Module nine the spiritual self. Developing awareness of the spiritual self is the capstone to developing awareness of one's whole self. When you begin to focus on spiritual development, all other approaches to increasing your self awareness become enhanced, because frequently a key step to becoming more aware of your body heart in mind involves paying attention to the needs of your soul. Mindfulness. Well, mindfulness began as a Buddhist concept. It has since been developed as a practice in psychology that has helped numerous people deal with crippling anxiety, depression, drug addiction, and post traumatic stress disorder.

Being mindful is not simply living in the present, but a way of concentrating on aspects of the present moment you normally take for granted. Buddhists use the term monkey mind to describe how our brains tend to barrage us with thoughts about the past, the present and the future constantly. Becoming mindful means to become both aware of the movement of your thoughts and emotions and to become detached from them. This detachment allows you to focus through your true self, rather than seeing yourself as thoughts thinking or emotions feeling. practicing mindfulness meditation is the first step toward becoming mindful throughout every moment of your life. Meditation.

Mindfulness Meditation is actually only one form of meditation with a specific goal of developing a specific type of meditation. There are other methods of meditation that have other goals. In fact, the progressive relaxation technique you learned in Module Three is another meditation technique with a goal of deepening your feelings of relaxation. Another type of meditation called a loving kindness meditation is designed to stimulate positive feelings in yourself and extend them outwards towards others. Transcendental Meditation is one type of meditation that teaches you to achieve altered states of consciousness. Included in this course is a simple method of meditating that helps you to calm your mind and quiet your thoughts.

In addition to these benefits, this meditation can also help you increase your ability to focus and help you to practice mindfulness. cultivating positivity. Because of the extreme usefulness of negative emotions during humanity's early years as hunter gatherers, our brains are set to automatically pay attention to negative thoughts and feelings. When awareness of a negative situation was the difference between life and death, it made sense for negativity to attract our attention. Positive thoughts and feelings tend to escape our notice unless they are of the most extreme variety. Noting and celebrating the little things in life that make it good is a way to begin cultivating positive emotions.

Here are some specific ways to increase your positivity. practice meditation daily. While most meditation methods are beneficial in cultivating positivity, the loving kindness meditation is particularly helpful especially in countering resentments. Let go of resentment and forgive others. We often think that forgiveness is a way to let wrongdoers off the hook, but forgive This isn't about the person you're forgiving so much as it is about your letting go of anger that weighs you down. Nevertheless, it would be irresponsible to suggest that forgiving someone is an easy thing to do.

One practice that can help is whenever you are angry with someone else, try to make a list of all the things you find good about that person. Celebrate successes, no matter how big or small. Celebrate not just your successes, but other people's successes as well. Human beings are hardwired to connect with each other. When you take an active interest in another person's achievement, you help to reinforce those connections that's so enrich our lives. work to foster positive emotions, such as enthusiasm through singing, dancing and listening to upbeat music.

Exercise. It's been mentioned many times in this course, but bears mentioning again because it is such a benefit. Help others. Helping out a person in need can have a profound effect on your own thought processes. When we volunteer our time For others, it takes us out of thinking about ourselves which is often agreed source of negativity. gratitude.

Well all of the approaches mentioned thus far will definitely help you to think and feel more positive if you practice them regularly. One of the single most profound practices to increase your optimism well being and cultivate general positivity is to develop an attitude of gratitude. When you wake up each morning after you eat breakfast, or just before you log into your computer at work, write down in a notebook or type into a word processing document. Five things for which you are grateful. These can be small and simple, such as a particularly choice a cup of coffee, or an enjoyable dinner the night before. They can also be earth shattering, such as a recovery from an illness, or a huge life event such as a wedding or graduation.

If you do this every day, it will have a cumulative effect on reorienting your perception so that you become more aware of the good things in life.