Transformation: What a concept! It’s such an exciting concept in some ways. And a little bit scary in others. But why would stress management be scary? Truly, it’s not. In my practice as a stress management coach it comes to me time and time again that people do struggle with letting go of their stress – some, I would even venture to say are addicted to it. I was personally taken aback by the word transformation coming into my life in a very direct way for this year (more on that later). This first blog of 2015 is dedicated to the idea of transformation from stress as a way of life t o living a peaceful life by using easy stress management techniques. I also want to use the idea of transformation & stress management to lay out the plan for this year’s blogs so that you will know what to look forward to from me & the Peaceful Living Community as the year plays out.
Up until this point I have blogged here and there, trying it out, seeing what feels right. Now I’m ready to lay out a plan; each month will have its own theme – but all under the rubric using stress management techniques to transform your lifestyle into one that is more enjoyable, happier, and much, more peaceful! I don’t have the topic for every month set because my deepest hope for this blog is that it will become a community space for sharing and supporting each other in our journeys to living more peaceful and happier lives.
In addition to weekly blogs about Peaceful Living topics I am also going to be posting book & blog reviews of lifestyle books about stress, health, nutrition, yoga, and overall wellness. AND… I will take you on a journey through some very stressful (at this point potential) transformations in my life with a line of blog posts entitled “Moving & Changing” and you all can use me and my journey to offer your own stress managment techniques 🙂
FOR NOW, HERE ARE THE PEACEFUL LIVING BLOG TOPICS I HAVE PLANNED THUS FAR:
February: Peaceful Living For Real Life ~ what does this look like for each individual?
- Peaceful Living For Real Life: I’ll give examples of Peaceful Living For Real Life from my own life, from my stress-management coaching clients (with permission) and from friends and colleagues and open the conversation to the community to share examples & ask questions from their own lives.
- Transformation into Peaceful Living: I’ll talk about the intention of transformation & intentional transformation and explore the difference. The community conversation will be open to discussion of people’s different interpretations and opinions about transformation.
- The Power of Affirmations for Peaceful Living: Finally, the power of affirmations will be explored. I will bring in scientific and social science research and give prompts for creating ways to bring more affirmations into your life. The community can share their affirmations and their creative projects involving affirmations.
March: Let’s Get This Party Started Right! ~ We’ll talk about how to bring peaceful living into your daily life in a first-things-first sort of way. Think about this as laying the foundation, or in party lingo, setting up the party!
- Our Favorite Things: Let’s talk about and create lists of all the things in life that make us happy and how we can bring them into our daily lives.
- Gratitude Lists: What a better way to feel good than gratitude without guilt. I’ll talk about what that is and the community can share the things they are grateful for and how they go about feeling grateful without feeling guilty.
- The Power of Breathing: It seems like breathing should be self-explanatory… but, let me tell you, learning different ways to breath has changed my life! I’ll explain different breath techniques and we’ll try them on for size and compare notes. Maybe I’ll even VLOG this one – yikes! New thing for me J
- Get Your Body Moving: Exercise doesn’t have to be an exercise in being bored or in discomfort J Let’s make it fun and feel good! I’ll share the ways in which I get exercise into my daily life ~ and how it’s fun & feels good. The community can share the ways they like to move and we can try out different things and share what we like & what we don’t like.
April: The Power of You ~ I will cover the topics of taking care of yourself and understanding yourself in order to take the best care possible of you.
- You Time: People, put the oxygen mask on first! Taking care of yourself, nurturing, relaxing, rejuvenating is something we all need to do on a daily basis – especially those of us who take care of others on a regular basis. We need to oxygenate ourselves before we can help everyone else. Let’s explore what this means to each of you and how you either go about doing this or how you can get more of it into your daily life.
- Understanding You: Are you an introvert or an extrovert? Maybe you’re introverted extrovert or an extroverted introvert? I’ll introduce you to the Enneagram and how to use it for self-assessment. I’m hoping that our community members who know the Enneagram will chime in with their valuable knowledge & that we can all share what we find out about ourselves.
- Understanding “Us”: How can we use the Enneagram to interact with others in stress-free manner? How can it strengthen our relationships through deeper understanding and empathy. Our community conversation can posit questions and suggest ways of entering into conversations that thoughtfully invoke the Enneagram.
- The Daily You: Now that you have an understanding of why taking care of yourself is important and you have a deeper understanding of who you are and what your needs are, let’s explore how you can create daily peace in life. I will give examples, talk about how to work mini-breaks in, and share my own Peaceful Living Success Schedule. In our community conversation we can share our daily peaceful living goals and support each other with gentle accountability.
May: Mindfulness
- What is mindfulness? I plan to provide perspectives on this topic from different philosophers and scholars: Thich Naht Han, Jon Kabat Zinn, Deepak Chopra and others. In our community conversation we can talk about what “mindfulness” means to us and share ideas of how to practice it more in our lives.
- What is MDSR? I will give a deeper explanation of JK Zinn’s philosophy and practices. Our community conversation can be like a virtual book group & “discuss the book” – you can even feel free to have cookies and/ or wine while you post J
- Mindful Communication: We will deepen the discussion started in “The Power of Us” delving into the ways and methods of mindful communication. I’ll lay out the basics of the philosophy and techniques and then we can center our community conversation around how to use mindful communication throughout our daily conversations.
- Mindful Movement: Yoga, Thai Chi, Qi Gong, Thich Naht Han’s 10 Mindful Movements, Somatic Movement… what are each of these movement modalities? How can they enhance our Peaceful Lives? Let’s talk about our current practices, if we have them, and let’s try-on some new practices for size. I hope that the community conversation will be a venue for sharing other types of mindful movement and how they have enhanced your lives.
Okay, so there are four months of ideas for Peaceful Living Blogs. I actually have a few more, but I want this to be a community conversation. Peaceful Living For Real life is the guideline I wish to give to others to help them navigate this stressful world. I truly believe that the community environment, even a virtual environment, is far more beneficial to all than a “talking head” blog. So with that in mind, please post to the blog. Help me create a beautiful caring, supportive environment. Share your wisdom, cares and worries. And please let me know any topics you would like to cover as a full blog post (as opposed to in the comments section) and I’ll put it up as a main topic.
Welcome to 2015 ~ Happy Peaceful New Year!
Love & Light,
Jen
