7 Ways to Flourish

The way to flourish is to go with the flow and embrace waves of change.  Yet, to embrace change, we also need to get to know ourselves intimately, know what feels right, have courage to do that.  We all need encouragement and down-to-Earth, practical ways to deal with what life throws us.  In this light, reflect on seven ways to flourish in your life, come what may;

1. Recognize your habits

Everyone has habits, or activities they engage in with regularity. For example, you may shower every few days, drink a hot beverage in the morning, eat certain foods through the day, engage in certain routines, like getting together with friends on friday or sharing rituals.  When you go through life performing or conforming to social conventions without question, your behaviour loses power to profoundly change you. Habits do not empower you to live Your Best Life Now.  Seeing habits for what they are, as expressions of the energies of joy, anger, grief, sadness, disgust or other emotions, changes everything. Teach yourself to feel your reasons for doing.

2. Be aware of your emotions

To be human is to feel and express emotions.  Physical existence is about reacting or responding to encounters.  You may not notice how often life elicits emotions and how they can become patterned habits. Reactions are unconscious ways the external world triggers certain emotions. The untrained mind reacts unconsciously.  The trained mind responds with deep understanding of what is happening. This is about cultivating emotions so we internalize more loving ways of responding to others and life experience.  We refine ritual with more clarity and consistency. 

3.  Awaken to contradictions 

Growing aware of what does not jive in your life is a kind of awakening.  As you sense conflicting emotions, turbulent energies, inconsistent choices, undesirable experiences, tense realtionships, you begin to see what is contributing to emotional highs and lows and the sense things are not working.  Every moment is an opportunity for revelations about the real source of resistence inside yourself.  When will you grow accountable? Take responsibility and stop denying your role? What are you ready and willing to see?

4. Be willing to break normal habits

In order to help ourselves change, it is useful to realize breaking normal habits is what enables us to develop different sides of ourselves. Stepping back and observing your habits helps you determine what is helping or hindering your health and well-being, relationships and situations.  

5.  Step outside the familliar

When we travel, visit a friend's home, break away from regular routines, we view life and ourselves differently.  This is why people take time off work to do a caravan tour of their own country, go on sabbatical, visit new places, even take a new route to work or exert effort to notice new things where they are.  Why do more people not do this more often? Fear, perhaps? Shifting roles, jobs, destinations, tasting new things, even moving house based on intuition, all have potential to break patterns develop new confidence and greater self- acceptance. The question is, do you desire change to escape or, for the love of spontaneity and embracing the unknown?

6. Be more flexible

By embracing patterns we see in ourselves, we allow them to harden and take root.  Labels we adopt can drive our behaviours and decisions, and become self-fulfilling prophecy.  As the result, many people perpetuate narrow views of themselves and what is possible.  In the West, true self is often assumed to be patterns of predictable responses to people and the world.  Yet, when you can continue to suprise people, you are actually closer to true being.  We are each complex arrays of emotions, dispositions, desires and different traits that often pull us in different directions.  What happens when you feel okay with diverging from your norm? 

7. Explore what evokes inner harmony

The key to everything is noticing your patterns and working actively to shift them.  Breaking our own patterns helps us realize other people are malleable too, that no relationship or situation is cut in stone.  Talking to yourself helps you work things ou in your life.  Wake up wanting to go to work or take the world by storm.  Feel better about yourself.  Know how you feel and what you experience begins and ends in you.  What ae you willing to do differenly today to see yourself and the world in new and exciting ways?

Right place, right time?

No doubt there have been times in your life when you felt as thought you were in the right place at the right time.  You may have won in weekly bingo or had that lucky numbers on a 50$ lottery ticket just when you needed the money.  You may have arrived at a bus stop just as the bus arrived so you didn't have to wait.  You may have been late for an important appointment and suprisingly got green lights almost all the way to your destination. Those good experiences are the ones you remember because circumstances seemed to unfold in your favor. The question is, did you have anything to do with it? Or was something beyond you influencing the outcome? Of course, you can believe what you choose to believe and your opinion may be right.

People always arrive in my life just when I need guidance.  Sometimes I attract assistance because I look like I need help, but it goes deeper than that.  One such occasion relates to a timely experience where my passport, money and identification were stolen during a visit to Estonia. I was supposed to be heading to Finland on a ferry that evening, but that departure wasn't meant to be. I was fortunate my employer was in his North American office when the small shop I was in permitted me to email. He was able to wire me some money for the next day. I reported the theft incident to police who arrived on the scene and returned to the hotel I'd stayed the night before. They still had my credit card info.

The next day, the informal Canadian mission told me to replace my Canadian passport would require 10 days. That would have to be ordered from Finland. I also had an Estonian passport however. After making my official statement at the local police station, partly though a translator, I decided to set out and try to find out how to replace that document in what might be a shorter wait time. 

Imagine my surprise that in asking directions every so often to ensure I was headed in the right direction. In speaking to a parking attendant, an older man drove up to pay for parking. He was perhaps the age of my grandfather. He knew of the government office I needed to visit and offered to take me there in his car. Me without a map, he estimated it would have been 2-3 hours away walking on foot. He only spoke Estonian and I did my best to explain my situation. I made the choice to get into his car. I learned he was a government consultant. With his assistance, I went through bureaucracy meant to take 14 days in less than 6 hours. This kindly stranger took me to where I could pick up the money that had been wired to me. He helped me to organize a job interview, told me where to go, and he picked me up later by car to take me to the ferry to Finland.

This man is an angel in disguise. He appeared out of nowhere.  I felt I could trust him. We only communicated in Estonian.  He told me he had a granddaughter my age and went out of his way to help me.  For a few years after that experience, I sent him Christmas cards.  He also sent me a letter. Then, he vanished. My mind echoes he may have died. My heart knows this soul is immortal and ever-present. In my life, he was definitely in the right place at the right time. He reminds me I am always in the right place to learn if I am receptive. His compassion is a mirror. I see that we each exist to make a difference in th lives of others.  When someone helps you, you are also helping that person, even if the how is unclear.

“When God puts love and compassion in your heart toward someone, He’s offering you an opportunity to make a difference in that person’s life. You must learn to follow that love. Don’t ignore it. Act on it. Somebody needs what you have.” -Joel Osteen