This exercise is called the four smiles exercise.
Basically all you do is take a moment, let your mouth soften into a smile, then expand that smile for each of the next three breaths. First, expanding it so you feel your whole mouth, not just your lips, but your whole inner mouth soften and rise into a smile. Your forehead, your throat, and you keep feeling that smile expand until you feel it in your heart. That literally takes four breaths and you’re feeling a lot more buoyant.
Tzivia Gover
Finish every day and be done with it. You have done what you could; some blunders and absurdities no doubt crept in; forget them as soon as you can. Tomorrow is a new day; you shall begin it serenely and with too high a spirit to be encumbered with your old nonsense.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Sufficient unto the day is the trouble thereof. Matthew 6:34
Abba Poemen said about Abba Pior that every single day he made a fresh beginning.
Abba Poemen Egyptian monk (c. 340–450)
Hold tight to what is most yourself, Don’t squander it
Don’t let your life be governed by what disturbs you.
Abu al-Ala al-Ma’arri , c. 973-1058, Arab philosopher, poet, and writer.
At any time you can ask yourself: At which threshold am I now standing? At this time in my life, what am I leaving? Where am I about to enter? What is preventing me from crossing my next threshold? What gift would enable me to do it? A threshold is not a simple boundary; it is a frontier that divides two different territories, rhythms, and atmospheres.
John O’Donohue, To Bless the Space Between Us
With mindfulness practice, you learn to see how the untrained mind is agitated by the human condition and how not to allow this general anxiety to fuel your fear in a specific situation. You also gain tolerance for the unpleasantness of uncertainty and also the naturalness of your own imperfection. You have confidence that “life is like this.” You cannot and are not supposed to miraculously fix it; rather, you gain the insight that happiness and peace come from relating to life just as it is.
Philipp Moffit, Freedom from Fear
Take rest;
a field that has rested gives a bountiful crop
Da requiem; requietus ager bene credita reddit
Ovid
