Break your routine

What kind of spiritual life do you have? Do you have any spiritual practice? This morning think about expanding your spiritual perspective. Are you a regular worshipper? Think about visiting another place of worship, either of your own or a different faith. Or stay at home and spend some time in meditation and quiet prayer.

If you have no faith and no spiritual practice, think about your relationship to the divine. If you have a longstanding dislike of church or synagogue or mosque, maybe now is the time to re-evaluate. If there is a service this morning, why not go? If not, maybe just visit to get a feel for the place.

Transform a difficult relationship
We can get into bad habits with people just as easily as we can with our activities. This afternoon try a technique to break such a habit. Think of someone with whom you have a bad or difficult relationship.

1. Sit or lie down and breathe calmly and deeply.
2. Write down your reasons for the bad relationship. Pour out all your resentment and any feelings of anger.
3. Set up two chairs. Sit in one and imagine the other person is sitting in the other. Tell them exactly why you find them so difficult.
4. Swap chairs and imagine you are the other person. Why do they find you so difficult or unreasonable? Slip into their shoes and express their grievances. Swap chairs like this until you understand both sides of the issue. Try to accept that there are two sides to every disagreement. People are just different!
5. Burn the piece of paper containing your grievances.
6. Send unconditional love to the person. This may be hard but persist as it is deeply transformative.

Brain gym
Belly breathing and brain buttons are educational kinesiology exercises, which will help you re-tune your brain and start seeing the world in a different way.

Brain buttons
This stimulates the carotid arteries, which supply freshly oxygenated blood to the brain. It helps re-establish directional messages from parts of the body to the brain, so improving reading, writing, speaking and the ability to follow directions.

1. Rest one hand over your navel.
2. With the thumb and fingers of the other hand, feel for the two hollow areas under the collarbone, about an inch (2.5 cm) out from the middle of the chest. Rub these areas vigorously for 30 seconds to one minute, as you look from left to right.

Belly breathing
This improves the supply of oxygen to the entire body and relaxes the central nervous system while increasing your energy levels. It can help improve both reading and speaking abilities.

1. Put your hands on your abdomen. Exhale through your mouth in short little puffs, as if you are keeping a feather in the air, until your lungs feel empty.
2. Inhale deeply through your nose, filling yourself like a balloon beneath your hand. (By arching your back slightly you can take in even more air.)
3. Slowly and fully exhale through your mouth.
4. Repeat this inhalation and exhalation in a natural rhythm during the course of three or more breaths.

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