There is nothing more exciting than living a life of constant self-renewal. Self-renewal is the attention you give towards ensuring that your life is forward-moving, with every step bringing you closer to who you really are. It entails stripping away the old and stale, so that you become increasingly aware of the purity of your true essence.
Every time you renew yourself, you relate to your world with a renewed sense of aliveness, seeing beauty and colours through fresh eyes. As you experience this newness, your life-force is activated. Life, inside and outside of you, becomes rich and inspiring.
If you are feeling stuck, dull, bored, or lacking inspiration, it may be time to take steps to renew yourself.
It is normal to feel stuck and uninspired from time to time. In fact, feeling stuck and uninspired is necessary for you to transition to being bigger and better. When you recognise that you have reached a point where you are stagnant in life and then do something to shake things up, you are taking an empowered step to grow – to stretch yourself to actualise your highest potential. Thus, it is an opportunity to experience anew feelings of aliveness and passion… that everything is pulsating with an abundance of possibilities.
Here are 20 powerful ways to renew yourself.
Renew Yourself
1. Let It Go
If something is not working anymore, let it go. Where in your life might you be holding on to something that has gone stale? Look at your relationships, work, social life, health and wellbeing. If they are anything less than inspiring to you, decide to move on to something better. Being in stale situations drains you of energy and dampens your spirit. Drop the old and pick up something new. This does not necessarily mean ditching your current relationships or job (though it can). It’s about making a declaration that you’ve had enough of how things are and you’re committed to change things so that you are happier.
2. Go to a New Place
Taking yourself physically to another environment is one of the most effective ways to refresh and rejuvenate your spirit. It doesn’t matter if you’re travelling to a faraway country, visiting a local site, taking a bus to the next town, hopping on a train to another part of the country, or simply taking a leisurely drive 10 miles away from home. As you travel from your home base to another place, it’s a metaphor for moving out of your staleness. The new stimulations in an unfamiliar environment will freshen your mind and broaden your perspective. You may come home from your trip with great ideas to solve a problem.
3. Give Up Your Story
We all have our favourite story, the one we keep playing in our head. Usually the theme is some kind of injustice perpetrated against us. Being without our story can be scary since it has defined us for so long. But giving it up will instantly leave you loads lighter. You can simply decide to stop having this story that has caused you much misery. Reflect on why you’ve invested so much in your story. We tend to hang on to our resentment to those who have wronged us, because to forgive would be to assume responsibility for our lives and that can feel scary. Decide to give up bitterness so happiness can take its place.
4. Give Your Body A Good Workout
One of the quickest ways to clear the cobwebs is to work your body until you sweat. As your heart rate increases and your blood circulates freely, toxins are released through your skin and breath. You feel fresh and rejuvenated. You sense spaciousness in your being rather than boxed in a small, limited world. You regain your sense of power and worth. You’ve been renewed. For an even more kick-ass renewal, work-out consistently to get a fitter body. Get in your best shape.
5. Walk Backwards
Literally or metaphorically. There’s an old shamanic exercise of devoting a day to do everything the opposite of how you normally do them. For example, if you normally stay in bed after your alarm goes off, you could get out of bed immediately. If you normally then walk to your bathroom to brush your teeth, you might want to walk to your kitchen to make a cup of coffee instead. Or you might want to walk to your bathroom backwards! Spending half a day doing this will leave you feeling like a new person. If you don’t have the luxury of being in your own private space and time (say, you have to be at work), you can still do this but by checking in with your internal reactions to what is going on around you and doing the opposite. The idea is to break your automatic patterns by taking you out of your rut and curing stuckness with a dramatic infusion of newness. Be off-beat and have fun with it.
6. Breathe!
Breath is one of the most overlooked and under-used tools we have. It can be used to powerful effect for dissolving psychological blocks, relaxation, invigorating our spirit, and much more. To renew yourself, gently release all the stresses in your mind, worries, fearful scenarios, hurt, sadness, loneliness, guilt, shame, anger and resentment out of your breath as you exhale through your mouth. Imagine that your breath is a vehicle that carries your stresses out of you. As you inhale through your nose, imagine breathing in fresh, healing energy. Continue with releasing heaviness on exhalation and replenishing your energies on inhalation until you feel renewed.
7. Sense the Movement
The invisible world is filled with movements, even if you can’t see it. When you open your senses to these movements, all of a sudden the world feels more alive, abundant and intriguing. Life is naturally moving all the time, evolving from one form to another. Imagine you are riding on these movements. One moment you are here, and the next moment you are there. You are no longer stuck. Because everything is in perpetual movement, it actually takes more energy to remain stagnant. If you simply let go of control, you fall back into the natural flow – like surrendering to the current that takes you down the river, away from staleness.
8. Break the Mental Loop
Your mind may have been stuck with the same thoughts playing like a broken record. For instance, your thoughts might go like this: “He is so selfish – I wish he would change the way he talks to me – he’s not going to change – I don’t want to rock the boat – it’s driving me crazy – he is so selfish….” When your thoughts go in circles, there is little chance for resolution. To break this mental loop, change one of the constructs or interject it with a new element. You might change “he’s not going to change” to “maybe I could try talking to him about it”. You’re no longer stuck in the same place of frustration, and you begin to move on a different course.
9. Borrow from Nature
Go to a place of nature. A park, the seaside, your backyard garden, or hike to the top of a hill. Look around you and see if you can pick anything that symbolises renewal. You might spot some baby leaves sprouting from a dead trunk, flowers with half-opened petals, fruits peeking out from among thick shrubs, the hungry cries of baby birds from the tree above you, an abandoned shell of a crab that has gone on to grow a new one. Take a moment to appreciate the quality of newness it invokes in you as you internalise it into your body, heart and mind. Breathe in the newness and let it wash through your entire being. Feel your spirit rejuvenated.
10. Get A New Identity
Your true essence is unchangeable but you can choose a different identity at any time. Your identity is who you see yourself to be; as you express this identity, it becomes the ‘package’ by which others identify you. If you’re no longer inspired by the way you see yourself and others see you, you can adopt a new identity by changing your beliefs, choosing to accentuate other personality traits, emphasising different values, or adding a new flavour to your self-expression. Our beliefs and values can change overtime, and what used to define you strongly may no longer be an authentic part of you. Keep your identity fresh and current.
11. Take a Herbal Steam Bath
Just as snakes shed their skins to rejuvenate, renew and grow, exfoliating our skins can make us feel like we’re stepping out of our hardened shell. Give your body a good scrub in a steam bath; the steam softens the dead skins and opens up your pores, so you’re able to get rid of more rubbish. If possible, take a herbal steam bath where purifying herbs are added to the hot water to produce steam. The herbal vapour is not only absorbed into your skin to draw out toxins, it is also inhaled into the lungs to remove toxins via respiration. You will step out of a herbal steam bath feeling reborn.
12. Change Your Vibes
One of the quickest ways to change your vibes is to express gratitude. Think of five things you can be grateful for now. If you can’t think of anything, you may be taking your treasures for granted. To break through, think of how you would feel if you didn’t have the things you have now. Start with your physical body – if you can see, imagine not having sight. Now how does it feel to know that you have both your eyes and your vision? Do this for your limbs, organs and senses. Then extend it to the people in your life, to what’s around you, to the abundance in the world. As your appreciation grows, you will feel more and more expansive – imbuing you with new, positive vibes.
13. Socialise with Different People
Talking and sharing with people you might not usually interact with can open your eyes to new experiences, enriching you in ways you might never expect. Join a new group, a community club, a hobby class, or volunteer for a charity or project. Keep an open mind and be prepared to find unlikely sources of inspiration. You may even meet yourself in a new way. Stretching yourself out of your comfort zone to mingle with new people can leave you feeling filled to the brim with satisfaction, love and inspiration.
Full of life
14. Detox Your Mind
Cut out gossips, blaming and discussions of fearful theories. We devote far too much energy to these mental activities. Once you’ve cut them out, feel how much more energy you have. Be ruthless in censoring your thoughts and verbal expressions. Feed your brain with only inspiring and uplifting content. Try this for a day and see how different you feel at the end of it – fresh and uplifted. Do it for a week and you might change your attitude for good.
15. No More Promises
Do you have a list of unfilfilled promises you have made to others? If so, look at your list and for every promise take one step to move closer to fulfilling it (or better still, fulfill it once and for all). Your energy stops flowing when you carry these burdens; it weighs you down mentally and emotionally. Do not make another commitment until you’ve delivered on your current promises. If you can’t fulfil them, be honest about it with the other party or negotiate a new way in which you may deliver on it.
16. Make a Pledge with Your Spiritual Ally
Most people have some connection to a spiritual presence, but it’s easy to lose that connection in times of stress. Yet highly stressful times are powerful opportunities to strengthen your spiritual connection. Your spiritual ally is who you pray to – God, deities, saints, your higher self, spirit guides, etc. Imagine holding the hand of your spiritual ally and feel the energy coursing through you on contact. Honour and pay homage to this sacred alliance. Be comforted by the knowledge that you are not on your own, that there is something bigger than you, looking out for you. Renew your faith in being protected, guided and supported in your journey.
17. Declutter Your Space
Your environment has an effect on the way you think and feel. We are constantly absorbing messages from our environment. Thus, if what you see around you is messiness, disorganisation and clutter, your mind will link all those qualities with what is going on inside you. Get rid of things that are useless, outdated or broken. Clean surfaces of dust. Clear up your space to create a feeling of spaciousness within you – giving you more room to manoeuvre and ideas to come in.
18. Return to Innocence
Throw out the rules about being an adult! Be like a child again, with your wonderment, delight, curiosity and awe towards the world around you. Imagine you are untainted by the harshness of life. Indeed, there’s a part in you that has remained pure and innocent, no matter what you have gone through in life. Look at the world through the eyes of this aspect of you. See how everything seems intriguing. Express your child-like appreciation for the wonders in your world.
19. Drop A Bad Habit
It takes a lot of energy to sustain a habit which you know is bad for you. The effects of the habit, and the self-beating that accompanies it, put a heavy toll on your overall wellbeing. Most likely, you’ve been stuck in a cycle of wanting to stop your habit but finding yourself continuing. Imagine stopping at your tracks and turning to face a different direction. Now go. Walk on a deviated path and enjoy the new sights and smells.
20. Express Your Feelings
Frustrations. Resentment. Anger. Envy. Guilt. Shame. Could any of these feelings be weighing you down, eating you up inside? Owning up to having unexpressed emotions is a big step to unloading your baggage and emerging as a new person. Find a way to express these emotions. Write or speak your feelings – tell a story, exaggerate, be theatrical. Get it out of your system! Then come back and enjoy the feeling of lightness.