For me, autumn is all about gathering resources and micro-dosing wellbeing rituals throughout the day in preparation for winter.
Gathering the resources we need is a great act of care for our future self that has an immediate ameliorating effect on our current self. Have you noticed how much you look to the future with anxious anticipation, as if to prepare yourself mentally for the worst? Instead of perpetuating a state of fear let’s gather inspiration for how to prepare.
When our basic physical needs are met, then our emotional needs follow naturally. I’m not saying just take care of the body and the mind will sort itself, but that both are one and the same organism, and if we don’t have our physical needs met, the mind won’t let us rest until we do.
The opposite is also true. If our emotional needs are not met and our physical health can suffer. Here I would like to share the ways that you can prepare your body-mind for a smooth transition into winter. Gathering tools, resources and strength to get through our hibernation season, even though we are still carrying on out and about in the world.
On a very practical level we need to establish some rituals that are specific to easing winter strains. Such as cutting back on store bought coffees to save for higher power bills, taking breaks to absorb whatever sunlight we can get, getting off the bus a stop earlier to move the body on the daily, eat more immune nourishing foods like bone broths, miso soup and citrus.
If you are a highly sensitive person that might not be enough, you might need a more supportive and nuanced approach to winter: micro-dosing wellbeing rituals…
An article on gathering wouldn’t be complete without mentioning the importance of togetherness. The most recent studies on awe show that the most common experience of it is through other people, not nature, not individual achievement, but other people. Specifically in observing other people do amazing, heroic and deeply humanitarian things.
Another term used for this phenomena is Moral Beauty, being inspired by people who embody something of the spirit, the soul and the sacred. According to Professor of Psychology Dacher Keltner, awe activates the vagus nerve, deeply calming and grounding us. He recently published a book called Awe: the new science of every day wonder where he writes about the importance of making a practise of awe.
Here is where micro-dosing wellbeing rituals come in. We can make a practise of awe by actively seeking awe throughout the day in little micro-moments. Keltner goes on ‘awe walks’ actively looking for things that amaze him, slowing down and stopping to observe the little miracles happening all around. What might you do to micro-dose awe as a way of life?
Perhaps nature is your great source, or perhaps you might like to keep your senses open and tuned to stories of people doing amazing, heartfelt, awe-inspiring deeds. Start practising now as a way of gathering rich inner resources to fill up the deepest reservoirs of your well. Listen to our latest meditation MICRO-DOSING MIRACLES to set you off in the micro-dosing wellbeing journey. Below is one of my all-time favourite poems by one of my all-time favourite poets, another little resource to gather for your micro-dosing of wellness tools.
Chantal x
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EVERYTHING IS WAITING FOR YOU by David Whyte
Your great mistake is to act the drama
as if you were alone. As if life
were a progressive and cunning crime
with no witness to the tiny hidden
transgressions. To feel abandoned is to deny
the intimacy of your surroundings. Surely,
even you, at times, have felt the grand array;
the swelling presence, and the chorus, crowding
out your solo voice. You must note
the way the soap dish enables you,
or the window latch grants you freedom.
Alertness is the hidden discipline of familiarity.
The stairs are your mentor of things
to come, the doors have always been there
to frighten you and invite you,
and the tiny speaker in the phone
is your dream-ladder to divinity.
Put down the weight of your aloneness and ease into the
conversation. The kettle is singing
even as it pours you a drink, the cooking pots
have left their arrogant aloofness and
seen the good in you at last. All the birds
and creatures of the world are unutterably
themselves. Everything is waiting for you.