Self-love or self-care is equally important in our connection to the inner-self. We cannot connect to our inner self if we do not love or care for our self.

Do you know your emotions affect every aspect of your personal life, your professional life, your relationships and your mental health? Our emotional health gets disrupted at times when we experience life’s highs and lows. And, it leads to building strong feelings of sadness, stress or anxiety.

Emotional wellbeing is the ability to manage life’s stressful situations while adapting to change and becoming resilient in difficult times. When you are aware of your thoughts, feelings and behaviours, you are empowered to manage your emotional health better.

A lot being talked about how important mental toughness or resilience is in the current times. People with high resilience are aware of healthy ways to cope with the stress and problems that are a normal part of life. They feel good about themselves and have healthy relationships.

What does it take to become resilient in life?

To become resilient and mentally tough, it is important to deepen our connection with our inner self. All the strength and toughness that we need to face the challenges of our life comes from how deeply we connect to our inner self.

When we connect to our inner self, we

Learn to accept and release our emotions or feelings and not suppress or numb it 

Instil those habits that boost our emotional and mental wellbeing 

Experience the power of deep connection that releases our fears and imbibes a strong sense of strength

Become aware and open to changing any counter-productive behaviours that we may possess 

Open avenues for ourselves to reach the highest potential in our personal and professional lives

The benefits of connecting to your inner-self are innumerable, and those listed above are just the tip of the iceberg. When you learn to connect to your inner-self, you learn to live, you learn to thrive, you learn to grow, and more importantly, you learn to love yourself and others!

So, what brings you closer with your inner-self is when you are immersed deeply within yourself. Let us look at some habits that you can inculcate, which will help you in forging a deeper inner-self connection:–

1. Sitting with yourself – Meditation: As we sit with our self – our mind gets engulfed with numerous thoughts – some positive and some negative – negative thoughts create fear, doubts, sadness etc. and that is the reason why we run away from sitting with our self as we fear coming into contact with all those feelings and emotions that hurt us.

However, to deepen your connection and become resilient – you need to sit with your innermost demons and ensure that you do not validate it by thinking about it or seeking answers in, “why did it happen to me?”, or “What could I have done?”, “I didn’t do enough” etc. as then you will be giving more energy to something that may have happened in the past and you had no control over it. This results in making you feel more dejected and weak.

The solution does not lie in validating those thoughts, but in releasing them. As you experience any thought that makes you feel low, dejected, angry, helpless – do not start thinking more about it. Instead, tell your mind that it is ok that this thought is coming in your mind, accept that this happened; now that you acknowledge it, you choose to release it by speaking these words, “I release these thoughts from my mind, body and soul”.

2. Look at yourself with compassion and self-love: Many times, with the experiences of life, we tend to become self-critical or even create low self-worth. Such feelings only make us feel more stressed, anxious and distant from our true strengths.

Look at yourself with kindness – when you can say “thank you” to a stranger for the most random thing, you can certainly say “thank you” to your own self. Appreciating or giving a pat to your self can go a long way in bringing you closer to your inner self. Self-love or self-care is equally important in our connection to the inner self. We cannot connect to our inner self if we do not love or care for our self.

3. Digital Detox: Give some time off from the digital world, social media, news etc. In many households, the news is running continuously or as individuals, we are continuously checking on social media. As a practice, in a day give yourself a complete digital detox by keeping your phones away, switching off the TV – rather doing something that you may enjoy like listening to music, or playing with your pet if you have one, or doing a bit of gardening or even dancing or exercising. All these activities increase the happy hormones and lower the stress hormones. Doing these activities will restore your energies and calm your senses.

4. Journaling: Sometimes, we have so many thoughts going through our minds that it is hard to keep track of what is going on. This leads to feeling completely disconnected from oneself and sometimes overwhelmed. I have found that journaling as a tool can help in making our minds to feel calmer and clearer in thoughts. Spend just a few minutes in the morning or evening free-writing thoughts, with an intent to let it all go. Do not try to analyse or judge the thoughts- it should be just whatever you are feeling. Expressing all your emotions either on paper or even on your laptop will make you feel lighter, thus helping you to connect freely with yourself. However, a piece of advice here, do not try to put your feelings or emotions on social media as that will only open your inner most thoughts to get judged or analysed by others. Let this be a complete intimate exercise.

The deeper our understanding to the self is, the better we manage our emotional health. These strategies are simple and doable activities that can bring a substantial change in the way you look at life’s struggles and challenges.

However, if your negative feelings do not go away and are so strong that they keep you from enjoying life, it is especially important for you to talk to a therapist or a professional. Sometimes, seeking help is also taking action towards better emotional health.