Soulful Simplicity - Book Review
Exercise 1: Hand To Heart Exercise
- Time: Choose a time each day when you can sit alone for a few minutes. You may light a candle. Keep a pen and paper nearby to jot down thoughts.
- Sit: Sit comfortably on the floor, on a chair, on your bed or anywhere you feel comfortable.
- Silence: Try practising in silence or with soft music.
- Breathe: Breathe in through the nose and out through the mouth.
- Eyes: Close your eyes or turn your gaze down, and continue focusing on your breath.
- Hand on heart: Place one hand on your heart and cover the hand with the other hand. Feel the heart beating. Feel the warmth of your heart and your hands.
- I work towards full clarity on what is most important by getting rid of everything that is not. To matter, they must support health and /or love in my life.
- I reject perfection, comparison & competition.
- I do not resent the past or let the future dictate my present. I am firmly rooted in my present and to support that I take time to hear into my heart and feed my soul.
- The quiet messages from my heart and soul guide my decision making in life & work. I trust myself to know what feels right and good usually is right and good.
- I lift myself with good food, meditation, movement and creativity, so I can lift the people around me including my family, close friends and anyone also who needs something as simple as a smile and as complex as a massive change in their life, or work. Yes, think of your mission statement as a soul's face breathe work that guides you.
Exercise 2: Project 333
- She did not count underwear, sleepwear, around the house to wear or workout gear.
- Some may feel this challenge as weird, crazy or impossible.
- What is important is who I am and not what I wear.
- In fact, this project has more to do with health, happiness and heart and less to do with fashion or clothes.
- We are spending money on what we don’t have, on clothes, we don’t wear.
- I need way less than I think to be happy.
- No one cares what I am wearing.
- Deciding on what to wear requires mental energy (Decision fatigue) better spent on other things.
- A simple closet is a gateway to a simple life.
- By eliminating everything that does not matter I finally know what matters, it’s love.
- Home becomes a living space instead of store space.
- Round one: Empty your closet. Dump all on the bed. Take a break.
- Round two: Once you have thirty-three picked out, get everything else out of sight.
The more I worked, the more I made. And the more I spent and I wanted even more!
Filling every moment with stuff and busyness makes one sick. When you work outside of your heart, there will always be a break-up, a breakdown or both. One of the reasons we keep our lives so complicated is so we don’t have to listen to our inner voice telling us what we need to do to make our life work better.
Soulful Simplicity
Instead of more money, more stuff, more busyness, and more stepping outside of myself to be who other people may need me to be, I am enjoying a different kind of more.
- I am more myself and more connected to my heart.
- I am more available for people I love and projects I care about.
- I am more present and focused.
- I have more space, time and love in my life along with all of the other mores I craved for so long.
- Be more with less
- Do the things you do not want to do
- Best friends, envy and lie
- Shopping
- Wake-up calls for you need to change
- Art of saying ‘No’
- Smile 99
- 21 days busy boycott challenge
- Sabbath
- Do more with less
- Walking: Take a walk every day – preferably outdoors
- Sleeping 7-8 hours: Prioritise sleep
- Envy: Envy shows you when somebody has something you wish you had.
- Lie: When you lie about something, you are showing yourself. There is something that is not right in your life.
If you have to step outside of yourself, away from your values and soul to get your needs met, then you are not going to get your needs met. - Danielle La Porte
- Take a walk
- Go for yoga
- Call a friend
- Make a smoothie
- Get a message
- Sleep for an extra hour
- Write
- Meditation
- Send a thank-you note
- I do not have to buy this today.
- I can return that. Do not hold on to something that makes you feel bad.
- I have paid enough. Accepting this allowed to cut ties between emotion, shopping and holding on.
- If you are constantly self–medicating with food, shopping, alcohol, tv or other distractions
- If you are worn down, beat up, stressed out or completely depleted
- If you never put yourself first
- Yoga (Savasana + Pranayam): Take a deep breath in through your nose and release it through your mouth. It will release stress, anxiety, excitement or frustration.
- Let go.
- Stop comparison.
- Be grateful and graceful while saying ‘No’
- Be clear: when you know it’s a no, say no.
- Keep short: ‘No’ is a complete sentence. No long explanation or sorry are needed.
- Try a “yes” fast: commit to saying no to every request for thirty days. Practice the loving no over and over again.
- Say no to guilt following no: Dump the guilt around not doing someone’s work. Believe in yourself and what you know is best for your life and say no to guilt.
- Day 1-7: Ban the word 'busy' from your talk and vocabulary. Stop saying 'I am too busy.' To avoid the word 'busy'. Use other sentences like how are you? What made you smile today? Did anything interesting happen today?
- Day 8-14 (Do less): Eliminate one thing from your to-do list. Stop comparing your lists, your life & your love.
- Day 15-21 (Linger longer): It’s ok to be still and stop listening to your heart. There is no guilt in self-care. Savour good food, conversation and beautiful views. Fall in love. Smile. Breathe and then fall in love again.
Use your imagination, be frivolous, be daring. Invent rituals. Do nothing of significance. - Wayne Muller (Author: Sabbath)
- Schedule your Sabbath
- Tell the world you won’t be available
- Put anything in the Sabbath box that you don’t want to use:
- phone, tablets, digital devices
- mentally put in a box: car washing, meditation etc.
- write on paper to put in a box: worries and things left undone
- Time out: eat when you are hungry, drink when you are thirsty and sleep when you are tired
- If you are always getting ready for the next thing, how will you ever enjoy this thing?
- Remove the things that remove you from life.
- Create some time to spend your life the way you want to spend your life.
- If you want a real connection and an honest answer, check your heart more than you check your phone.
- You are allowed to protect your time and energy.
- When all of your free time is spent catching up or getting ahead, that’s not the free time to be free. Use your free time, to be free!
- Simplicity does not change who you are, it brings you back to who you are.
Soulful Simplicity
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