When you get tears of joy (😂), your body is set in joy motion. You feel something and that can get you to move and take good action.
You get to experience freeing moments like you’re on top of the world, and your mind is joyfully elevated. This helps your mental health and outlook. And when your mind is happy, your body feels the connection. That’s Ayurveda in a nutshell.
Well… except it’s not that cut and dry (…I don’t think anything is these days). I wrote some personal notes below at the end of this post, from over a decade of intentional-balanced and healthy-minded living
I think it’s safe to say, we all have different body goals. One of mine is to stay looking young for as long as nature will let me. I can’t stop gray hairs from coming, but I can avoid the stressful grays that started in my mid-20s.
And our preferences are different, like in music…
For me and maybe for you, that can be in listening to a song that strikes a chord inside, like Adele’s emotional songs or the empowering words from a Lauren Daigle song.
Lyrics matter to me more now than they used to when I’d hum along to anything that had an upbeat vibe. It’s a good idea to be choosier about what we put in our minds (and body) if we want certain results.
And in modern Ayurvedic living, you choose as it’s not rules-based but certain practices work because the body is intuitive.
In other happy moments, seeing someone else happy can leave us smiling. Or when they have tears of joy, we do too.
And in another moment, that could be laughing out loud (does anyone even use LOL anymore…besides me? 😊).
And btw, I get a good laugh in watching The Great British Baking Show. I’ll spare you the witty, but clean jokes swirling in my head. But, that’s what sets it apart from every other baking competition. It’s standup (filmed) comedy or silly, tongue-in-cheek banter… oh, and beautiful bakes too.🍥
And it’s easy to love and relate to all the friendly contestants (and be glad you’re not under the pressure!). Read-dy?…Now Bake.
Just kidding. (I can’t say lol since I just called myself out on it).
But, anyway… in life, you’re usually witnessing your life from and with other people even if it’s through a computer or television. Even if we feel like we live in a bubble, our energy permeates through social media and our connections made. It doesn’t take a plane ride… it takes nanoseconds for our energy and atoms to travel.
And that’s the relational power we have in this life. Along with our connecting breath.
Next time you think about it, pair your tears of joy (or routinely adding daily eye drops) with a special breathing exercise called Pranayama, that’s a controlled way of breathing.
Here’s how you do Pranayama breath. Blow out all your air through your mouth. And then inhale breathe in a big gasp of air through your nose. Hold your breath for about 6-8 seconds. And then let out a big exhale through your mouth as you had started with. You can feel a burst of concentration/clarity in your mind. The mind fog is lifted (even if it’s temporary) and it can feel like you just had a shot of espresso or strong matcha tea.
In doing the breathing exercise, you’ve just relaxed and massaged your body from the diaphragm muscles to your vital nerves that impact your brain, breathing, and the body parts that regulate your stress. Sounds like a big deal… it is.
But we forget. And living in purpose is everything to intentional balanced living.
You get to feel alive! And that may be the that’s-what -I’m talkin’-about prescription you need, especially if you have constant stress in your life. You can try to find areas of life where you can shed tears of joy.
You can practice breathing purposeful daily wherever you are, so remember to do this regularly or when you next feel anxiety or a breather moment.
This can be another purposeful move where you step outside where you spend most of your day. Like when you’re out and see a work of art that moves your heart and stirs your soul. That can be from nature or something that is living and breathing like a baby-making cooing sounds or a dog with a wagging tail you see walking outside.
If you’re cooped up inside and have no errands to run (lucky you!), here are some outside ideas to get out of your nest: Continue reading “Tears of Joy and Breathing for Ayurvedic Living”