Cultivating Inner Calmness: A Journey to Mental Wellness
Inner silence is easy to find in silent natureInner silence and inner calmness are deeply interconnected states of being who we are as human beings in our core essence.
Your True Self is silent and calm. That is the simple truth we have conveniently forgotten.
As it is nearing Christmas let's dive deeper into rediscovering your inner calmness and inner silence.
Keeping inner silence offers a wealth of benefits for mind health and overall well-being. Cultivating inner quietness allows us to step away from the constant chatter of the mind and tap into a deeper well of peace, clarity and resilience.
It is wise to remember you aren't your physical body. You as a human being have a physical body. Your task is to keep your body fit and well. That is why going to the gym, sleeping and eating well matters. Also, going on longer nature walks serves your body's wellness.
Just like we train our physical fitness to keep our bodies well, we should also train our minds to stay fit. The proactive physical fitness approach is just as important as the proactive mental wellness approach.
We should train our minds proactively to stay calm and acquire good intrapersonal skills to lead our thoughts, imaginations and emotions. More than that we need awareness-based intrapersonal skills to notice, lead our focus and get good access to creativity and insights.
Intrapersonal skills allow you to observe and lead what is happening within your mind.
What is our mind consisting of?
Your mind encompasses a vast array of elements, including thoughts, imaginations, and emotions. It serves as the epicenter of your cognitive and emotional experiences, shaping your perceptions, decisions, and responses to the world around you.
It is critical to notice that you aren't your thoughts. You have thoughts. Thus, you have power over your thoughts. Your thoughts are your greatest mental tools along with your imagination.
Imagination is the cognitive ability to form different mental images, visual concepts or mental conceptual ideas that aren't directly perceived through the senses. When imaginations run wild, your mind becomes worried and anxious. Therefore, it is crucial to discern between the realms of reality and imagination.
While in the modern world, we often tend to relate to our emotions as our identity it is equally important to observe you aren't your emotions. You have emotions.
Emotions are effective tools that we should choose consciously and lead carefully. We should employ our kind and supporting emotions while learning to release our negative emotions before they harm ourselves and other people around us.
Emotions in themselves are just fluctuating energies. Emotions aren't wise forces of nature in itself. You as the user of emotions have to find a path to become a wise person and an aware decision-maker who uses emotions that support you and others.
When emotions take over our minds, we relinquish our wisdom. Even passive emotions like laziness and apathy can be perilous. These emotions leave us immobilized rather than serene.
As these examples illustrate, understanding how your inner domain functions is crucial for enhancing self-leadership and fostering inner peace. Intrapersonal skills empower you to become a more compassionate and conscious person, capable of mastering your mind.
As this is the holiday season, it is beneficial to look within yourself and discover the inner silence that allows you to be calm.
What are the benefits of Inner Silence?
Once you discover your inner silence, it becomes your continual source of inner calmness. When you experience your calm essence, the turmoils of the mind and even challenges around you no longer influence your True Self.
All that happened to you in life isn't defining your core essence. However, you may have observed that often processes within your mind and around you overshadow your true nature.
That's where the overwhelm sets in and exhaustion takes over. Which is why it is important to distinguish what you are from what happens within your mind.
When your mind is calm, you have the inner power to observe your thoughts, imaginations and emotions and lead those at will.
Let's observe the 7 benefits of Inner Calmness:
- Reduced stress and anxiousness: Immersing yourself in inner silence helps to calm your nervous system and soothe racing thoughts and/or emotions. Inner silence allows you to mitigate the harmful effects of stress that can in the long run turn into burnout. Inner calmness provides a powerful tool to diminish the intensity of anxiety, which can otherwise escalate into debilitating anxiety disorders.
- Enhanced self-awareness: By silencing the external and inner noise, you can delve into the depths of your own consciousness. By doing so you gain a deeper understanding of your essence and how what you do can become your actual motivation.
- Improved focus and concentration: Inner calmness fosters a state of mental clarity, enabling us to focus more intently and effectively on the tasks at hand.
- Heightened intuition and improved access to creativity: A tranquil mind allows for a more extensive connection to our inner wisdom, intuition, and creativity. You can access intuition and creativity only when your mind is tranquil.
- Increased productivity and work engagement: When you are calm, you can focus and be engaged with what you do. Possession of inner calmness makes it easy to hold focus as long as needed. Sustained focus and calm action will improve your work results. You get more done, with less time when your actions become consciously intentional.
- Reduced blood pressure and improved heart health: Studies have shown that constant practice of medication and experiencing inner silence (as set up in the experiment by the Dalai Lama and scientists) can lower blood pressure and reduce the risk of heart disease.
- Better intrapersonal relations: When you are calm and possess good intrapersonal skills for self-leadership, it becomes easy to listen to others. When your mind is calm and you have access to creativity and insights you can easily motivate your own opinions and ideas. When you are calm-minded, you can stick to your truth and partner up with others to solve what is needed. Good work and personal relations are a standard when you are calm and include kindness.
Strategies to Cultivate Inner Silence
A relaxed inner state is where your natural inner silence can naturally appear.
When your mind is engaged with thoughts, imaginations and emotions there is just no room for inner silence. That is why during holidays we all should indeed take some extra time to relax our minds and bodies.
Remember, you have full power only over one thing. Over what happens within your mind.
Much of what unfolds around you is beyond your control, even if it may appear otherwise. In reality, you wield control over only a fraction of external circumstances. For example, the unfolding economic crisis is almost impossible for you to impact.
However, the good news is that how we respond to difficult times is always 100% up to us.
All your emotional and mental reactions are subconscious. That is why training your mind to become more calm and learning how to access consciousness matters.
It is your human consciousness that allows an aware response instead of subconscious reactivity.
Meditation is an excellent and proven tool for cultivating inner silence and calmness. Regular meditation practices can support focus, quiet your inner chatter and cultivate a sense of peacefulness.
Inner peace is the sanctuary within. It provides the distance necessary to shift from subconscious reactions to conscious responses. Yet, the challenge of meditation is its practice amidst the whirlwind of daily life and work. That is why learning practical intrapersonal skills gives you a more active role in directing your awareness at will.
While mindfulness involves paying attention to the present moment without judgment, it is a passive form of awareness based on observing without judgment. Practicing mindfulness techniques, such as mindful breathing and mindful walking, can help ground us in the present and reduce rumination. However, using awareness-based intrapersonal skills gives you more inner freedom and allows conscious involvement.
Wellness Orbit's core mission is to teach intrapersonal skills that allow you to become mentally fit and well and more productive at the same time. That is why you should check out our online trainings and make them support you and your team.
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Take some quiet time as part of your mental wellness journey
Now let's focus on what to do this holiday to make it great.
Spending time in nature, whether it's a walk in the woods or the seaside, can be highly restorative and calming. The wild nature in essence is always silent in the background. It is up to us to either tune in on the noise or tune in on its quiet background.
We encourage you to set aside dedicated time each day for solitude and quiet reflection.
I routinely start my typical day with at least half an hour of silent time. When I can afford it, I prolong it even longer. You can find out more about my mental wellness journey in this blog post. This journey has allowed me to keep inner silence always in the background.
By the way in nature, the silence is always in the background conscious soothing factor, present even among the greatest storms. That is why I love spending time in nature. I alwasy come back empowered by silence.
If improving access to inner silence is something you also desire, then you need to start prolonging the time for it.
Start from the inner silence of what is currently accessible to you. Allow 1 second to become 2 seconds first. Later then you can prolong 15 seconds of inner peace to become 30 seconds, and then 1 minute to become 2 minutes.
The aim of being without inner noise right away isn't a realistic goal. You start with little and work your way up to 10 minutes or a half-hour. As our brains are neuroplastic, new patterns are possible to learn!
If keeping inner calm without activities is hard, take action that soothes you. For example, start by reading a calming book, listening to soothing music or merely sitting in silence and observing your thoughts and emotions without judgment.
Take notes on your self-observations. Observe what kind of action within your mind allows calming down and what provokes new thoughts and emotions. Self-analysis accurately represents an efficient tool in this case.
When negative thoughts and emotions arise, acknowledge them without judgment and gently redirect your attention to something more positive or neutral. Or even better, buy the book "Practical Consciousness" by Ingvar Villido and learn the techniques to release those negative emotions. This unique book provides detailed guidelines for this. When you let go of any emotion at will, take a moment to observe the inner silence that follows. This inner silence is consciousness.
Being fully conscious represents a state of silent observation and understanding. This state of being, devoid of judgment and supported by tranquility, is a profound wellspring of insights and guided by the unwavering wisdom of intuition.
Practicing self-compassion is above all about being kind to yourself and avoiding harsh self-criticism.
When you acquire intrapersonal skills and offer yourself an understanding of your inner domain, your self-leadership improves. With it, more freedom arises! Freedom has only one aspect that always comes along with it – responsibility.
Being able to respond with awareness is the gift that makes you free!
Free to perform meaningful work, be there for your family and friends and free to enjoy inner silence.
Conclusion
Cultivating inner silence and inner calmness represents a journey, not a destination.
Be patient with yourself, celebrate your progress, and expose yourself to the intrapersonal practices that resonate most deeply with you.
As you delve into the stillness within, you'll discover a wellspring of resilience, creativity and inner peace that no event or person can disturb.
Taking action to train your mind allows you to become a calm and able person to enjoy inner silence and aware decision-making. Learning intrapersonal skills is what paves the path to securing inner calmness.
This blog post and nature photos are provided by Kaur Lass