Luscious delicious, succulent, lush, juicy,
sweet, tasty, scrumptious, beautiful, gorgeous.
Ohhh just saying those words brings me alive and gives me tingles all over!
And isn’t that what we all want more of, tingles of aliveness?
Welcome to Luscious Living — Finding Delight in Every Moment!
In these times we live in with all the fears and worries coming at us from all different directions, we especially need to know how to soothe and relax our over taxed nervous system and find delight and lusciousness in every moment.
The last thing we ever think of in times like these is to find and experience what makes our hearts light up and sing, being tickled pink with the joys and pleasures of our experience along with relishing, and savoring the bounty and beauty of life are all available too.
The good news is… you don’t have to go very far at all. In fact, it all lives inside your head! That’s right, it’s all in your head!
Here’s how it works:
When we think about and experience all these qualities of Delight and happiness, there is a biochemical change in the brain. Neurotransmitter chemicals are released which scientists know have a profoundly positive effect on your body’s physiology, immune system and health.
For example, when we are happy a neurotransmitter chemical called serotonin is released and tension is eased. When dopamine or norepinephrine is released, we become more alert and able to think and act more quickly. These neurotransmitter chemicals control all the signaling in our central nervous system and affect our overall mood. So, happy thought patterns increase the body’s resistance to disease and while feelings of anger, resentment or gloom weakens the body’s immune system. Powerful to know
Where this information takes us is in understanding that it is our thoughts, which create our emotions, which in turn affects our body chemistry.
Which means: It’s all in our heads!
The very act of thinking is practicing brain chemistry and since thoughts are under our conscious control – we can consciously choose to think any particular thought and become our own chemist! In fact that’s what we are doing all the time anyway.
Even the Dalai Lama supports this, he says;
“Happiness is determined more by the state of one’s mind than by one’s external conditions, circumstances or events.”
So how do we help our state of mind to be happy and to find delight in every moment?
We need to be rather crafty and start training our minds to seek out delight. We can consciously choose where to put our attention and to focus on the things that engages delight and lusciousness.
There are many ways to do this and for now here are 3 examples to get you going:
1. Slow Down
First and foremost ……SLOW DOWN……. And take a Breath or 10! The kind of breath that fills you right down into your belly and expands your rib cage out to the sides. The kind of breathing you did when you were a baby. I call these Puffy Belly Breaths. You know when you are Puffy Belly Breathing by placing your hand on your belly and as you take a breath it pushes your hand out and away from your body.
If you are holding, gasping or shallow breathing nothing will move in your belly, it will be in your shoulders and upper chest and you are in hyper stress mode. You are literally shutting off the very life force that keeps you alive and vibrant!
And now we know what that does!!!
2. Be Captivated By Beauty and Love
Benjamin Franklin said,
“The Constitution only gives people the right to pursue happiness. You have to catch it yourself.”
One of the best places to catch happiness is…….in the things that soothe, inspire and opens you to beauty and love. You can do this anywhere any time and for as long as you like. The important thing is that you CATCH these delight and happiness moments.
For example, it can be as simple as when you are sitting at your desk and a photo of someone you love catches your eye or a color gleams out at you or the vase of flowers on your table. It may even be as you watch the clouds gently sail across the sky or a piece of music that touches your heart and transports you deeper into yourself.
Whatever it is the important thing is to let yourself be captivated and embraced by these moments. Then enhance it by remembering to slow down and breathe. So these are some of the places where you can catch happiness and delight.
3. Daily Delight Breaks
As Benjamin Disraeli said…
“Action may not always bring happiness, but there is no happiness without action.”
Insist on giving yourself at least 3 of these, what I call, Delight Breaks every day. Taking a Delight Break several times a day will actively build your immune system, soothe your nervous system and of course give you more oxygen. Very quickly you will see how your life and health will improve.
So the important things to remember are:
- It’s all in your head.
- Slow down with Puffy Belly Breaths
- Be captivated, embraced and inspired by those things that remind you of beauty and love.
- And finally, make it a practice to take at least 3 Delight Breaks every day.
delicious, succulent, lush, juicy, sweet, tasty, scrumptious.
ravishing, seductive, alluring, sultry, beautiful, gorgeous.
Luscious living and Delight lives in every moment!