10 productive things to do during social isolation – part 2
4. Meditate and/or pray: There are numerous benefits to meditation or prayer. To truly do nothing but meditate or pray might be a challenge for you in the everyday rush. Now, with zero commute and plenty of extra time, you can. Start small by dedicating 5 minutes to practice meditation or pray. Choose a quiet place in your home, eliminate all distractions, and just focus on your breathing or repeat a particular mantra. Another option is to use a free guided meditation audio or video to help you with this. If you like, you can also incorporate affirmations or visualization exercises in your meditation sessions. You can expand this time block bigger each day, and meditate for 15-20 minutes or even longer eventually. You have to build up instead of jumping into an unattainable commitment. Meditation is one practice that you can really improve on with the extra time you have in your hand. It brings you benefits in every respect — mentally, physically, emotionally and spiritually — and with consistent practice, you are able to get in touch with the stillness inside. If you enjoy your sessions, it’s definitely something you might just want to continue when things get back to normal.
5. Journal: Journaling is a wonderful practice that I believe we all must experiment with. It’s a simple but powerful exercise, and an intimate way to express our thoughts and become cognizant of them. Journaling gives us both time and space to explore our thoughts, feelings and emotions and capture them into words. It helps us discover who we are as a person; author Susan Sontag explains this wonderfully in these words, “In the journal I do not just express myself more openly than I could do to any person; I create myself.” She adds, “The journal is a vehicle for my sense of selfhood.” In addition, journaling is incredibly helpful in our personal growth. It doesn’t matter whether you maintain a physical notebook or use a digital tool, and how much you write each day, just get started with writing your thoughts and experiences. Try to make journaling a daily habit; I’m sure it’ll add great value to your success and your life in these turbulent times.
6. Deepen daily gratitude: Now is an incredible opportunity and a wise time to appreciate all the good things in your life as never before. Gratitude is the antidote to fear, anxiety and panic. As Tony Robbins says, we can’t feel fear while feeling gratitude at the same time. Concentrating on the tiny blessings and precious aspects of your life will keep you happy, self-assured and healthy during this time of unease and global disturbance. Here’s the thing, no matter what we go through, gratitude acts as a form of self-care and reorients us back to the goodness of life and our inherent humanness. And this is the reason I created The Karma Yogi Gratitude Challenge. To bring back gratitude in your life. To help you embrace positivity and start looking at things from a whole new perspective. To help you become a better version of yourself. The 21 actionable exercises in this challenge have been designed to eliminate negativity, frustration, anxiety, anger and restlessness and bring you a sense of gratitude, appreciation and groundedness to your life. I invite you to join me on this journey. You can also use this link to get a 2-month free trial on Skillshare, which will allow you to take this online challenge for free!