Whether you are dealing with a stressful period in your life or have just come through a difficult time, you need a change in your pattern to see clearly.
The Five Realms of Existence is a personal self-transformation tool to help bring clarity to the overwhelming process of looking at our life by taking a holistic and systematic approach to meeting your needs, healing your emotional wounds, and bringing much needed balance back into your life.
The Five Realms are the basic categories of your life – the physical, emotional, material, relationship, and spiritual. When you look at your life through the lens of the Five Realms, it allows you to move back and forth from the big picture to the blockages of our existence. It enables you to look at your life under the microscope and make small shifts that have a huge impact.
Simply walk yourself through The Five Realms-you only need about five minutes on each realm.
PHYSICAL REALM
Start with your physical realm – your body, what comes in and what goes out, what strengthens it and what weakens it. Pick one action to definitely do, and one thing to let go just for today. Don’t torture yourself. We just want to bring one thing into your physiology that will nourish and release one that’s not nourishing.
EMOTIONAL REALM
Walk yourself through your ability to monitor your own emotions (and other people’s); your ability to identify different emotions and label them appropriately. Place your attention on your level of empathy, compassion, hot buttons, trigger points, assumptions and conditioned responses. Commit to one emotional behavior that is serving you and keep it in your awareness throughout the day – create a mantra that you can keep flowing throughout the day such as “patience… patience… patience.” And every time you feel you’re about to respond in a way that might not serve you, take a deep breath in and as you exhale, repeat the mantra.
MATERIAL REALM
Now drift your attention to your material realm. Make one decision about how you will view the material abundance in the world. Seeing yourself as a never-ending conduit will flow through how you treat your money, finances, your debt, status, your position, possessions, dharma, your savings, hoarding or your giving. Allow abundance consciousness and wealth circulation to transform any feelings of poverty consciousness or less-than thinking. And throughout the day, remind yourself of that shift. Reinforce it by keeping the subtle intention “I am” running in the background of all your thought processes.
RELATIONSHIP REALM
Reflect on one relationship you have – with your self, your core family, friends, extended relationships, those with whom you have a grievance – and leading with love, take a step to either birth, repair, shift or end it. That’s right. Sometimes we have to end a relationship to destressify. Let it go, whether the relationship is with a person, a vice or an activity that is non-nourishing. Throughout the process, breathe in deeply as you allow these virtues to be cultivated within you: acceptance, forgiveness, compassion, honesty and impeccability of your word, your thoughts and your actions.
SPIRITUAL REALM
Finally, contemplate the spiritual realm. This is your connection to your soul and to the divine spirit, your daily practice of prayer, meditation and devotion to the divine. Contemplate your dharma or noble purpose in this life. Breathe in and plant a seed of oneness in your heart and let the universe kiss your soul.
