We oftentimes can get really caught up in a distressing emotion or situation, to the point that it feels like it takes over. One of the most important things we can do for ourselves is to rebalance and access calmness. By using our mindfulness skills during these moments, we can create the intention to pause and rest, nurture emotional resilience and connect with our heart through love and compassion. Here are 3 simple ways to help you navigate daily stressors or life challenges and tap into the deep reservoir of calmness and resilience for yourself and those around you.

1. Slow Down, Pause & Take a Breath

Allow yourself to slow down and take a step back from your emotions or situation in order to give yourself some breathing room. Acknowledge you are caught up in the emotion/situation and may need some space to be still or breathe so that we can think with clarity about our experience. You might find several ways that might be helpful for you. Perhaps a mantra might help to remind you to ground and re-center. Or you might find a quick meditation can allow you to return to the present moment. In either case, create some space between you and the emotion that is showing up so that we don’t identify so much with it and get caught up in it.

2. Embrace your experience with acceptance & curiosity

Our emotions and experiences (even if they are distressing or difficult) are valid and worthy of respect and acknowledgement. See if you can allow yourself to be curious about your experience. See if you can allow yourself to be accepting of your experience. Get familiar with how this emotion feels in your body and observe it with curiosity- what does it say and what does it need right now? The goal is to get to a place where we allow our emotions to inform us instead of them controlling us and causing us to react in certain ways that might not serve us. Oftentimes, emotional experiences inform us that we need to slow down and get back to the present moment. 

3. Connect to compassion for yourself, others, or the land

Connecting to compassion is a powerful resource within all of us that helps us find calm when we are most distressed. There are many ways to connect to compassion: You can explore how to provide compassion to yourself; do a favor or something kind for a loved one or friend; say or do a kind thing to a stranger at the store; show some compassion to animals in your life; or show love and kindness to the land (nature, our Earth, or plants). When we allow ourselves to connect to compassion in whatever capacity we can, we create pause in our experience, and shift away from our mind’s distressed, negative, and activated state and connect to a part of us that at it’s true essence is compassionate, calm, and resilient.