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sproutedlavender · 7 months

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How to Be in the Flow of Life: 8 Practices for a More Peaceful Life

You’ve probably heard the term “go with the flow” at one point or another, but what exactly does that mean?

Going with the flow, or being in the flow of life can mean many different things. Many people know this phrase to be the equivalent of ‘chill out’ or ‘relax’, but there’s a much deeper meaning behind these words. Going with the flow is about creating a space within yourself where you are still, peaceful and in a state of allowing, so that when challenges and difficulties arise, you are able to overcome them with more ease.

Being in the flow of life is all about releasing resistance to life. It’s easy to hold on to resistance, especially when we’re dealing with less than desirable situations or people who irritate us, but once you are able to create a space of ease within yourself, suddenly life itself becomes easier. Not because the situations have changed, but because you have changed.

So how do you step into the flow of life? It begins with your mindset.

1. Change your Perspective on Life

Your mind is one of the most powerful tools you have at your disposal, but more often than not, many people don’t fully utilize this tool, or in many occasions, use it against themselves, rather than in their favor. Let’s think of the mind as a tool, because that’s really what it is. It’s a tool to help you to build the best life you possibly can. You get to decide what to do with it. Are you going to build something wonderful? Or are you going to tear something down?

Many people have been taught from a young age to struggle, resist and fight against circumstances, people or life in general. Sometimes this fight is warranted; for example, if you’re being hurt, suppressed or overlooked, it’s natural to want to stand up for yourself, but when we become accustomed to fighting for the sake of fighting, our lives can more often than not, feel like an uphill battle.

It’s true that you can’t always control the circumstances of your life, but you can control how you react and approach them. You can change your perspective whenever you want. It might not sound like much, but the practice of viewing your circumstances through a different perspective can quite literally shift your entire life.

“When you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change.” ― Max Planck

For example, there might be a situation in your life which you view as ‘negative’ by why exactly have you categorized it that way? With every, ‘negative’ situation, there are always opportunities for growth and doorways for positivity. That’s why two people can go through the same exact experience and come out of it with two completely different outlooks. If it’s a difficult situation, one might be negative and depressed while another might look at it positively and be grateful for their ability to overcome challenging experiences. It’s all about perspective.

2. Be Mindful

Mindfulness is a powerful tool to have in any situation. If you’re experiencing a positive situation, mindfulness allows you to fully embrace that moment. If you’re going through a more difficult situation, mindfulness allows you to be present in the current moment and prevents your mind from running rampant and bombarding you with negativity and the ‘everything that can go wrong, probably will’ mentality.

When it comes to being in the flow of life, mindfulness helps us to let go of resistance and notice where we are in the now. It’s common to be lost in the future or in the past and rarely are we ever in the now, but we can’t change the past and we can’t control the future, so mindfulness allows us to step firmly in the present moment and feel each moment as it passes.

Once you embrace the present moment, you begin to release worries, fears and doubts and begin to step into the flow of life.

3. Be Flexible

Being in the flow of life is all about flexibility. There’s nothing wrong with planning or having a set schedule, but allowing yourself to be flexible allows for opportunities and surprises to arise in your life.

If you’re too strict with your schedule, you might find yourself resisting the ever-flowing change of life. By allowing yourself to be flexible, you allow yourself to step into the flow and see where life takes you.

This allows you to be more at ease and take on life with a more lighthearted approach.

4. Let go of Perfection

It’s easy to get caught up in the idea of ‘perfection’ but that’s really all it is, an idea. Perfection looks different for everyone, and this means that what you view as perfect may not be what someone else views as perfect, so when we’re chasing the concept of perfection all we’re really chasing is a made-up concept which we can never achieve. This is not meant to bring you down, in fact, it’s meant to free you.

The idea of perfection can keep us trapped in a box, keeping us from breaking out and experiencing life to the fullest. It can sometimes make us feel unworthy or cause us to feel frustrated or insecure. When you are able to let go of perfection, you free yourself up to experiencing life a little differently. Suddenly, not everything is so serious, and you may find that you feel a lot freer than you did before.

5. Practice Self-love and Compassion

The practice of loving yourself can be a difficult road. Somewhere along the journey of our lives, we’ve all experienced dissatisfaction with ourselves or have, at one point or another, put ourselves down. We are born loving ourselves but somewhere along the way we lose that, and we learn to be dissatisfied with who we are. When you take some time for yourself and rekindle a sense of self-love and compassion, you free yourself from these negative and constricting thoughts and emotions.

Self-love and compassion allow you to feel comfortable and at home within yourself. This helps to release insecurity and low self-esteem which can cause stress and negative feelings. Loving yourself opens your heart to life and invites in more beauty and ease.

6. Nurture Your Inner Child

Joy is one of the best ways to step into the flow of life. When you are joyful, life becomes easier, even if your outward situations haven’t changed. When you are able to approach life with a joyful, childish perspective, things become brighter and more fun.

When we were children, life was usually an adventure filled with joy and fun and exploration for most of us. Although growing up has given us new responsibilities and must-do-tasks, this doesn’t mean we can’t go within ourselves and nurture our inner child.

This means finding something that brings you joy, whether it’s a certain hobby or just riding your bike or sitting outside. However, if that part of your life was not all that great, then nurturing your inner child means doing something that would bring comfort to that inner child. Remember what it’s like to feel like a kid again, free to imagine and view life as it’s meant to be viewed, as a gift with endless possibilities.

7. Be Grateful for What You Have

Gratitude is a powerful tool which can help improve your life in many ways. When you are grateful for life, you release resistance towards it and find yourself in a state of ease. Being grateful not only invites in more feel-good thoughts, but also changes your perspective on the world around you.

Being in the flow of life means being at ease within yourself and finding gratitude for everything you experience. The wonderful thing about gratitude is that no matter what situation or difficult thing you are going through, there is always something to be grateful for, like the food on your table, the roof over your head, or even the fact that you’re still alive. Sometimes the simplest things are the ones we should be the most grateful for.

Gratitude keeps you grounded, opens your heart, and allows you to receive more love and joy from life while still going after your dreams. You can still want something more and be grateful for what you have now.

8. Let Go of What You Can’t Control

It’s normal to want to have control over our lives. We feel the most comfortable when we know where we are going and that we are in control, but while we can influence certain situations in our lives, we can’t always control them.

Letting go of control can be a difficult task for anyone. We wish to hold onto our sense of control, but, no matter how hard we try, we can’t control every single situation which comes into our life, and you may find that the more you try, the more your control slips.

Releasing control can feel strange at first. Being out of control makes us feel apprehensive and uncomfortable because we don’t know what is going to happen; but releasing this need for control is an important aspect when it comes to stepping into the flow of life. Once you get through the initial discomfort, you’ll find yourself more relaxed and at ease with yourself and the world around you.

This space of ease helps you to see things and opportunities you may not have seen before. In fact, you might notice that life brings you something better than you ever could have imagined, all because you allowed yourself to loosen your grip on control.

When you let go of the need to control everything, you allow yourself to be in a place where you are alright with what life brings you, knowing that whatever it is, you’ll have the ability to overcome it.

Just Follow Your Breath

If you ever find yourself feeling tense, frustrated or completely disconnected with life, there’s only one thing you need to remember: follow your breath. Allow yourself to listen, to feel as your lungs expand and contract. By listening to your breath, you automatically come into a place of stillness where you have the opportunity to release what is causing you to feel heavy and distraught.

Your breath mimics the rising waves of an ocean. It flows in and out and has the ability to cleanse you from all that is no longer serving you. The next time you feel yourself struggling against life, take a few moments to connect with your breath. When you connect to your breath, you connect to the flow of life.

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