In your lifetime you have passed millions of faces and millions of places. Think of how many people you pass just on your commute to work!
You’ve witnessed so much LIFE and SOUL, but with each face and place passed in monotony, we lose the chance to see the infinite dimensions that each person and each situation holds.
We weren’t meant to go as fast as we do on the day to day. Waking up, checking the news, our e-mail, and the messages on all the apps our phone has. Woah. Is that really how you wanted to start your day? Let alone end it?
Apart from the anxiety this builds, with each swipe of the finger on our phone screen we default to automatic assumptions about people, places, and things forgetting to think about the multidimensionality housed within.
In constant anticipation of the next swipe, step, or chapter of our lives, it’s easy to miss the soulful things in life. So stop for a moment and look around right now.
What do you notice about your surroundings? What kind of people are around you? What interesting question might you be able to ask them now or later? If you are alone, what about your environment interests you?
Along with this practice, here are three ways to live each day as humanly as possible:
1. Inject Soulful Activities into Your Day-to-Day
If you aren’t doing what you love during the week, you better bet that you’re doing it on the evenings and weekends, here are some ways you can use that time to recharge your human soul!
- Be in nature even if it is hard to get out of the city. Try looking for your perfect nature haven within the city. That way it won’t be entirely populated with the weekend get-away crowd. Your nature haven is closer than you think. It could even be five minutes from work! There is nothing more cleansing than getting away from the car horns during your lunch hour and stepping into a symphony of birds.
- Create something, yes you the “non-artist”. Start writing a book just for fun, paint even if you never have, or dance around your room. You don’t have to be an expert in any of these things to DO them and reap the benefits! Want to do something with friends? How about making dream boards together! The possibilities are endless. So get those creative juices flowing and you might be surprised at what you discover.
- Dedicate a full-day to self-care because everyone needs an “ahhhh” moment! One of my favorite days in San Francisco was going to a Korean day spa and spending all day in a robe. These might be relatively inexpensive in your area, so do some research to see what your options are! And if it’s entirely out of the question, set up a spa day in your home with incense sticks or candles, a warm bath (yes bubbles!), and cucumber water (so easy to make). If you have awesome friends that love self-care too, invite them over to exchange massages! Great bonding activity and it’s free!
2. Listen to Your Body. Then Honor It.
Ever felt that dim red light gut feeling? Perhaps a “passion crisis”? What about the Sunday or Monday blues? Or the resistance you might feel everyday going to work? What does your body say when work is coming around the corner? I would hope it’s HELL YEAH, but if it’s not, here are some tips to spice up your work life.
- Find ways to bring humor into the workplace through light-hearted jokes or even compassionate pranks because smiles are always worth living for! “Who stole all the candy from the candy jar and put it on everyone’s laptops?” Of course it was you, but at least you didn’t eat it all!
- Suggest a weekly group yoga class to your boss. This is becoming popular for a reason. If you are hypothetically “working” 8 hours a day, your brain needs time to re-focus. Otherwise you will inevitably spend 10 minutes reading the same sentence over and over again. Our returns on work diminish slowly but surely as our brains become, well, brain-dead. Best way to boost productivity? Give it time to breathe and get your body moving instead! You can’t keep squeezing the sponge and expect water to come out if you don’t let it soak water up again!
- Ensure your after-work routine refreshes your state of mind instead of numbing it. Maybe skip that Netflix session tonight or save that drink for the weekend. What could you do today that will nourish your body and mind? What routine could you start that helps you unwind, but stay mentally conscious? I’m an all-time fan of dance or yoga class, since my flow state is achieved there. Make sure whatever you choose, you find your flow in it!
3. Rehumanize Your Daily Interactions
This may be the hardest part of all. As you begin your journey of rehumanization, you should also try and extend this to others. That’s truly the only way we can make the world a better place! We can ALL use a little more understanding and love from those around us, so here are some tips on extending more humanity to your counterparts.
- Get vulnerable with someone next time you feel defensive or attacked. Ask yourself, ‘what am I hiding from this person or the world?’ Then lay it out, no ego, just soul. Share your deepest fears and joys with them and they are likely to reciprocate. When we get into arguments and point the finger to the other instead of the self, we can always expect both sides to close off like a dying flower. What comments and questions will help both parties blossom next time there’s an argument?
- Make more eye contact, plain and simple. Of course staring at people on the metro is not advised, but when you’re ordering your coffee be sure to look the cashier in the eyes when saying ‘Thank you!’ What other daily interactions could help you lock eyes more? Instant connection back to humanity, yes!
- Recognize people’s multidimensionality, because guess what? We are all hypocrites. We all want one thing and then do another or vice versa, probably at least once a day. Why do we incriminate the self and others for this? INDULGE in your infinite dimensions and recognize that it’s not all supposed to be so linear. There is nothing wrong with you or your friend wanting to go to yoga one day and happy hour the next. As long as your indulgence feeds your soul and not the ego, you can oscillate between things you want to do and things you absolutely should.
Feeling relieved? Me too. Now here’s to doing our part to create a better world.
Kimberly Lucht is a life coach that helps millennials create a life in which they thrive. Click here to get her free monthly tips on how to live your best life.