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42 pages

English

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A practical guide for living with mindfulness and moderation in 7 key areas of life.
We live in a society of excess and extremes. In "The Golden Mean: Mindful Moderation in 7 Key Areas of Life," Dr. Anita Gadhia-Smith discusses practical psychological methods to use moderation to maximize our strengths in 7 key areas of life: time, relationships, money, food, thought, speaking and activity. By applying time-tested knowledge and powerful principles, we can learn to manage even the most difficult challenges that we face in managing our lives in today's complex world.

Sujets

Mindulness

Meditation

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Publié par	iUniverse
Date de parution	11 juillet 2023
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9781663254450
Langue	English

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0200€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

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THE GOLDEN MEAN
MINDFUL MODERATION IN 7 KEY AREAS OF LIFE
DR. ANITA GADHIA-SMITH

THE GOLDEN MEAN MINDFUL MODERATION IN 7 KEY AREAS OF LIFE

Copyright © 2023 Dr. Anita Gadhia-Smith.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

iUniverse
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Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.
Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.

ISBN: 978-1-6632-5444-3 (sc)
ISBN: 978-1-6632-5445-0 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2023912544

iUniverse rev. date: 07/06/2023
CONTENTS
Introduction

Chapter 1Time
Chapter 2Relationships
Chapter 3Money
Chapter 4Food
Chapter 5Thought
Chapter 6Speaking
Chapter 7Activity
INTRODUCTION
This book was written to help you to find balance in your own life during difficult times in our world. It is very easy to lose our direction when the world is de-centered and so many around us are struggling to find their way. Moderation is a concept that we can apply to every area of our lives in order to live mindfully and to experience maximum joy.
I hope that you will take the time to assess your life in each of the seven areas discussed in this book and evaluate where you want to make improvements. Incremental progress can add up to massive positive change over time. There is no change too small to make a difference and to help you to build momentum. I encourage you to make the most of your life in every way!
CHAPTER 1 TIME

W hat are you doing with what you’ve got? Of all the resources that we ever possess, time is the most valuable, finite, and irreplaceable. We can always replenish money and energy, but time spent is time gone forever. That is why it is essential to develop a conscious moderation of the use of time in order to create balance in our lives.
With time consciousness, we are intentional about the use of our day. We develop the capacity to live a balanced life, which includes time for work, rest, and play. We are aware of the opportunities and limitations of each day and strive to make the most of our time and our lives, one day at a time.
In a world that is constantly competing for our time and attention, this can be a great challenge. With the advent of the constant attachment to electronics, it has become more difficult to rest, to clear our minds, and to stop thinking. It is also now a greater challenge to restore ourselves and play in ways that provide true fun, joy, regeneration, and life-sustaining connection with other human beings, and not just live in the virtual world of our devices.
It’s very easy to simply waste our time without even realizing it. On the internet, there are endless apps, sites, subjects, and interesting things that we can get lost in and dissociate from the real world. We can use social media and the internet to escape or to enrich. While the internet can be very educational, a great help, and a great source of learning, we can also waste time if we don’t use it mindfully. We can fritter away time without even realizing it.
How much time are you spending working every day? Resting and re-creating your spirit? Having fun and enjoying yourself? Take a written inventory of your time, and ask yourself where you might be spending too much and where you might be lacking.
There are two ways to use time: investing it and wasting it. Make sure that you know the ways that you are actually spending your time and that it is truly productive. Most activities that you engage in, including work, play, and rest, should be intentional and should benefit either you or someone else. There is also the need to allow for free time, which opens up new creativity in your life.
Time that is invested involves your purpose, calling, service to others, well-being, health, learning, and growth—all fruitful forms of time investment. These are the primary ways that most of our time can be used well in any given day.
What are the things that waste your time? Are you saying yes to things that you really should decline? Are you doing things that don’t really matter or that you don’t really want to do, just to gain approval or to please other people? Ask yourself if that is really how you want to spend your precious time.
Living our lives in service of others can be a calling, but wasting our time in service to what others should be doing for themselves is a liability. When we are enablers and do for others what they need to learn to do for themselves, we deprive them of the opportunity to learn, grow, and mature. We assist them in staying stuck and keep them dependent on us, which can be a very self-serving dynamic.
There are times when you can help a person get started with doing things for themselves, but then you need to step back and let them take their own responsibility. This is a way of loving them without getting in the way of their growth and what they need to do for themselves. It is a way to use moderation in the helping realm. Moderation in helping others is essential.
We need to be honest with ourselves about our motives and be able to differentiate what we do for other people and whether it is life-giving or life-taking. Be true to yourself, and honest about your own motives, what you feel, and what you are called to do regarding your own purpose in life.
In order to be true to yourself, you have to know who you are. If you don’t know who you are, find out who you are. You might begin by reading one of my previous books entitled “7 KEYS TO PERSONAL IDENTITY.” Who you are includes your calling, goals, and visions for your own life.
Take a yearly inventory and write down everything that you accomplished in the past year. Then write out goals for the coming year. Try to set short and long-term goals for yourself every year, and write these goals down before the beginning of the year. When you write down your goals, you make them real and you commit yourself to them at the unconscious and conscious levels.
Think about small actions that can be taken every single day in the direction of your goals. A 1% difference every day can add up to a completely new change of direction in your life in the long term. Sometimes we need to take big actions, but most of the time our lives and progress are the product of many small actions taken consistently over a long period of time.
Certain mental health issues can make it difficult to focus and channel the use of our time productively, for example, ADHD, anxiety, and depression. There are many others, but these are some of the most common that many people experience at some point in life.
Managing ADHD behaviorally requires a decision to commit to self-discipline, including practical strategies such as consistent time management, daily self-care involving sleep and nutrition, and the use of a calendar. By separating out blocks of time and chunks of your day, you can train yourself to use moderation to accomplish a great deal with the time that you have.
Some people with ADHD have difficulty focusing, while others lean towards hyper focusing and can’t tear themselves away from what they are doing if they are deeply interested in it. Having routine, a planned structure, and a calendar can make all the difference in the world. Even if you have not been diagnosed with ADHD, we live in a very distracted world, and it is a challenge for all of us to avoid multitasking and to focus our time and attention consistently.
Anxiety can also make it a challenge to manage our time. It can cause us to behave compulsively or to not act all out of frozen fear. When the energy of anxiety is discharged, it can be a powerful fuel source.
Many anxious people can get a lot done if they learn how to release and moderate their energy and channel it in productive ways. However, anxiety can also cause energy to get stuck or be wasted if it is used compulsively and obsessively in an effort to simply bind itself.
For example, with OCD, obsessive-compulsive behaviors occur in order to bind and contain an underlying anxiety which is uncontrollable and uncomfortable. It gives the person a place to put their anxiety in order to manage it and feel a sense of control. They feel some psychic relief when they assign the anxiety to a particular task, even if it is something repetitive that they do over and over again.
As with anger, the energy of anxiety can be harnessed and directed for the good. With moderation and discipline, a certain amount of anxiety will motivate you to do things in your life and to complete them. This can be a very positive thing if it is moderated and managed. Without any anxiety at all, we might just contentedly stay home on the couch and do nothing except watch TV.
This is why medication or self-medication with mood-altering substances can be a double-edged sword. Medicine can dumb down your feelings and make you feel more comfortable, but it can also prevent you from experiencing the necessary discomfort that you need in order to make changes