What's in your "Keep the Faith" toolbox?

“It is not your passing inspirations or your brilliant ideas so much as your everyday mental habits that control your life.”
– Paramahansa Yogananda – The Law of Success

Keeping a strong positive can-do mindset makes a huge difference in your ability to heal. Arouse your inner healing power and keep it stoked by cultivating daily habits and interests that bolster your spirit and motivate your will.

Release stress and toxic emotions.
Negative emotions, when not positively dealt with, weaken the will. Research has shown that fear and anger have negative effects on the body. Did you know that anger immediately causes congestion in the liver? Fear causes the release of stress hormones which suppress the immune system. Deep breathing, exercise, and laughter all work to physiologically calm the stress response and boost the spirit.

Take time out for you.
Regularly step back from life to calm down, get perspective and to renew your spirit. Treat yourself to a day in nature or at the spa. Choose a daily practice such as meditation, yoga, tai chi, spiritual study, or journaling. Read something inspiring every day. Avoid mental junk food of TV, Internet, and gossip. Notice which mental inputs uplift, and which ones bring you down.

---

Surround yourself with supportive friends and family.
Have people around you whose company you truly enjoy, who inspire and uplift you, and whom you can call on when you need support. It’s your turn to receive at this time, and no doubt you have enriched and helped others before, and know how good it feels to give. Now they get the opportunity to give to you! When you graciously receive, you are completing the gifting circuit while doubling their pleasure in giving.

There are people in our lives who nourish us, and there are those that drain us. This is a time to take care of you, not to take others’ burdens. For me, it was a time to let go of the need to make things right for everybody else, and to trust that they have within themselves their own solutions. This sounds selfish, but it serves to empower others to discover their own strength and inner abilities. Maybe the question is, how often are we “helping” others to make ourselves more comfortable? Your gift to them could be your confidence in them that they can find their own way.

Find activities that you enjoy that will fill your life with meaning. Maybe take a class, or start a new hobby, or a service activity. Plan something to look forward to. A visit with grandkids? A trip you have dreamed about? What can you add to your life that would make you excited to get up in the morning?

---

The state of your body affects the state of your mind.

Keep your body feeling good with regular sleep and healthy food. Pay attention to what you eat, and notice what foods make you feel good, and what foods do not. Fresh fruits and vegetables tend to lighten the mood. Be aware of when you are trying to feed something other than your body, and how your mood can affect your food choices. It’s likely that you will choose food to match the mood you are indulging!

Exercise gets you happy and energized, and it keeps your body and the immune system strong. The trick to being regular is to find some exercise that you enjoy. Do you like dancing, yoga, or bicycling? Many forms of exercise get you outside and with people. I found all that in outrigger canoe paddling, and I look forward to my time on the water with my paddler friends.

---

When the going gets tough

During my cancer challenge, I put together an ‘emergency toolkit’ for those tough days when I’d get overwhelmed and scared. I kept in the kit handy slogans, prayers, inspirations, and empowering questions like “What would it take to change this?” I had a mental list of people I could reach out to, and activities that are grounding and calming.

My #1 tool was to remind myself that death was not an option. I would pray, and reach out for support. I would take a walk and breathe in the air. If I felt stuck, I’d ask an empowering question such as, What would it take to change this? Or, What else is possible? In keeping the question in mind, eventually an awareness would come to me that would lead to a shift, a possibility, a next step.

---

What could you put in your emergency toolkit? A saying, a mantra, a prayer, an empowering question? Do you have friends you can call on? Sacred objects? Inspirational books or recordings?

What are you doing today to maintain your positive attitude? And if you have lost it, what can you do to get it back? What will it take for you to have a great day?

Please do something positive and nurturing for yourself today. You will be pleasantly surprised how much better you can feel, how much better your life can be, and how much your body will benefit.

---

Learn how you can master the positive mindset and supercharge your inner healing power as I did to turn around stage 4 cancer. Put yourself on the path to wellness with my Six Keys to Empowered Healing program.

Blessings,
Rita