Every situation brings us opportunities to work on ourselves. Every regular activity can be turned into a vehicle to further our own personal growth. Such self help notions are not new. They go back millennia in fact. It was the Buddhists who talked about mindfulness where even, it is suggested, tasks like washing the dishes, if done attentively and with focus, can have a transformative effect on our inner lives over time. There is nothing too mundane for inner growth.
For me traffic jams are a good example - especially living in London and travelling, as I do, between several clinics a day. Whenever I find myself arriving at another standstill moment on the roads, instead of fretting and looking always at my watch, I'll often turn off the radio, sit still and just be. I pay attention to the currents of emotion and feeling in my body and use the time to ground myself in the moment. What started out as an obstacle quickly transforms into a gift. It took a bit of time to get into this kind of practise, don't get me wrong, and I am still working on it - and probably always will - but over time I have come to regard such moments as elements of my own bespoke self help program of life.
The remarkable thing is that there are a few studies coming out now that demonstrate how these notions - far from being unsubstantiated wishful thinking - are actually real and provable. One I particularly like was carried out on a group of hotel maids: They were divided into two groups. One group was given information about exercise and its benefits. This was followed by more specific information relating to their own work - e.g. Hoovering, dusting etc. - and how each of those activities helped them burn enough calories to actually exceed the recommendations for regular exercise laid down by the Surgeon General. Each activity was listed and its benefits laid down in stark terms. The second group of maids was given only the general information about the benefits of exercise and none pertaining to their specific job.
Only four weeks later it was found that both groups of maids had continued working in the same way; their activities (on the face of it) remained the same day in day out but the first group, who received the work specific information, had begun to lose weight - losing an average of 2 pounds - and lowered their blood pressure by an average of 10 points.
Though their patterns of activity remained the same, the only thing that changed is how they saw the work they did. They believed the same routines were now a self growth practise for them and, lo and behold, that is exactly what they became.
So next time you're in a situation you'd otherwise consider mundane or even painful, find a way to make it work for you - your physical, mental or spiritual health - and I assure you, over time, it will do just that. Then you'll be converting your life into your own personal self help program. That is, at the end of the day, I believe what we are all here for.
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