11 easy ways any (busy) mom can feel radiant from within
We are born radiant.
When I was little, I was quite happy. I did not lose out on being joyful and radiant even when things didn’t go according to my plans.
I often ask myself what happened to my radiant self as I grew up? Well somewhere along the way I started to believe that how I felt was dependant on how others wanted me to feel. So if someone (say a parent) was angry at me for something I did or didn’t do, it meant that I had to feel sad or feel guilty for how I made them feel. Being responsible for how other people feel puts a lot of pressure on kids and eventually they lose their spark and radiance.
Losing the power to feel what I wanted to feel, at an early age, was detrimental to my life later on. In essence I lost my will to feel true emotions as they came up and learn lessons while being kind to myself. I learnt to smile even when I was sad and oftentimes I learnt to fake my happiness so as to not upset others.
What I didn’t realize for a very long time was that I had emotions that needed to be expressed for me to release how I was feeling. By suppressing my negative emotions (lower vibrational scale), I was setting myself up for feeling depressed at a later time. I started to feel numb and eventually, it became challenging for me to understand my own emotions.
Social impact of suppressing emotions, for any child
As I was growing up, I was always worried about what people (friends) thought of me. Would they continue being friends with me if I told them how I really felt? When was it safe to express who I truly am or how I truly feel?
After listening to Brene Brown talk about Vulnerability in this video, I started to feel that maybe I could experiment with being vulnerable as well – with some loved ones.
Frankly, being vulnerable with people that I thought cared for me, was a really smart move on my part because their reactions to my honesty taught be a valuable lesson. “Most people are not comfortable with honest conversations and fight to stay superficial.”
After years of reading books on personal development and watching many inspiring people be vulnerable, I realized that my vulnerability was my strength. When I was acting a certain way to please others, I would feel very sad. But when I was vulnerable and honest I would feel pure love within myself. My willingness to be vulnerable in social situations, organically, placed me in various situations with many people in my life where they would have to choose our relationship or their dis-honest and superficial ways of being.
Over-time, my choice of being vulnerable, did turn many people away from my life. The people that chose to stay saw honesty and vulnerability as my strength.
Here are my top 11 tips to feeling RADIANT from within
Here are some of my top tips to become radiant from within.
These are free.
1. Express that stuck emotion, be vulnerable. Its tough to say what you want, feel what you want to feel but if you try this you will not only release any stuck emotions in your body, you will also feel a lot better, vibrationally. And if speaking up or standing up for what you believe in is too much for you, start journalling. Write about your feelings and wants and desires and see how quickly you will start to feel radiant from within.
2. Walk. Jump. Dance. Any of these activities or any activity that requires some cardio will help you release stuck emotions. And you will feel joyful and radiant all over again.
3. Play. Yes you heard that right. Playing is so important to feeling radiant. Children naturally have radiance because they play when they want and how they want. As adults, we forget play because of time constraints or busy and complicated lifestyles. So even if its playing cards indoors or kicking the ball in the spring or tobogganing in the winter or playing with leaves in the fall, playing works! You will feel light hearted immediately.
4. Ground yourself. We aren’t electric currents (or are we? ) but we need to ground ourselves given our busy and overwhelming lifestyles. When I feel anxious, I ground myself by spending time in nature, walking bare-feet. I also spend time imagining, during my meditations, receiving mother Earth’s love energy through my feet and legs – all the way to my skull. Grounding helps me feel one with mother nature and brings back that radiance within.
5. Meditate. Over time, I have become an avid meditator. I know that for me to release any stuck emotions or patterns that are not serving me, I need to meditate. Meditation brings a sense of awareness to how I am feeling. Growing up, I became numb to my emotions and meditation provides me with a free tool I can use anytime, anywhere to become self-aware. You can read more about the benefits of meditation in my brand new post.
6. Express gratitude. There is something about expressing gratitude that opens up possibilities for growth and joy. I know this because I am grateful everyday. In fact, we have a routine in my family that on the way to school, we all say three things we are grateful for and then set our intention for the day. Today, I was grateful for warm clothes, my body that is becoming stronger and healthier and the synchronicities that happen around me. My intention for the day was to feel a sense of flow. And I can tell you that this blog post is just flowing naturally. Feeling gratitude through-out the day is a game changer and only requires a minute of your time.
Check out this amazing 31-Day Gratitude Journal and Colouring Book. This journal will help make the daily practice of gratitude fun for you!
These will cost you a little bit of money.
7. Take an epsom salt bath. Taking an epsom salt bath helps with releasing toxins in our bodies. Make sure to keep hydrated through the bath as baths tend to de-hydrate us. Epsom salt baths were a saviour for me when I was feeling physical pains. They work like magic and “clean” you out. During the 5 years that I struggled with Fibromyalgia, I took a minimum of 3 epsom salt baths a week. Taking these baths just before bed helps induce deeper states of sleep. You can read more about My Healing Journey here.
8. Watch some comedy. This works for me every time I am sad or confused and am not quite ready to “deal with the emotion”. When I am going through some PMS I usually watch comedy by myself. Works every time!
9. Listen to high vibe music. I stopped listening to my favourite music after having kids. I am a 90s kid so I grew up with amazing music from Madonna, Red Hot Chili peppers, U2 and Eric Clapton. Listening to my favourite artists made me happy. I have brought back music into my life. I also love listening to some Bhangra and Hindi music. Because I meditate, I also listen to AUM chanting and other chants through-out my day. They truly help me feel centred again.
10. Spend some time with your close friends. I know that this is not an option most of the time because spending time with our friends takes a lot of planning as everyone is so busy. But even planning a night out and the expectation of what’s to come brings back excitement into my life. And if this truly not an option, choose a different friend – a pet or a book.
11. Drink water and eat a salad. For me, planning a healthy meal and drinking loads of water helps release toxins from my body and clean up those organs. And then there is no way I will not feel radiance from within.
Radiance will happen to you once you decide you want it.
There are many more ways to ground yourself and feel the radiance within but 11 will do for now. I will write another post with other ways I use to find and cherish the radiance that I once felt as a child. Simply having faith in the universe and the power, that created us all, grounds us and then doing any of these activities helps us feel supported, which in turn creates a feeling of radiance.
Know that you are worth the Radiance that’s within you and it’s time to shine a light on it.
this is an awesome list. I love how you explain everything. After reading your list, I understand everything! your blog is awesome! Keep up the great work