5 Heart Healing Steps or Exercises with Life Quotes to support your healing
More Heart Healing Steps and Life Quotes in Brave New Endings, by Elizabeth Verwey
“A woman with a voice is, by definition, a strong woman.”
Melinda Gates
“No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.”
Eleanor Roosevelt
Heart Healing Step – Practice Radical Awareness
Listen to what you tell yourself. Carry a notebook around for a week and write your limiting or negative thoughts in it. After a week, review what you are telling yourself. Journal about where these thoughts might have come from. Decide if you want to keep them. If not, strike these written thoughts out or burn the papers. What new beliefs do you want to replace these thoughts with? You can decide to nurture yourself with positive thoughts. Write those down and read them each morning. Create a beautiful day.
“Beauty is not in the face. Beauty is in the light in the heart.”
Kahlil Gibran
“The way I see it, if you want the rainbow, you gotta put up with the rain.”
Dolly Parton
Heart Healing Step – Breathe, baby breathe…
It’s a scientific way to trick your body into thinking that things are going well. Deep breathing increases the flow of oxygen to your brain and stimulates the parasympathetic nervous system. We can use science to make us feel better.
“The ultimate lesson all of us have to learn is unconditional love, which includes not only others,but ourselves.”
Elizabeth Kubler-Ross
“The best way to clear one’s mind is to commune with nature”
Nancy Drew, The Hidden Staircase
Heart Healing Step – Choose Your Own Adventure
Create an extensive list of what helps you feel happy. Get serious about what makes you feel good. Brainstorm in a notebook. Here are some of the things that made it to my list.
- Physical pleasure
- Laughter yoga (I practice it in the shower)
- Breaking out of my routine (going somewhere a new way, grocery shop in a new store, visit a new library)
- Watching cat or dog videos
- Swap homes with a friend in another city
- Connect with or help a stranger (ie. Holding a door, say hi to them in passing, offer to take a tourists photo)
Once you identify what helps you feel happy, you can recognize it and go for it.
“There is nothing stronger in the world than gentleness.”
Han Suyin
“I don’t want to be a passenger in my own life.”
Diane Ackerman
Heart Healing Step – Take an Eagles View
When I moved into my apartment, there were hunting birds who circled outside my window. They floated on the breeze. I loved watching how easy it was for them to sail about, looking for their next meal with their sharp eyes. I liked to imagine what they saw and one day, I started to imagine my own future at a distance. I created a vision board that day and suddenly, my future was within my sight. I looked at it each morning and it made me feel like I had a brighter future.
“The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams.”
Eleanor Roosevelt
“Growth and comfort do not coexist.”
Ginny Rometty
Heart Healing Step – Try Something New
Grief can also be a time of renewal, reimagining and rebuilding. Accept that you’re grieving. Then, shake things up. Try one small new thing today. Choose a new experience, try new food, listen to new music, cook a new recipe. What else can you try? It feels good to step up and out of your comfort zone. Anything is fair game.
“A flower does not think of competing with the flower next to it. It just blooms.”
Anonymous
“It is not the destination where you end up but the mishaps and memories you create along the
way.”Penelope Riley
