Surround Yourself With Uplifting People

Gram’s Wisdom 43 Be your best edition.

We all want to live our best life and be the best edition of ourselves. Yet, few of us know its meaning for us as individuals. You don’t find a living your best life curriculum being taught in school. Instead, we’re pushed into choosing a career or finding the right job. Necessary of course, but rather limited in scope.

Fortunately for me, my Gram had a lot to say about living a good life, your best life. She told me it was important that you surround yourself with people who uplift you, but that it was equally important for you to uplift others. Gram also had a strong belief in the power of simple things acting on your life.  

In this post, I‘ve outlined a few things Gram thought to be necessary for your best life and some things I picked up myself along the way. But let’s begin with the one thing that Gram thought was central to your attaining your best life.

Why is it important to find people who uplift you?

There’s a critical aspect to living your best life. It’s surrounding yourself with positive people who motivate and support you.

You’ve doubtless heard experts say that change and positive thinking stem from the inside. Yet, several external factors also play a substantial role in how your life turns out. One of these is the sort of people you have in your life. They can either pull you up and help you become a better edition of yourself or drag you down with their negativity and misery-loving company attitude.

In short, finding people who encourage you to be better and support you when you feel down are called ‘expanders.’ These are the people who will help you grow as an individual. They give you space to learn from your mistakes without being judgmental or disapproving.

Look at some of the positive changes that take place when you’re in the company of people who motivate you to live your best life.

Become a learner.

When you have people in your life who possess a positive mindset, you can achieve so much more, both on a personal and a professional level. Also, these people can direct you to the areas where you’re sure to be the best edition of yourself.

Not only that, but they’ll help you steer through areas where you’re not as skilled. Then, cheer you on when you flourish and come out on top.

This isn’t just good for your life in general, it’s also good for your self-esteem. When you know you have people in your life who are confident in your abilities, then your self-confidence and overall morale will begin to climb as well.

Accomplish your goals.

The right kind of people can motivate you to think big and go after your desires. They encourage you to push forward, even on your most challenging days, and to work hard for what you want.

People who uplift you are the ones who guide you in the right direction, so you can attain your goals. But, more importantly, they help you set appropriate goals.

Develop a positive mindset.

What would happen if you surrounded yourself with doers and self-starters? Sooner or later, their positivity will rub off on you, and you’ll endeavor to be like them. Their presence can influence your thoughts and actions towards the positive. So, make sure you choose those who will leave a memorable footprint in your life by helping you become the best person you can be.

Even if your mindsets are geared toward different goals, you can learn a great deal from their different beliefs and perspectives.

If you’re an artist and your friend is in business. Why not take their business-savvy mindset and good habits, and merge them with yours? They can also do the same with your innovative attitude and learn a thing or two about creativity.

Remain optimistic.

People with a negative mindset often try to derail others from their path to success. They instill feelings of self-doubt, skepticism, and uncertainty. It’s difficult to focus on your personal growth and accomplishment when surrounded by people like that.

On the flip side, optimistic people behave as a source of support and reassurance. They become your biggest supporters and strongest allies, no matter what. The best part is they don’t become jealous of your successes. Instead, they’re genuinely happy about your accomplishments.

Appreciate the simple things.

“To see a world in a grain of sand and a heaven in a wild flower, hold infinity in the palm of your hand and eternity in an hour.”

— WILLIAM BLAKE

Nurture something.

Interact with something that needs care, be it things or relationships with people. This cultivating can be literal, like planting something and watching it grow. It can also mean creating something with people around you and trying to assist in its success. The point is that connecting with life in a manner that requires steady focus, reveals the relationship between distinct parts and hones your awareness.

In the case of a plant, you begin to understand the relationship between soil, sun, moisture level, and other environmental factors. You see that things are far from static, and what was simple on the surface is filled with complexity. This expanded aspect adds great richness to your life.

Take slow deep breaths.

It’s hard to relish the simple things, or anything at all when you’re always racing from place to place or task to task. Slow down, observe your surroundings, feel the sensations in your body, and tune in. The best of life may just pass you by if you don’t.

On the other hand, breathing deeply, honing your senses through quiet reflection, deep listening, practicing tactile awareness of your body, and mindfully chewing and tasting your food, will markedly increase the quality of your practice. This awareness sets you up to live your best life.

Create stillness in your mind.

Allow silence to envelop you as you take a walk in the park or sit quietly in your home. The creation of stillness in your life can be one of the simplest ways to improve cognitive function. Daily rituals of even a few minutes of quiet, breath work, or meditation can do wonders for mental clarity, stillness, and focus.

According to the National Institute of Health, long-term meditators have more folds in the outer layer of their brains (greater mental processing capacity) and show beneficial changes to the amygdala (emotional processing center of the brain). So, the benefits of meditation are physical, as well as, mental and emotional.

Look outside yourself.

When you listen to someone or lend a hand, you are promoting compassion. Sometimes the best way to see the good in life and appreciate the simple things is by moving out of your head. When you participate in acts of service, placing someone else’s needs above your own, it provides perspective. You feel empathy for another’s experience, and you care about improving their conditions. This insight widens your view and lessens the significance of your problems.

Whether you try one or all the suggestions above, you will reap rewards in your life. What occurs is you begin to appreciate the simple things. What’s more, you discover that there isn’t a single, simple thing.

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How Your Circle Of Friends Influence Who You Become.

My final thoughts.

One of the ways you can live your best life is to carefully choose the company you keep. Their presence can have a profound impact on your mental and emotional health.

Another way is if you intentionally participate with the moment, you’re in. As your senses attune to your surroundings, and you absorb what you’re observing, the results will amaze you.

Finding Harmony Within The Stillness

Gram’s Wisdom 25: Internal harmony

As a teenager, I fell prey to the feeling that I’d be missing out on something if I didn’t have a school and social calendar with every moment filled. Unfortunately, what I felt was frazzled and drained. Nothing was fun

My Gram took me to task when she noticed I was burning the candle at both ends. First, she told me that I was out of harmony with my personality. Second, she said that doing too much didn’t allow me time to appreciate any one thing.  

Gram and I discussed the necessity of being still and listening to that inner voice that we all have. She told me that if I quietly listened this would be the place from which I could make my decisions and find internal harmony.

I bet you probably have friends and family who are always rushing about and complaining about their lack of alone time. Perhaps they don't even say anything about it because this is the way they have always been, and it seems normal to them. Every moment, they're busy. Maybe you're one of them.

If you examine the lives of overly busy people, you'll probably find that they're not contented, happy people. There's always much to do and so little time. Their lives are often out of sync. Perhaps you're reading this because you feel in a hurry yourself. Do whatever it takes to slow down and reap the benefits of being still.

Harmony is found in the quiet of mind and body

Gram said to me “You can be quiet in body and quiet in mind. Both are important.”  Being still physically saves you much energy and effort. You feel less depleted by the end of the day. Mental quietness has a similar effect on your psychological, intellectual, and emotional energy.

All you must do to achieve stillness of body is to finish your chores and then relax. Even while you complete your tasks, you can conserve energy by using little movement. If you batch similar tasks or confine yourself to tasks in a small area you use less energy.

The stillness of the mind is trickier to achieve. However, this kind of quietness is more crucial to your overall contentment because it also brings inner harmony. 

How do you feel when you get some shocking news? How about when you finally reach your target at work, win an award, or find yourself suddenly in a crisis? You feel a rush of adrenaline and you're off, letting off steam in a gush of emotion, words, or action.

So, if this is such an instinctive response to big changes, why do you need to nurture stillness? When you're in the middle, when you're centered, you can see both ends of the spectrum.

When you refrain from extreme reactions, you can regulate your response to the situation. You can be unbiased. Most importantly, you can learn from your circumstances and use them for self-development.

From another perspective, when you've adopted internal quietness, you're less likely to face extreme highs and lows.

These tips can aid your development of a still mind:

1.  Stop. In an extreme situation, pull away from the circumstance for a moment. Take a deep breath before you react. You are the silent watcher of your thoughts and behavior

2.  Listen. Listen carefully to what's being said. If your mind jumps the gun with words you feel compelled to speak, bring it back to the moment. Return your attention to what the other is saying.

3.  Think. Consider why you're facing the situation. Did you play a part in creating it? Is the other simply mirroring you? What lesson can you learn from this circumstance?

If you take these steps, you'll be able to avoid overreacting or reacting negatively in haste. This means your response, when it does come, will be the right one for the circumstances and you.

 The value of silence to harmony

Another way to develop mental stillness is to practice silence. Speak only when necessary. Speak only when you have something important to say or something that will help the other. Stillness speaks, be the presence that listens.

Before you speak, examine your motivation for saying what you want to say. Is it to further the welfare of the other? Or is it to praise yourself or prove that you're right and the other wrong? A need to always seem right is the basis of many conflicts.

Moreover, when you're normally silent, your words have more impact. People pay attention when you speak.

As you work toward greater self-awareness, try developing internal stillness and inner harmony. Just follow these guidelines as a start. As you practice, you'll receive many rewards.

My final thought

I won’t say finding inner harmony is easy. It’s probably one of the more difficult things to achieve for yourself and one of the most beneficial. Though Gram and I always had a great rapport, I fought her on this. I was a know-it-all teen, so sue me. But the habit of a lifetime kicked in and I began to explore the idea. For nearly fifty years I have been grateful I did. Inner harmony brings happiness and peace that outer circumstances can’t take from you.

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