Written by Bloom Magazine
Conscious living' has been a buzzword lately. But what does it mean, exactly? Let's break down the basics! Conscious living is simply about recognizing the needs of your mind, body, and spirit and making more informed decisions in your daily life based on this awareness. Living consciously helps you feel more fulfilled and happier in your day-to-day life. We all can live more consciously. It is a skill that can be learned and developed over time. The first step is to become aware of what it means to live with intention—setting intentions for yourself and following through on them. This will help you take control of your life and make more conscious decisions that align with your values.
Practice Meditation Or Yoga
The next step in living consciously is learning to be alone with yourself and your thoughts. Once you're comfortable with that, you can begin to dig into the juicy bits of life. Meditation and yoga are great ways to practice daily focus, inner calm, and clear thinking. Sign up for a yoga class or download a meditation app; set aside 5 minutes to an hour of your time tomorrow morning or evening (whichever works best for you) to try them out. Don't be scared—meditation doesn't have to be anything more than sitting still on the end of your bed and tuning in to your thoughts and your breath if you don't want it to be.
Get To Know Yourself
Once you have developed the ability to focus your attention, take some time to think about what you want most from life. Think about what things make you happy and what do not. About how you work best and what doesn't work for you. What are your strengths, and what are your weaknesses? Write down a list of what you want most and what makes you happy. When feeling unfulfilled, demotivated, or unhappy, come back to this list for inspiration! This is such a vast and essential step towards conscious living and allows us to set goals and live a more honest, patient, and forgiving life.
Accept Yourself
Striving to conform to someone else's idea of perfect is the most significant barrier to self-growth and living consciously and honestly. It can be hard for many of us to love ourselves, and that's okay! But you can learn to accept and be content with who you are as you are. Being unhappy with yourself is not a good place to get stuck, but we can start shifting the focus on the good things bit by bit by introducing a regular self-appreciation practice. This will help you make decisions based on how you are right now and what's best for YOU instead of making decisions based on how you wished you were because society told you that's how you should be.
Try To Spend Your Time Wisely
We spend so much time on our phones or procrastinating that we often forget to make space for the things in life that matter most. To live more consciously, we challenge you to make a conscious effort to spend less time on your phone. Try to focus on getting something out of every day- from doing things you enjoy, finishing things that move you closer to where you want to be, developing a skill, or even just spending time resetting, switching off, and caring for yourself. What have you done today that you can feel good about?! Check your phone to see how many hours of screen time you've had this week. Scary.
Learn To Be Grateful
Learning to be grateful is one of the most effective ways to adopt a more positive, happy, and fulfilled mindset. Start by thinking about what you're grateful for each day, write it down—make it a daily ritual! This will tune your mind to positive vibrations, help you reframe bad situations, and allow you to be in the moment and truly appreciate the small things. You'll feel the positive vibes already!
Learn To Make More Conscious Decisions
Now that you've spent some time thinking about what's important to you and what values you want to live by, it's time to make decisions based on those principles. What impacts you, and what impacts others? What is our impact on the planet, and how can you be more conscious about this? This type of deep stuff takes some thought.