Spiritual Fridays: 7 Roads to Serenity

Walk a ton
Method: Put on your walking shoes and walk as far and as long as you can. Carry a GPS if you have a tendency to panic when you get lost. Else, just enjoy the experience of taking a road you don't know and finding your own way home. There's a saying that goes, “you have to travel really far away from yourself to find yourself”. This works if you walk long enough too. There's something therapeutic about doing something just for the sake of doing it. As it involves doing something, walking may be the easiest form of meditation to start of with. If you choose to make it more complex, focus on the way your feet hit the pavement, on the way your hips sway or your hands swing. Can you feel your muscles moving in tandem to your mind's instructions? If you're not the walk-alone types, take a friend along. You'll find stories bubbling to the surface as you walk along—stories that you've forgotten, incidents that you've suppressed, memories that bring much joy, new ideas...

After-Effects: Health benefits aside, walking will leave you calmer, more focused and wiser than before. There's a reason you're advised to “walk away” from a bad situation or to “walk off” your anger—walking works magic, on your body, mind and soul.

Just Dance
Method: It doesn't matter what music you're listening to, just moving your body to a beat can be a balm to your soul. That said, the happier the music you dance to, the happier you are likely to feel.

After-Effects: Letting your body express the angst in your mind can be truly liberating. But don't take my word for it. Try it, you'll know.

Let the Music Heal your Soul
Method: There are tonnes of guided meditations as well as meditational music out there. But if research is to be believed classical music has powers beyond compare. That said, this is your meditation, so pick music that you love, get yourself a good pair of ear phones, tune out the world and tune in to yourself.

After-Effects: If you load your playlist carefully, you can pull yourself out of your lowest lows, calm a raging mind, make sense of nonsense and so much more.  

The Art of Meditation
Method: Pick an art form—painting, playing a flute, making a clay pot, cooking gourmet cuisine... Even if you don't practice daily, every time you try your hand at your chosen skill, try to take it to the next level.  

After-Effects: The joy that comes from getting lost in an art, can't be bought for any price in any market in the world. But the only way you'll own it, is if you earn it.

Sowing Peace
Method: Plant your own kitchen garden, sing lullabies to your plants, admire your neighbour's yard, walk barefoot on grass... I'm sure you'll have a few fresh ideas of your own, so we'll stop there. From a beautiful translucent chrysalis and an unfurling bud to the scent of freshly watered earth and nursing dead plants back to life—you'll find much to sooth your mind when you're really looking. 

After-Effects: You'll find that pottering around plants leaves you feeling oddly peaceful. Perhaps it's the soothing nature of the colour green, perhaps it's that old adage 'give and you'll receive' (or in this case, sow and you shall reap). Who knows?    

Wander in the Water Wonderland
Method: Sit by a sea, river, waterfall or any moving water-body close to you. It doesn't matter whether you're with a friend–catching up, or simply sitting by yourself and staring away in silence. The sound of the constantly crashing waves, water gushing down into a fall or the river running about in fun and frolic will ensure that you completely lose track of time, in no time... And if you allow yourself to get carried away, you will soon go into a trance, where you're aware of what's happening around you and yet feel like you've gone beyond; everything seems like a movie playing at a distance. Sometimes you'll experience this even when you're standing under the shower or listening to the bucket fill as you take a bath.

After-Effects: Water therapy of this kind is bound to bring you calm and relaxation, at times you may feel light and positive and at other times the water may touch a deeper note leaving you meditative. If you have trouble sleeping at night, this experience will also drive away your insomnia woes.

Clean up to feel 'all clear'
Method: If you feel you're losing the plot, don't know the way ahead, don't know what to do and getting all worked up, just start cleaning your wardrobe, the drawer, the bathroom, the frames hanging in your living room or anything that comes your way. Soon you'll realise that in the process of cleaning and arranging things around you, you've cleansed yourself of all negativity. You will feel less scattered and directionless now, your life will seem more organised, like it's back on track. To add to it, there's always a sense of accomplishment you're bound to feel at the end of such an exercise, as with any work you do with your hands...

After-Effects: Well besides the sense of elation at the fact that you've already completed some work that was pending, doing some cleaning will ensure that you're upbeat and less moody, or you're tired enough to move into a much-needed peaceful nap or sleep.