Tips to Stay Centred During the Silly Season

As the year spirals towards an end so can your equilibrium and it is important to take measures to maintain your centre.

Christmas mayhem!

Just as we need a strong centre (core) to maintain balance in our yoga poses, we need a strong centre to maintain balance in our life. When you are centred you are composed, stable, you have direction and purpose. To be centred you first need to be present.

The easiest and cheapest method available to centre us is already within us... our breath. When we focus on our breath and how it affects our body we become conscious, other thoughts are put on standby as the pace and flow of breath sets the mood. A slow, deep, regular breath transcends us to a calm, slow and peaceful sensation just as a fast, irregular breath can stimulate our being. 

By focusing on our breath we also begin to be present; aware of what is happening now in our body and all around us. Once present and conscious we can work towards being centred.

"Make everything you do a meditative awareness. If you can do this, you will see that your meditation practice is not separate from your life. It will no longer be something you do for a period of time in the morning and evening; it will be a way of life. We think that life is a distraction from meditation, but really, life is an occasion for meditation." ~ Baron Baptiste.
 

Tips to Stay Centred

• Just breathe - focus on your breath and how it affects your body.
   
• Connect with the earth - walk bare feet on the grass or sand.
   
• Connect with your senses - notice what you see, hear, feel and smell; this brings you to a sense of presence.
   
• Stand in tadasana - Mountain Pose is very grounding and reminds you to check your posture, activate your core muscles and root down to raise up.
   
• Find Stillness - meditate regularly, eventually try to make everything you do a meditative practice.
   
• Walk in nature - especially near moving water eg. surf or a fountain (moving water has positive ions assisting you to de-stress).
   
• Embrace Love - start with yourself, you need to fill yourself with love first so that it can overflow to others.
   
• Gratitude - be grateful for what you already have, and then you will realise that you already have plenty. See the beauty in small things.
  Simple days add up to a very rich life.
   
• Detox - release anything that isn't serving you at this moment; release toxins from your body, toxic thoughts from your mind, let go of lethal friends and set boundaries around deadly relationships that you can't walk away from (eg. family/relatives).
   
• Get healthy - you have more vitality and strength to keep up with the Silly Season when you eat, think and sleep healthily.
   
• Feed your aspirations - a fulfilled life keeps you centred, if you are not being paid to do what you love, you can still volunteer your time to share your talents to help others.  
   
• Hold yourself accountable - Don't blame others for what is going on in your life, instead own your life from the inside. We have inside us all strength, peace and joy so we don't need to rely on someone else for these qualities. We need to summons the courage to live the life we want to live. 

"At the centre of your being you have the answer; and you know who you are and you know what you want." ~ Lao Tzu