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How to invite more grateful thinking in our self-talks and conversations to cope with the social isolation

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This Tuesday, March the 24th, I took my kids for a bike ride around the neighbourhood. It was a sunny but windy day in Helsinki. There were 10 meters wind per second. A plastic bag and a magazine were swerved by gusts of wind from the sidewalk to the street and back to the sidewalk.  

The streets were empty. Every now and then, we would bike past by some pedestrian or another biker. I felt a mix of nostalgia and gratitude. I am the kind of person that I used to feel good seeing people in the streets. When someone would look in my eyes, I used to feel joyful for a transient connection. I used to enjoy hearing voices and seeing clutter in the restaurant on our street. The restaurant was empty that day. On the other hand, I felt grateful that people are staying indoors.  

Gratitude has been on my mind more than ever. Feeling sincere appreciation of the wonderful people and projects in my life. Deep reverence for life itself. After 14 days of self-isolation, one of the best outcomes is an increased ability to be present in the simple moments of the day, like baking home bread.  

Have you noticed any changes in your ability to feel grateful since the outbreak of coronavirus?  

Grateful thinking comes more naturally to some of us. Some others have to make a bit of an effort. In moments of uncertainty, it’s beneficial for all of us to invite more grateful thoughts in our self-talk and conversations. Here’s why. According to positive psychology researchers, there are at least three benefits:

  1. Gratitude is a skill that can help us become aware of the kindness, help, love, opportunities that come from outside us, from the environment where we live. The more goodness we perceive around, the higher the sense of physical and psychological safety. 
  2. Robert Emmons, a scientific expert in gratitude, describes gratitude as a relationship-strengthening emotion because it helps us see how we are supported and validated by others.
  3. Gratitude makes us more resilient. Now when we are in one of the worst times for this generation, every little thought of appreciation of what is, can foster our emotional resilience.

There are 4 levels of depth in grateful thinking. Let’s go through each one of them and see where you find yourself at the moment. 

1. In the same way I felt grateful for my neighbours who self-isolated themselves, maybe you are silently observing the good things that others do for you – family members and friends. More than quietly acknowledging their contribution in your days, in what ways do you show you appreciate them? Like explicitly thanking them for doing a particular thing for you? For instance, as we parked our bikes in the bike shed, I thanked my kids for joining me on the trip. I specifically told them that their company warmed my heart. 

Are you feeling grateful for the positive events that happen for you now? A friend of mine mentioned that after a week in isolation she started to feel good about her time at home, with her family. It dawned upon her that she actually needed a break. Yet, being the empathetic woman that she is, she felt guilty over feeling that staying home was beneficial for her.

Nobody wanted the coronavirus outbreak. Staying at home started as an imposed action for my friend, who initially felt it as a punishment or as a conspiracy against her plans. If you are like her and you are growing aware of the need to slow down, how about allowing yourself to connect with yourself and your needs. How about giving yourself time to come up with new personal goals? 

However, in case the physical isolation drives you crazy, in the lowest moments of desperation, could you please remember to ask yourself, “What is one good thing that someone did for me today?”. 

Each person brings a hidden gift. Look closer and point out the good things that family and friends do for you. Allow yourself to enjoy the positive things that happen to you as you stay home. This is the first level of gratitude. Do you find yourself here? What other forms of grateful thinking might there be?  


2. Appreciate the good things institutions, communities and societies do for you.

During the coronavirus outbreak, we have opportunities to see clearer the interdependencies of the world. Each one of us, in accordance with our professional roles, can affect the quality of life, the wellbeing, the productivity and innovativeness of others. We all must have experienced the tangible impacts of disrupted services. Like never before, I felt how important the toilet paper production was when I went to the supermarket two days in a row only to find an apology poster where the supermarket personnel wrote that they do their best to bring new supplies every night.

In this web of dependencies, we are like pieces on a chess board. Unlike the classic game, the social game of chess is an agile game of collaboration, where each one of us can change roles and can make unique moves that can help the moves of some other players in the game. The other day I invested in a year long subscription to a poetry magazine. In times of crisis, we may be thinking that we need to keep the expenditures for the strictly necessary needs: food and shelter. And that’s what the artists, poets, writers, need also: food and shelter so that they can keep on creating and feeding our souls. Feeding our souls may be a luxury for some. But for others, it’s a necessity so that we keep on building pockets of energy to cope with the new reality. I thus invested in the poetry magazine as a token of solidarity for the cultural and artistic communities. 

Today I consider investing in a scientific magazine. These are my moves on the chess board. What kind of moves are you considering to make? What are the business activities, big or small, you care about to support by sharing a tiny bit of your income? 

If we can’t offer financial support, what other kinds of support could we offer to institutions and communities we care about?

Let’s think about the medical specialists. In the last few days, this group of professionals have been at the centre of my grateful thinking. The medical doctors, the nurses, the ambulance drivers, the hospital cleaners are exposed to the coronavirus as they are doing their best to take care of the people who were unlucky to get the virus. Do you have friends who have any of these professional roles? 

In what ways could we surprise these people who are now in the front lines of the battle and thus contribute to their wellbeing? They may be hungry. They may be missing their kids.They may feel discouraged. What can we do for them? Other than staying home?

If nothing else, how about praying for them or doing loving kindness meditation? May they be well. May they be healthy. May they have strength.

What is one thing that you’ve recently benefited from society? Observing some good things that institutions and societies do for us. This is the second level of gratitude which may inspire us to take further the ripples of goodness with new acts of kindness of our own. 

3. Accepting that life comes with challenges. Life comes with good and bad moments. Even if it’s hard to accept the bad we’re going through, we can look at the coronavirus disruption as an opportunity to test our integrity and humanity, i.e., controlling our emotions in tense moments; bring in more empathy and compassion to heal others; bring in more creativity in using our skills and competence to contribute to recovery plans and new development projects. The third level of gratitude is about valuing the discovery of the best sides in ourselves when life takes us through thick and thin. What might the fourth level be about?


4. Many of us are likely to experience existential anxiety when we get updated on the coronavirus situation, like the number of victims in Italy, Spain, in the country where we live. When we experience mortality salience, we may see how precious now is. Upon realization of the inevitability of death we may come to terms with the present. The peace may settle when we feel truly lucky to breathe, to love, to suffer, to panic or to hope in this second. This is the fourth level of gratitude when we live in awe of the miracle of life. 

At what level of grateful thinking do you see yourself? As we advance towards the fourth level, we may be noticing a shift in thinking, from “The world owes it to me.” to, “I owe it to the world.”, “I owe it to the world to pay attention to the goodness that there is in it.”

I don’t know about you, but upon waking up, I smile to the new day. 

A new day is a gift.

A new day is a sign of generosity. 

A new day is our responsibility to make it worthwhile.  

Special thanks to the programmers and IT experts who work hard to maintain the internet and the online communication. 

Special thanks to groups of professionals, like the individuals in logistics, who continue to work so that our economies and societies can function in crisis.

May you be well. May you be grateful.

 

 

 

How are you reacting to the COVID-19 pandemic?

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“Is this an overreaction?”. This is the question that I have often heard and asked myself often, in the last two weeks.

Each morning came with this question, “What decision should I make?” about things which yesterday used to be routine. Things like, taking your kids to hobbies, meeting a friend for a coffee, having the usual business travels, etc

“Is it an overreaction to cancel face-to-face social gatherings?”

“Is it an overreaction to postpone my travel plans, whether abroad or within the country?”

“Is it an overreaction to self-isolate in our home, which will become home office and school?”

The world has always been polarised on different issues, in each culture and society. The outbreak of COVID-19 has brought the most global polarisation, so far. Some individuals under-reacted, “This is a flu like any other. Why panic?”. Up until 2 weeks ago, I was one of the people who underrated the spread of coronavirus. “Death happens every second. Seasonal flu deaths happen yearly. Let’s stay calm and carry on.”

Some other individuals, like my husband, overreacted by compulsively reading coronavirus updates. Every hour, he’d resort to reading some piece of news about the cases in China and Italy.

Change, especially the life threatening kind that coronavirus is bringing, is something the human brain dreads. Underestimating such a life threat, we postpone thinking about proactive measures. By overreacting, we bring so much panic and anxiety upon us that we fail to see the most constructive ways of action. What would be a constructive reaction?

What the human brain loves is the predictability and hope for a future. So, how about helping the brain do what it loves most instead of allowing ourselves to go down to an apocalyptic mode of thinking?

The new reality is that we are facing a dramatic and disruptive moment in our lives. How can we work with ourselves to identify some things to focus on towards a future that will bring back the sense of safety and certainty. Other than under-reaction and overreaction, we have a third option. We can choose to take this virus seriously and focus on adaptive strategies.

What can we do? How can we help ourselves and the communities we are part of?

Here are some ideas about how we can learn to manage ourselves, our thoughts and emotions under uncertainty.

1. Accept the change. How do you know that you haven’t come to terms with the new reality? Do you have a feeling of loss? We all had planned events we were looking forward to. Events that were about to bring joy and other positive feelings are now cancelled. Of course, we experience loss. Over the night, hugs and kisses turned into a sign of unfriendliness. How about giving ourselves a big hug instead. We are together in this pandemic. What else can we do?

2. We can learn to accept the change by practicing gratitude for the now. The explosive contamination brought a disruption to our daily routine. While new practical arrangements need to be sorted out, there is a feeling of chaos and confusion.

In my family, considering one of us is in the group risk, we chose to homeschool our 8 year old son. This decision led to spending more time on figuring out and doing the teaching. Consequently, I have less working time and I am tempted to fall into lamenting. Yet, in all the chaos of the 5th day of new routines, there is also a warm feeling of reinforced connection with my children who mentioned, “You’re the best mom teacher!” 

Instead of lamenting the things we cannot do anymore, we can appreciate the new things we’re doing.

Gratitude for closer connection with people we thought we were connected already.

Gratitude for finally having the time to do the thorough house cleaning and reorganising we kept postponing.

Gratitude for being able to breath!

While we’re cleaning our homes in self-isolation, we can take this opportunity to rethink our lives and envision other ways of living. What are the activities we could stop doing to make room for something new? What positive changes could we initiate, i.e., studying for an online degree, learning a new skill? What else could we do?

3. Take care of our immune systems, SEE: Sleep well, Eat well, and indoor Exercise. Have you been accumulating deficit hours of sleep? Now it’s time to bring back some balance. The time spent on commuting can now be time spent sleeping. Do you have a waiting list of healthy foods? Start eating blueberries, broccoli, garlic, ginger, honey, lemon, eggs, etc. When the gym is prohibited for the time being, how about checking up the online exercise offers on YouTube? What else could we do?

4. Stay close in spirit to family and friends, by phone, email and social media. Social media addicts, now it’s not a good time to quit the addiction. Quite the opposite, it’s high time we abused online communication channels. Fingers crossed for apps like WhatsApp, Skype, Slack, etc, to support all the users.

5. Lead yourself and your community through the lowest moments of panic by using your personal abilities. Are you a funny person? Please come up with humour and spread it abundantly. Are you a poet? Go ahead and read poems to others. Are you a musician? Sing or play cheerful songs to the rest of us. Whatever strength you have, start using it to bring positive emotions and connection.

An African proverb says, “If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.” Now it’s the time to walk together fast to the farthest possible futures. To adapt, we need to learn to be alone and reassess what we can do and how we can help. It’s time to learn how to co-create through social isolation.What if social isolation were the norm? What kind of communities, supply chain systems, education, life, would we build?

The faster we adapt to the unwanted crisis, the better for everyone.

How about you? What proactive measures did you come up with? And, in case you’re wondering if we stock piled toilet paper, the answer is no. We wanted to leave some for others.

In awe of what cannot be seen

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October is the month when trees are parading with their leaves. Shades of yellow and rusty red are transforming from one day to another. It feels as if a painter is working all night long, perfecting all the hues of the leaves for the next morning.

As I walk by and look up to the sky, I breathe in awe in sight of the leaves still hanging on the branches.

I look down to where my feet touch the ground. I try to step next to the scattered leaves so I can leave their beauty undisturbed. They inspire sacredness.

I pass by breathing awe of the life of nature. Nature silently develops through four seasons. There must be a similarly amazing development of consciousness in each one of us. Alas, we can’t see it. We can only witness it, thanks to graceful self-awareness.

 

Wouldn’t it be nice?

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This morning, as I was walking with my son, with the corner of my eye, I could see a young woman and man catching up with us, on their electric kick-bikes. The young woman, my son and I were about to enter the same building, when we could hear the young man’s voice, shouting from the distance, “I love you!” And he continued his way somewhere else where he is needed. 

Imagine the emotional impact on the young woman. How uplifted she must have started her day!

No matter if we have someone who loves us, wouldn’t it be nice to start our days, being in love with the day that it’s about to unfold?

Hearing empowering music in our minds.

Engaging playfully with the daily activities.

Daydreaming and smiling.

 

Wouldn’t it be nice?

Compassion needs practice of three other foundational skills

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We can’t be compassionate if we are not generous, empathetic and self-aware. To understand another person’s pain, we need to be generous with our time dedicated to build empathy for the other one. We need to be willing to observe him in his daily routine. Who are the people he meets? What kind of relationships he has with others? What kind of tasks he does?

When the observation is done, we need to be able to understand and feel as the other person does.

Each day is an opportunity to gain a deeper level of compassion. How willing are we to create the mental space to do it?

Neuroscience helps us understand that when we are engaged in cognitive tasks, a circuitry on the lateral parts of the brain gets activated. At the same time, the brain networks that are in the middle areas and are related to self-awareness and empathy get deactivated. Therefore, we would need a strong determination to spend some time away from cognitive problem-solving and use that time instead on purposeful compassion practices. What might that motivation be?

But please let us not say, “I feel you”, unless we feel it to be true. If we say it because we want to save the appearance of an emotionally intelligent dialogue, we only make things worse. The other person will feel we’re not feeling him, become more distant and still be in pain.

 

 

The alternative to feeling like a failure

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As a child, I used to look up to my parents and other adult relatives because they seemed to have figured out who they are and how they wanted to live.

Now when I am an adult, I realise we, adults don’t really know what we are doing. Moreover, we feel like a failure because we should be knowing what we are doing.

Harsh criticism. Tit for tat attitudes. Peer expectations. Social pressure. These are things that disturb the mind.

And then, we can do one simple thing well – we can breathe.

Breathe now

Breathe in life

Breathe out gratitude

Observe the breath

Get curious about the new possibilities to deeper awareness.   

 

 

How to tame the negative-self talk

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Self-compassion is the ability to be kind with the stream of negative thoughts and emotions that we experience. Most of us have thoughts like, “I’m not good enough.”, “I am a failure.”, “I am a bad person”, which lead to feeling tensed, irritated, defensive and stressed.

If you are like me, you may want to be grounded in a relaxed and joyful state of being. But how can we make the transition from a “stressed most of the time” state to a “relaxed and enthusiastic” state? Self-compassion can create the bridge between these two states.

How could self-compassion become a habit of the mind? 

I have practiced short self-compassion meditations on and off, for 2 years now. For me, being self-compassionate is about allowing myself to feel bad when things seem to fall apart. How do I do that?

1. By accepting that my ego wants me to survive and succeed. As a result, it doesn’t like it when there is some evidence pointing in the direction of failure.
2. By reminding myself that my ego is like a little child that needs patience until the day when it grows old enough to understand that the way it perceives the experiences does not reflect the ultimate truth.

Take this example: you are working on a project you care about. At one point, your boss or a colleague gives you negative feedback about your work. Self-compassion comes in to soothe the “I feel like a failure” thinking. By paying close attention to how the negative thoughts are taking form in your mind, you can learn to reformulate them so that you create a shift from negative thinking to constructive thinking.

Instead of thinking, “I feel like a failure now.”, you can overwrite that thought with “Now I can see the work I have done from my boss’s perspective.” This is the tipping point when we can take some distance from the bad feelings, from taking personally the perceived critique to “There are different opinions on my work.”

Everyone has an ego who wants them to succeed and an unique way of perceiving. Let’s be compassionate with all the suffering that results when 2 or more perceptions seem to collide.

 

 

 

What I’ve learned from living in Finland about adapting to the local culture

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Allow yourself to be changed by a new culture. Work with yourself even in the most vulnerable moments. The most beneficial change happens when you find a way to combine the old with the new.  

According to UN, there are about 244 billion people – 3.3% of the global population – who live in another country than the country where they were born. Some of these global trotters move in search of better economic and social opportunities. Others are forced to live their native places to save their lives.

I moved to another country for the sake of the relationship I was in. Soon after that, the professional life became the reason for living in Finland. Years passed and now, the main reason for being here is my bicultural family.

It’s been an emotionally sinuous journey that shook me up to my core. The reward for the bumps on the road are the lessons, which make me say wholeheartedly that I love my life.

Learn to be flexible

Human beings are made out of habits. We absorb behaviours from the people around us. Each culture has preferred habits. What are the preferred habits of the people in the local culture? Which ones can you see yourself adapting to? Which ones can you influence? Which are the ones you can’t influence but you can accept?

Flexibility is a valuable skill if we want to adapt, love and contribute with something greater than us to the local society.

Start something new

Keep your heart open to new friendships. Keep your mind open to new education. Indulge yourself in new hobbies, etc. Gradually, we build new habits around the activities and people we meet.

There is untapped potential in each one of us, i.e., interests, passions, talents. All we need is a supporting environment. Back in the home country, we may have missed some opportunities that could make us understand how far we can go. Maybe in your home country, you didn’t have snow and have never had the chance to try out your inclination for cross-country skiing. Give it a try in the long days of Winter in Finland. You may like it. If you don’t, what other opportunities would you like to try?

Be open to new experiences. You may not like it when you feel stretched, you may feel tempted to quit. If you persevere, you may be rewarded with a sense of being truly alive. If you persevere and fail, look for a new experience.

Avoid cultural stereotyping

Feeling irritated with the behaviour of the locals is a normal stage of cultural shock. It can be healthy to let some steam off with some friends who are emotionally close to you. Yet, try not to make too big of a deal out of the negative interactions with the locals. In the end, everyone is entitled to an opinion and acts to the best of their judgement. Instead, focus on developing relationships with the locals and other intercultural people who respect and appreciate you.

Stay grounded

Embrace the core home cultural values that are beneficial to you. Revisit sweet memories. The people back in your country of origin who love you and guided you are your safe haven whenever you may feel confused about your living abroad.

Exert Kindness Across Borders

Think good thoughts, for the greater good of humankind. Seek for the good in others. We all feel the need to belong to a place and to someone. Above all, we all belong the the human race.

When you can’t think good thoughts, imagine how it is to be the other one.

I’d love to hear how the living abroad has changed you.

 

How and Why to Develop Your Everyday Creativity

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A recent study shows that engaging in something creative, on a weekly basis improves our general well-being, by experiencing increased positive emotions. Moreover, this study encourages everyone, no matter the personality types, to tap into their creative energy and find ways to express your creative self.

In this blog post, we’ll discuss what creativity is and what it actually means to experience life more creatively.

What is creativity?

 

We grow up with favourite figures of writers, musicians, painters, etc that enrich our emotional life. Who hasn’t heard of Dostoyevsky, Queen and Picasso? To normal people, great minds set an unreachable standard of what it means to be creative and gifted. Ever since childhood, my understanding of creativity has been that of a personality trait with which only genius people are blessed with. I only dreamed of writing fiction but didn’t dare to try it out because I knew I was not one of those blessed with the talent of creative writing.

It wasn’t until one fortunate event about 10 years ago, when I got an invitation to join an amateur theatre group and I hesitantly accepted. I started experimenting with playscript writing. Impassioned by developing the stories, my life got a whole new meaning. Ideas were blossoming in my mind like the Spring flowers under the first warm days of sun. Who was this person originating those ideas?

I became more observant of my inner and external life. As a result, I was coming up with new ideas to incorporate into the scripts. Overall, I experienced more joy, although I was very much aware that my scripts would not be brought to life on the stage of the Finnish National Theatre or Svenska Teatern. I was happy not taking myself seriously but at the same time, diligently challenging my writing potential.

Like me, there are others longing after expressing themselves in a creative way but don’t dare to because they believe, without further investigations, that creativity is a personality trait of geniuses.

Geniuses make the world a more beautiful and comfortable place with new books, new songs and new inventions. To this kind of creativity, psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi refers to as the big C creativity. The big C creativity requires originality, usefulness and a surprising element.  

We can’t deny that some people are more creative than others. The less creative ones enjoy the outcome of the work done by the big C creativity individuals. The more creative people are skilled at both solving and finding problems. Most likely, you have bought, at least once, some goods from Amazon, the online store. Behind the successful business story of Amazon, there is one of the more creative minds, with expertise in the field of computers.

Computer engineer, Jeff Bezos, had been observing for a while how the internet is used as an insider’s tool in the USA government and the academic circles, when he had the vision to extend the use of this tool to ordinary people. Jeff came up with another way for people to buy goods. I don’t know about you, but I buy most of my books from Amazon.

The fact that some people are more creative than others in terms of the big C creativity, this does not mean that ordinary people cannot be creative. Neuroscience research suggests that the normal brains have a creative functioning that can be activated and amplified with conscious effort and a little practice.

We are all wired to create in the realm of our personal and work lives. We can all bring in some originality, usefulness and surprising element in the way we dress, we work, we behave and we manage ourselves, day in, day out. This is our small c creativity, which may not result in national and international fame, but can help us feel we live a full life and can have a positive message for the others around us.

 

Why well-being and small c creativity?

 

Researchers from different fields analyze different dimensions of well-being: emotional, physical, social, economic, psychological, engaging activities and work, and life satisfaction.

The common aspect of all these dimensions of well-being is the presence of positive emotions, transformation of negative emotions, and fulfilment.

People who engage in small c creativity – like daydreaming, playing guitar in their free time, or findings ways to pleasantly surprise their close ones – report to have a greater sense of well-being and personal growth compared to others less engaged in everyday creative activities.

Small c creativity is about looking at your life circumstances and finding ways to express yourself. The basic human need is to be seen and to be heard. Being creative about how you allow yourself to be seen and heard is a fun and daring way to live.

 

What does it mean to make a habit out of creativity?


One of my dear friends is a good example of what it means to express yourself in a creative way. Journalist as a profession, he dedicated hours of his time to playing and singing in a band, to directing and acting in theatre plays. The music is his way to express his joys and yearnings. Theatre is his ways to connect with others.

Another example of creative living is an important person for me who has been a long-life entrepreneur. Now when he is at pension, instead of taking it easy, his mind continues to come up with visions about how to improve different aspects of the society.

Once you find your creative way of living, it is harder to let it go. But how can you start? Here are 3 things to consider when embarking on the creative self-realization.

 

Playful attitude

Have you happened to notice, what is your tendency when you get involved in a new project? Do you take yourself seriously to make everything perfect or do you have a more playful attitude of experimenting with ideas and feelings?

When we learn new skills and make habitual changes, the brain is working harder in order to hardwire these new skills and habits. Therefore, we need to put in more cognitive effort, which may be frustrating at times. But keeping a playful attitude of exploration can keep the motivation up.

Choose your interest

What is the area in your life where you want to be more creative? Is it your morning rituals, finding an engaging activity to boost your energy, your home design, the way you manage your emotions, your love relationship, or your relationship with your child, etc?

Whatever area you choose, find your problem and think how you want to feel when you solve the problem. Then start with the first small solution.

For example, you may want to find an engaging activity to make you experience more positive emotions but you think you are not passionate about anything in particular. Start thinking about few things you are interested in, choose one and try to get curious about what you can do about this interest. It can be playing an instrument, cooking, gardening, building a house, poetry, politics, etc.

Let’s say you choose gardening. It can be that you realize you want to subscribe to a gardening magazine. Or, if you are more of an extrovert, you may go to the flowers shop in your neighbourhood and start a small-talk with the seller about the season flowers.

 

Find the time and space for curiosity

When we start doing something new and we want to make it a habit, it’s preferable to choose a favourable time of the day and a place where it’s more likely we don’t get interrupted or distracted for the duration we are engaged in this new activity. This means that we may want to pay closer attention to what activities we do daily and make some changes to make room for the new activity.

Continuing with the previous example on developing curiosity for gardening, we may want to dedicate 30 minutes to reading more about it, every Sunday evening, when the house is quiet.

Don’t beat yourself if you fall asleep over the gardening magazine. If your curiosity is not awaken, move on to another field of interest. Explore until you feel the spark of curiosity. This is a good sign that you are in a spot where you have high chances of finding out how to express your creative self.

Music is the first love of my friend I was talking about earlier. This Summer, while driving around the picturesque roads of the French countryside, he got in touch with a stream of consciousness which aroused his interest to get back to his second love: writing. “I need to learn more about developing plots, though. ”, he mused.

The retired entrepreneur could enjoy sleeping late in the mornings. However, his visions, implementation ideas and the perceived obstacles make him continue with a disciplined lifestyle. He wakes up at 5 am to have brainstorming sessions on his own. He frequently goes to the gym and takes walks in the nature.

As for myself, I am exploring my creative potential, as a parent, by making up bedtime stories weekly.

Once you tap into your creative energy and find ways to express it in your life, you become one with your creative potential, you grow with it and you allow it guide you to the next chapter in the adventure of your life.

On Building Inner Motivation To Taking a Break for People with High Sense of Responsibility

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Taking a break from everyday work and family life is crucial for understanding yourself better. Whether you meditate, take yoga classes, or take a walk in the neighbourhood, the aim is to allow yourself to disconnect from the external world and connect to your wisdom, the intelligence that connects you to higher consciousness and that shows with clarity what’s important for you.

When you find yourself in that place of wisdom, you can think deeper about why you do whatever you are doing and what else you would like to do. However, for some of us who have an extreme sense of responsibility, it is more challenging than it sounds to walk out of the office or home and go out somewhere else where you allow your body, mind and soul to relax.

When I meet friends and ask, “How have you been?”, it’s highly likely that I get answers, like “busy” or “I can’t remember”. Daily, each one of us has so many things with priority 1 to deal with that we easily end up thinking we don’t even have time to get sick.

Charles Duhigg, author of “The Power of Habit”, talks about the importance of creating habits that allow us to think twice about what do we really want to get done.

For those of us who have a strong sense of responsibility to do everything for everyone and can’t stop easily, the first step in creating such habits is to find the intrinsic motivation for the activities that would create the space for thinking.

Here are some suggestions about how positive emotions can motivate us to start the habit of taking breaks.

Positive emotions

As superficial as it may sound, positive emotions are strong behavioural drivers. Just think why you keep on eating the piece of strawberry cake. It is human to want to indulge ourselves in pleasure, fun, laughter or soothing, nurturing activities for the soul.

So, what is it that you would love doing?

Make a long list of loads of crazy, daring, fun, simple activities you would love doing. Tap into your creative thinking and try to come up with a long list. Then, choose one activity that you can incorporate in your work life, with minimum effort and that takes less than 5 minutes.

You may want to read a joke.

You may want to listen to an energizing song.

You may want to do a breathing exercise.

You may want to look at your child’s photo.

You may want to look through the window at the sky, etc.  

What time of the day you would like to take the break? For example, it can be after the dreaded team meeting on Mondays, at 9am. Or before meeting an important client. Or, before leaving the office.

Book a date with your positive emotions

Find one or two words to describe the positive emotions you had during the short break. Schedule the next break and what you want to do during that break. In the second week, try to have two short breaks during the day. By the fourth month, you can have 3 breaks of maximum 5 minutes each.

In addition, after a month, you can choose another activity that you jotted down on the list. This time, choose one activity that takes about 30 minutes and create the opportunity to do it in between work and family time. For this activity, you would need to put in slightly more effort than for the short breaks at work. For example, it may require you to put the sneakers on and go walking, jogging or biking.

Now that it’s Summer in Helsinki, I chose to go walking in the sunny afternoons, for half an hour. This means that I end the work half an hour earlier than before. And since I am one of the persons who can’t go out for a walk just for the sake of it, I think of the lovely flowers I will encounter during my stroll. Some hectic days when thinking of the flowers is not enough, I take a look at the photos I took in the previous walks.

The photos are loving reminders that for me, walking becomes a therapy of colours and scent. This is an experience that makes me want to have the walk.

So, when deciding to move on to doing activities that take longer time, remind yourself what is the positive experience you are going to have. Positive experiences are not a luxury, are a necessity. They are crucial for healthy living.

New thoughts that may come to the surface of consciousness

When we live positive emotions, we become more relaxed and thoughts and emotions from the unconscious part of the mind are flowing in the conscious part.

We become aware of material, emotional, intellectual or spiritual needs that are waiting for further exploration.

It may dawn on you that it’s time to move to the country-side.

You may admit to yourself that you need better sleep.

You may want to be more social.

You may want to learn to live in joy and beyond your own thinking.

You may want to make stress a friend by looking into how you can relate to the uncertainty of life, etc.

Get curious and be mindful about new thoughts in your awareness. These are the thoughts springing from our inner wisdom and that show clearly how it is important to live.

I would love to hear from you. If you are one of those people with a strong sense of responsibility towards everyone and everything in life, how do you motivate yourself to take breaks?