The Art of Cultivating Contentment
In my journey of learning how to Thrive In The City, a theme that comes up frequently is art of contentment. It’s like a quiet kungfu master that challenges me to come back into the ring. I know you can do better.
As I’ve practiced contentment in my own life, the quality of my days has blossomed. There is space for me to breathe, play and enjoy all the miracles (and the madness) in my life. I can dance with the chaos and — you guessed it — find contentment in it. Here are some of the shifts that have lightened my load and lifted my spirits.
Be aware of (subtle) Negative Spirals
Negativity creeps up slowly.
A desire to make a positive improvement can tune our focus to everything that is wrong.
I wanted to make my bedroom an inspiring space so in 2018, I set out to learn how to decorate. At the time, I was also reading many books about productivity and realized just how crucial our physical space is. A messy space creates a messy mind.
I gave myself a small budget and headed out to Ikea and the dollar store. With some help from Pinterest, I turned my bedroom into a little creative studio with a white, ocean blue and sunflower yellow colour palette. I was proud of my creation. However, the rest of the house, which belonged to my parents, was in a frequent state of disarray. Little clumps of clutter would show up around the house every two or three days and this messiness was getting on my nerve. I found myself getting annoyed that my parents could not keep their house tidy.
Negativity festered inside me and grew, until I became quite discontent with the house. I became aware of my negativity and committed to toning up my contentment muscles
2. Deliberately slow down to notice the good.
When I come home from work, my mind is usually still churning. If I don’t do something to allow the churn to come to a full stop, my whole evening will be lost in a state of unconsciousness.
Nowadays, I make a point to not do anything when I’m eating dinner. I don’t watch TV. I resist the magazine. I avoid my phone. My dinner is a sacred ritual where I am ingesting nutrition to feed my body and my soul. My body needs nutrients. My soul needs the nutrient of gratitude, appreciation, peace, harmony. I like to look at my food and attempt to taste it. (I say attempt, because mindful eating is still a work in progress.)
When I eat slowly, the churning in my mind slows down from the 100 km/h pace I use at work, to the 50 km/h pace when I walk into my house down to now 20 km/h where I am relaxed.
From this calm state, contentment bubbles up authentically. It is much easier for my mind to dwell on the good, when I’m not multitasking.
Bonus tip: On weekends, I made a point to go from the 20km/h pace all the way down to 0 km/h by taking a bath, spending a few hours in the woods, or curling up with a book for an afternoon. These self-care/soul-care rituals help my nervous system to completely unwind, refuelling me for the week ahead.
3. Stop Shopping
This is the easiest practice to incorporate in your life: just go cold turkey. For the next week, do not go into any stores. Give yourself one exception — to get groceries for the week, but beyond this, stay away from strip malls, shopping malls, even the weekly flyers that come in the mail. Stay away from Amazon and online shopping. Don’t even put anything in on your “wish list” to get later. Empty your cart. Stow away your credit cards. Give gratitude lists a chance to replace shopping lists in your mind.
The first thing you’ll notice is just how automatic the impulse to buy can be. We’ve been brainwashed into thinking that we need much more than we do. For some us, shopping is a hobby, a form of therapy and leisure. Either way, it takes a lot of time.
Shopping can also become a practice of coveting. In stead of spending an hour tending to the provision in our own fridges and shelves, we admire and desire what sits on other people’s shelves. An hour of shopping here and there, can become 20-30 hours of shopping per month. Those are hours that would be spent with friends, enjoying a hobby, going on a little adventure or doing something creative.
By shopping less, I give my mind a chance to practice gratitude, instead of desire. I notice my stockpile of contentment grows, and I live my days with more kindness and generosity — towards myself and others.
4. Clean with Joy
Taking a queue from The Lifechanging Magic of Tidying Up by Marie Kondo, I now consider the act of cleaning my room or my house a sacred ritual. It is a special event! And it’s fun! It’s an opportunity to calm through all of my possessions and be grateful for the service they render in my life. It’s an opportunity to tune into my soul and consider if these items, in this arrangement, are helping me to become the person I want to be, or stalling me.
I typically do a simple tidying of my room every 1-2 weeks and a deep clean every 3-4 months. In a deep clean, I will look through every book on my shelves, every pencil in my drawers and decide if I want it to stay. This process brings holiness and ceremony into my life. It is also a chunk of time that I am not scrolling with Amazon, or shopping. It is a physical ritual of reminding myself how much I already have, not just a mental ritual.
Of course, when I’m cleaning, my mind will get sidetracked and start thinking of other things, but I bring my mind back to contentment as soon I remember.
Cultivating contentment is going to be a lifelong process. It’s a practice that bears invisible fruit. There is no one to congratulate us when we have spend a full day being content with our jobs, houses, cars, foods, the air and our hair. But this is why we have to consciously honour the importance of contentment and bring it to the forefront of our hearts and minds.
A heart full of contentment is the sweetest fruit of them all!
