Recapturing a sense wonder and appreciation can create a quality that connects you to what enraptures you. To what lifts you into a better view. And enhances a joyful unfolding, and freshness, as a trueness to your you’ness. As each day unfolds into newness, while you connect to your experience.
It is about enchantment. A magical incantation. And a delightful meditation. Even a natural medication. To lift your life toward greater fulfillment, and enrichment, with mindful attention.
Finding regular moments of enchantment is something I focus my clients on as a way of managing through challenging change and transition. Or when they are dealing with circumstances, and people who need their support and assistance, and forget their own needs in the process.
Taking enchantment enhancement steps, and then building upon them. Creating a lifestyle with regular, and daily, wellbeing practices. Investing in the chemicals that are gained from happiness. To shift mindsets, and foster resilience.
And now, as ever, is an opportune time to solidify a focus on lifestyle enchantment enhancement practices, because many professionals are coping less well than at the peak of the pandemic, and because unpredictibility of change continuity, is having an impact, on the ongoing metrics of wellbeing.
And while there are deeper issues in workplaces that continue to need to be addressed, there are four key personal areas, complimenting your mandala of wholeness, that I recommend for focus, so happiness chemicals can take affect. I call it the SOFTR approach.
SOFTR stands for Shifting, Opening, Flourishing, and The Reward. It enhances the key chemical reactions resulting from wellness practices. And I teach it, when necessary, to professionals I meet:
- Shifting Your Mood : Seratonin. This can be achieved using mindfulness practices, gaining exposure to sunshine and the outdoors, being in a garden, and taking nature walks. Getting outside, meditating, or taking part in a favourite pastime, or activity, that adds value to your mood. As you pay attention to how it makes you feel good.
- Opening to Your Connections : Oxytocin. Being with people or pets who you love, with physical touch, and enjoying the company of those who are loving, and who care for you too. Feeling the heart connection between you.
- Flourishing : Endorphin. Feeling your body through physical exercise, enjoying dance and music, or laughter. Like a boost through an outdoor run, or watching a great comedian/comedy and having a good belly laugh, listening to your favourite song and singing along, or dancing to the beat of your ideal music drum. Feeling a lightness, and relief, that it brings, along with some fun.
- The Reward : Dopamine. Eating nourishing foods that you appreciate and make your body feel well and good, having a sense of achievement with passions or goals that you pursue, getting solid and deeply restful sleep that brightens your outlook, relishing the finishing of a great compelling book.
Life can be tough, and just coping is not enough. Breaking stress circuits can help to lighten things up. A regular SOFTR focus may need to become the control locus for solid ongoing chemical improvements, and longevity, for thrivability.
When Shakespeare said that ‘It is not in the stars to hold our destiny but in ourselves’, it reminds us that we owe it to ourselves to find what is our rapture, enchantment, beauty and contentment. An inner moment that explodes to outer enjoyment. Our heart beat. Our mind feat. Our sumptuous banquet of chemical enhancement. Exploring it. Indulging it. Giving into it. And cultivating it.
But what about my responsibilities, my duties, my fears and anxieties, I hear some say…Aha, that is precisely when you may need a little play, an emergency enrapturement, a joy rehydration, a fun intervention, a deep immersion, a creative intrusion, an attitudinal shift, or a holiday, so you can better deal with what’s in front of you, with an enhanced, ripple effect, perspective and attitude.
Think about, act upon, take time out, to factor in appreciation for the SOFTR things. In quality, and experiencing. Shifting, Opening and Flourishing for The Rewards it brings. An Enchantment Enhancement for wellness feelings that can newly spring.
SaraSwati Shakti
SaraSwati Shakti is a leadership and wellness coach who not only takes her own wellbeing seriously but also those she works with and meets. Sara provides coaching for professionals and assists them to discover and navigate their path to a more fulfilled and magnificent life. She holds a graduate Diploma in Counselling and Psychotherapy from Jansen Newman Institute, and Bachelor of Business and Graduate Certificate in Adult Education from University of Technology, Sydney.
Enchantment Enhancement is adapted from an article first published in lovingpsycheblogspot in 2013.
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Photo: Sunrise, North of Sydney NSW by SaraSwati Shakti 2016.