2. Building Your Inner Life
In a previous post, I wrote that your inner life is usually neglected, in contrast to your outer life. I gave some guidelines for identifying and reducing the gaps between your inner and outer life. That’s an important step towards building psychological health and resiliency that works in today’s 21st Century world of heightened interconnection and instability.
Here, I’ll describe some specific steps you can take to strengthen your inner life and make it the driver of your decisions, choices, and actions within your outer life.
Think of your inner life as something you develop through practice, similar to building stronger muscles, or developing skill in a sport or play a musical instrument. Below are some inner life practices most anyone can do. The more you do, the better, because they reinforce each other.
Fill Your “Inner Reservoir”
- Sit quietly, without distraction. Observe your breaths as you breathe slowly, in and out. Count each breath as you exhale, from one to 10; then repeat. Twenty minutes daily is ideal, but if you do only five, that’s a good start.
An “entry-level” meditation-breathing practice, this one builds an emotional shock absorber. It helps maintain centeredness and focus when dealing with your outer life demands and conflicts.
Some forms of meditation are rooted in Eastern and Western religious-philosophical traditions; others in current medical and scientific knowledge about effective stress-reduction. All provide a range of physical and emotional benefits that strengthen your inner life. Ongoing research supported jointly by the Dalai Lama and the U.S.-based Mind And Life Institute shows that meditation produces changes within specific regions of the brain associated with greater internal calm, resilience to stress, and focused concentration.
Amazingly, one study found that the sound Continue reading
