5 Spiritual Practices That Can Increase Well-Being (2 of 3)

Awe

Being in awe is basically a more specific form of mindfulness. You’re not just being mindful of things, you’re actively looking for things to be in awe of. “Awe walks” are a relatively new thing, where you go on short walks through nature or wherever and look for something to basically completely sweep you off your feet. It could be just the dancing movements a floating leaf makes in the wind or the way the sun lights up the sky as it’s going under – as long as it’s something that genuinely makes you feel in awe.

Forgiveness

While a lot of techniques for increasing your well-being focus on being more mindful of the positives in life, this one does the exact opposite. Forgiveness is all about letting go of negative emotions and negative energy. A specific practice for this called REACH deals with recalling what someone did to you, feeling empathy for their position, being altruistic, choosing to forgive, and holding on to this decision as difficult feelings resurface in the future. The short version of this is more akin to “just move on and deal with it.”