My Best Self 101 Blog
You’ve probably heard the usual advice: meditate, exercise, journal. These staples work—but they aren’t the only routes to a healthier mind. Mental health is personal. And sometimes, what really helps isn’t a silent room and a breathing app, but a splash of cold water, a virtual forest, or a bench in the sun. If your usual routines aren’t cutting through the fog, here are six creative, research-backed ways to refresh your mind and stabilize your mood, with no yoga mat required.
At age forty-nine, I have attended hundreds of bridal showers and wedding luncheons. When the time to “give advice” rolls around, two bits of advice surface nearly every time.
The first is, “Never go to bed angry.” Personally, I disagree with the word never in this statement—sometimes a good sleep, a little distance, and perhaps a hot meal can do wonders for a difficult issue—but that topic is for another blog post.
Well, for centuries, a connection to the divine has oriented people towards how to live a good life. Many would argue that the spiritual principles taught by the different world religions have temporal importance in their ability to influence happiness and bring a sense of abundance to life. A reflection on those quotes shows that, even objectively, they give great advice on how to live! Even while not all individuals are affiliated with a particular religion, it has been increasingly common for people to seek a connection to something greater than themselves. This connection to something transcendent can have an incredible impact on our ability to live optimistically, mindfully, and abundantly. I’ve seen this in my own life, and I think if you took a moment to contemplate, you’d see it in yours too.
Flow states, gratitude, savoring, mindfulness and meditation, spending time in nature, spiritual practices like prayer and pondering, intimate moments with family or friends, and aesthetic or artistic appreciation all foster states of transcendence where we can rise above the usual worries about the self and feel a part of something more. It turns out that the best life is when me becomes us.
Awe is an amazing emotion. It has the power to help someone reach their authentic self through self-transcendence. This experience of wonder can empower someone to have more motivation, feel connected with the world, have better psychological well-being, and so much more. Understanding one’s place in this large world can be crucial, and awe is a way to find the meaning of one’s life.
