Do you feel like your life is stuck on fast forward? If you have a hard enough time remembering what year it is, let alone what month it is, press pause and slow down with these crystal techniques for a still mind.
Learning to appreciate the place you’re at in life will help you to slow down its rapid pace. When you allow your fire and drive to run unchecked by an appreciation for your successes, you’re no longer living—you’re chasing. Moving from one thing to the next until your time runs out. Chasing your dreams is an important aspect of life, but so is taking the time to enjoy them. As the old adage goes: stop and smell the roses.
Have you ever found yourself in a beautifully quiet moment, able only to think about what else you have left to do? Thinking of ways to be busy doesn’t make you more productive in these moments, it just keeps you from fully submersing yourself into them. Relish your life outside of work.
These crystal techniques will help you to tune into the energy of contentment. Enjoy where you’re at in life, while still working to get where you want to go. Before the holiday season throws us all into stressed-out, hyperdrive, let’s enjoy some un-busy moments of peace.
3 Crystallized Tips to Slow Down and Be Present
Crystallize Your Garden
Gardening is an extremely therapeutic process. It forces you to be present in the activity. When you garden, your mind is only on the soil between your fingers, the water on the leaves and the budding blossoms. Gardening is a practice in patience. You can’t force things to grow any faster than they’re going to. No amount of willpower or obsessing will change the growth rate. This is a good reminder for those who would rather skip the journey and get straight to the results. As you see your plants slowly develop, you become immersed in the experience and adventure that you are on with them. You learn to savor the progress of growth, even when small. That appreciation for the passage rather than simply the destination will eventually seep into other areas of your life, and you’ll soon find time beginning to slow.
Adding garden crystals to the mix will not only benefit your garden, it will help your mental state as well. Green Aventurine is said to have a strong connection with the Earth, bringing the energies of vitality, renewal and growth to your garden. Green calcite is another crystal that will usher in a bountiful garden. Place it in the soil of your garden or potted plant. As it is also good for the spirit, the healing properties of green calcite are said to relieve anxiety or stress about the future, allowing yourself to live in the present moment instead. Program your clear quartz stones to hold an intention for your garden and for yourself. Hold them in your hands and say, I program these crystals to hold the energy of stillness. I am slowing down to enjoy the present moment.
Spice Up Your Everyday Life
Taking stock of what you put into your body gives you a sense of pride. It allows you to nourish both your spirit and physical self. Cooking, like gardening, requires all of your focus. It makes being mindful of each step a thing of ease. It’s also an opportunity for you to explore your creativity. When you cook, you slow down. You occupy your hands, you plan your next step and you wait. The act of cooking something you’ve never made before means preparing by going to the store, getting all of your ingredients. The whole process takes time, and forces you to be concerned with the now, rather than sometime in the future.
As you finally plate your dish, you can take pleasure in the completion of a job well done. Eat slowly. Savor every piece of the meal you made. Use this as a lesson for how you would like to live the rest of your life. Not only do you want to work hard and see your efforts through to the end, but you also want to delight in every morsel of the accomplishment.
Orange stones and crystals, like orange calcite or carnelian, create a warm, vibrant and happy energy in the kitchen. The motivation they lend with rousing energy will help you to stay present in the moment and optimistic about the outcome.
Move in Slow Motion by Activating Your Parasympathetic Nervous System
When you find out that you have three more minutes left to sleep before your alarm goes off, you make yourself acutely aware of how cozy you are, how wonderful you feel all swaddled up in your blankets. That three minutes feels like ten. When you have three minutes to finish a task before a deadline, the opposite occurs. You are in such an anxious haste, thinking about everything that you need to do as the clock runs out, that three minutes feels like 30 seconds. This actually has to do with your nervous system. The parasympathetic nervous system and sympathetic nervous system are what control your relaxation and your level of alertness. When the parasympathetic system is stimulated, your state of calm means that the sympathetic system, and the high anxiety that goes along with it, is inactive. While you need both to survive, if you’re constantly wondering what you need to do next and concerned with where all your time goes, chances are, you need a lot more parasympathetic stimulation.
Cooking and gardening are two mindful practices that are known to engage the parasympathetic nervous system, but here are two other methods that you can use to activate your inner calm if you’re short on time:
- Breathe deeply in meditation. Lay completely flat on your back. Place a labradorite stone on your third eye, and a large piece of black tourmaline on your root chakra. Visualize yourself inhaling peace and serenity, and exhaling your worries or anxieties.
- With two fingers, graze your lips. It sounds strange, but the parasympathetic fibers in your lips will trigger a sense of calm within the mind.
Through these simple acts, you can remain in the present longer, slow down and extend the pleasure you are experiencing in the moment.
