the beginning of time.
© Chantal Beaupre 2011
Unconditional Acceptance: A Roadmap for Happiness
June 21, 2011 by Chantal Beaupre
Filed under •-Headline, Personal Growth
If you’re like me, then you most probably find that practicing unconditional acceptance is often much easier said than done.
Even if we know very well that our resistance to reality only adds to our unhappiness and misery and that no difficulty or problem is ever solved by fighting “what is,” unconditional acceptance often seems to be so out of our reach.
And yet, there is only one way to happiness and that is to cease resisting things which are beyond the power of our will and control.
Good news is no matter how difficult we find it to implement the practice of unconditional acceptance in our lives, the word “difficult” doesn’t mean “impossible.” Each and everyone of us can get to put unconditional acceptance in practice on a daily basis and reap the benefits of a much happier and peaceful life.
For many of us, the main obstacle lies in the fact that we often confuse unconditional acceptance with submission and apathy… but there’s all the difference in the world. While submission and apathy fail to distinguish between what can and what cannot be helped, unconditional acceptance makes that distinction. Put differently, when we practice unconditional acceptance, we first acknowledge the facts of a situation, and then we decide what we are going to do about it. Simple as that.
Another barrier to unconditional acceptance is to erroneously believe that simply to stop resisting “what is” automatically compels us to like, agree with, or approve of it. Once again, nothing could be further from the truth. Unconditional acceptance simply means we acknowledge “what is” without making ourselves needlessly upset and miserable about it. The mere fact that we don’t like, agree with, or approve of “what is” doesn’t have anything to do with our ability to unconditionally accept and make peace with it.
I believe that the roadmap for happiness can be summarized in three simple words: to unconditionally accept.
- To unconditionally accept that human perfection is nothing more than an illusion and that we will always be prone to think, feel, and behave in more or less self-defeating ways. Alas, our feelings of anxiety, guilt, and unworthiness will never change this reality or “what is.”
- To unconditionally accept that other people – family members, friends, colleagues, strangers, and so on – are human beings who are also prone to think, feel, and behave in more or less self-defeating ways… and sometimes in a manner that we don’t necessarily like, agree with, or approve of. Alas, our feelings of anxiety, anger, and contempt will never change this reality or “what is.”
- To unconditionally accept that overall life conditions and circumstances are simply as they are – even if we don’t like, agree with, or approve of them – and that the whole wide world doesn’t absolutely have to rearrange itself so that we can experience happiness in our lives. Alas, our feelings of anxiety and anger will never change this reality or “what is.”
Remember: in no way unconditional acceptance means we have to submit to “what is.” Let’s refuse to make ourselves needlessly miserable and unhappy by resisting and fighting “what is.” However, if there is an action that we feel would help to improve “what is,” by all means let’s take this action!
On a final and more spiritual note, let me share with you the famous Serenity Prayer by Reinhold Niebuhr which, in my humble opinion, summarizes so well what unconditional acceptance is all about:
“God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change;
the courage to change the things I can;
and the wisdom to know the difference.”
© Chantal Beaupre 2011
