Milestones

milestones

Funny, how life shows us the way when we lead a mindful lifestyle. Seemingly appearing as a magic path of synchronicities however it is simply an evolution of awakening, listening to our inner voice, and stepping out of our own way.

Yesterday, on the new moon, I launched my online store, www.mindfulexpressionsonline.com

The intention being to make available tools and resources to help support a mindful lifestyle path. The same intention of this blog.

It launched with a few journals I designed and a couple of mugs and water bottles.  There is much more to come as my content list is long.

There is an old saying “When one door closes, another door opens”. That is how I feel today.  The door to trying to force things to work, for the vision I had 30 years ago, to a door of limitless opportunity to start this newest chapter.

Much more to come!

Namaste

Love & Light

Exercise for Changing Negative Thoughts

Most of us experience being on a negative thought train. Learning to be a compassionate and kind conductor can help shift your mindset.

In this exercise, you will be writing out a few things,  to simply bring them to your awareness.  The best place to start with mindfulness is learning to be more aware and less on auto-pilot.

You will be writing 5 negative things you say about yourself. These things can become habitual if we have not been practicing awareness.  Things like:

  • I will never be good enough
  • How can I be so stupid?
  • Things are so unfair
  • Life sucks

These are neither kind nor truthful.  They do not encompass the full truth, which contains a lot more positive things about you. More often than not, these thoughts are triggered by some event or memory.

More than likely these thoughts have become a habit; built and reinforced by years of conditioning.

By bringing them into your awareness, it opens the door to compassionately and mindfully shift them

Let’s start……….

Take 3 normal breaths

feel” the air as it comes in through your nose and out through your mouth

Grab your pen and…….

List 5 negative things you say to yourself

List 5 emotions or body sensations that occur when you write each thought

What are the next 5 things that pop into your mind?

Write 5 things you would say to someone you love if you heard them say these things out loud.

NOW… Ask Yourself

Is there a different way to see this within me?

What is my current perspective hiding from me?

To move forward, what are the 5 things that could replace the original thoughts?

The Blend of Mindfulness as a Lifestyle

The blending of two worlds can enhance your path to mindfulness as a lifestyle.

Modern western psychology and Ancient eastern meditation practices. In healthcare, mindfulness has 2 essential components.

Focused Attention – noticing and thinking about an object or sensation

Open Monitoring – Noticing thoughts and mental experiences while at the same time using non-judgmental observations.

As of today, I will be adding exercises in different categories where research is proving that living mindfully can increase improvement in numerous areas of our lives.   Areas such as anxiety, depression, PTSD,  ADHD, substance abuse, anger,  and pain management, just to name a few.

Over the past year, mental health which leads to physical health issues has risen in great proportion due to the many areas of life that the COVID pandemic has affected.

My original foundation in mindfulness – before it was a buzzword – was studying Louise Hays – You Can Heal Your Life.  That was the first step toward my focus and curiosity of how the brain works and just how powerful the words we use and the thoughts we think impact much more than we realize.

Journaling and Writing is the second area of my own practice.  That started with Julia Cameron – The Artist Way.  That in and of itself is a mindful exercise.  It puts you in the moment without judgment if you follow her morning pages theory.

Let me know in the comments what areas you would like to see some mindfulness exercises.  Today, you will find a few for pain management.

As always

Love & Light

Namaste

 

Focus Away from the Pain

Focus Away from the Pain

The power of the mind and its focus can be both a blessing or a curse. Without our conscious effort, we can become fixed on the “thoughts” that re-affirm the pain or discomfort we are having.

On the other hand, focusing on things that bring you joy, peace, and comfort help to tune out the thoughts that do not serve our well-being.

Turning our focus away from the pain is not the same as suppression or denial. It is a way to help us cope when we start to feel overwhelmed. It empowers us to shift gears for that moment.

Let’s start…….

Grab your piece of paper, notebook, or journal and your favorite pen.

Sit comfortably.  Firmly place both feet on the floor.  Take 3 natural breaths.

Now, take a deep belly breath.

(where you fill your belly with air and feel the exhale travel up from the belly, past your lungs, and out of your mouth).

 

Write 7 things that would help support you when you are feeling overwhelmed.  Things that bring you comfort, peace, joy, or support.

For example:

  1. Going for a walk
  2. Watching a funny video
  3. Petting your fur baby
  4. Writing in your journal
  5. Watching/listening to a “mindful minute”
  6. Looking at a picture of a loved one (mine is my grandbaby)
  7. Sitting in the sun (if possible)

Now, write three things you can do to get grounded.

For example:

  1. Touch each of your fingers with your thumb
  2. Count the number of pictures on the wall
  3. Firmly plant your feet. Try to push them through the floor.

 

What are some other activities or practices you could learn or use to help you re-focus?  Are there any barriers? How might you start to breakdown some of those barriers?

De-Personalize the Pain

De-Personalize the Pain

As we move through life, external focus on our circumstances occurs.  Things like:

I got caught in traffic.  He/She made me so mad.  If they just would…….

Learning to embrace and understand our personal, physical self is a big part of well-being. The experience of pain is the area we will explore today. Try to remain curious and open as you go through this exercise.

Think about an everyday chore or tasks that you have to do.   Laundry, planning or preparing meals, feeding the animals, going to work….You get the idea.

Write a quick story from your perspective.  What you did; how you felt about it.

Use words like I, me, my, or mine to describe the story.

NOW, tell the same story without any personalization.  You cannot use the words I, me, my, or mine (or your name) in the re-write.

  • How difficult was it to write it without placing yourself in the story?
  • How did it feel to see it from the second point of view?
  • What was the major difference between the two stories?

Next, repeat the practice of personalized and non-personalized stories with a painful experience.  Remember, this can be physical or emotional pain.  For this exercise though, choose a pain level around 2, 3, or 4. (on a scale of 1 to 10, 1 being lowest, 10 being extreme)

With the repeat of this exercise in regards to pain, ask yourself the same 3 questions above.

Close the exercise with this final question.

How might this experience support you in the future?

Support and Peace for your pain

Support and peace for your pain

 

Get comfortable.

Place both feet on the floor.

Feel your feet planted solidly on the ground.

Take 3 slow, natural breaths.

Now, take 1 deep belly breath.

(where you fill your belly with air and feel the exhale travel up from the belly, past your lungs, and out of your mouth).

 

Imagine you are in a serene setting.  Your favorite place to be.  The beach, the park, near a lake, in a grove of trees, outdoors in the warm sunshine, indoors near the air conditioner, you choose.

 

Now, imagine you are surrounded by loving family, friends, imaginary strangers, even your fur babies, that have nothing but love, kindness, support, and adoration for you.

 

Imagine the warmth you feel knowing that they are all here to support you, comfort you, and gently help to alleviate the pain you are feeling.

 

Imagine you are wrapped in a warm circle of light, gently touching any area of pain, discomfort, or tension.

 

Settle into the emotional feeling of some of the discomfort and tension leaving your body.  Feel that, truly feel what that would be like.

 

When your ready, slowly switch your thoughts back to the present moment and focus on your feet.  Feel the sturdy support of the ground under your feet. Visualize the warm circle of light now leaving through your feet and attaching to the ground.

 

Grab your pen and paper and answer these questions.

 

What was this like for you?

Did you notice any shifts in your emotions or physical senses?

Was any part of this difficult for you?

How was it to openly accept the love and support?

What did you learn about yourself?

 

 

Mindfulness & Creativity

Creativity is simply the ability to create.  You take an original idea, expand it with your imagination, add a dash of personality,  to produce artistic work.  That work can be anything from writing a blog post, creating a youtube thumbnail, creating your own recipe, writing music, singing a song, dancing a dance, or even a new way to share ideas.

So, does mindfulness enhance creativity? yes and no.  Indirectly, it helps to relieve stress, which oftentimes leads to overwhelming thoughts or rumination of negative thinking.  It becomes a runaway train of thoughts.   When you are in this state of mind, it is impossible to tap into your imagination or creativity to solve a problem or think outside the box of stress.

Once you can relax or redirect your thoughts, you can open up a window to be creative.  It is actually how the brain works.

Once you can change your immediate perspective, you can tap into the benefits of creativity.  It can boost self-awareness, continue to relieve stress, and help you solve problems easier.

I will refer to the age-old quote of the definition of insanity. “Doing the same thing over and over, while expecting different results.  Most reference Albert Einstein with that quote.  HOWEVER, that is not the truth.

His actual quote was ” We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used to create them”  It’s close but what I have found is that this should be closer to the definition of mindfulness and creativity.

With the practice of being aware of our thoughts, trying to stay in the present moment, not too far in the future, or buried in the past, and being kind and not judging ourselves or others too much, we can learn to make it our default mode of life.

In learning that, the sparks of creativity fire more frequently.  You see the default mode is our everyday automatic behaviors.  The second portion of mindfulness using a different part of the brain that uses intention specific task – the focused action like walking, talking, eating, movement, cooking,  driving, etc.

Creativity or creative thinking comes in that space between default mode and the specific task.  Our brains have a difficult time switching back and forth without a positive, restful thinking pattern.

Do you see how mindfulness as a foundation could assist you in expanding your creativity and problem-solving skills?

Let me know in the comment.

Courage & Vulnerability

The path to awareness takes courage and vulnerability.  How we see ourselves, each day, in the mirror has the biggest impact on our day ahead.

My intention for the year – Dare to Lead; based on Brene Brown’s book of the same title.

Brave work, tough conversations, whole hearts.

As she says, “Vulnerability is an emotion we experience during times of uncertainty, risk, and emotional exposure.”

Most all acts of courage require vulnerability.  If we allow our fears to run our thinking and our behaviors.  When we choose to consciously learn about our vulnerable triggers, it creates awareness and understanding of why we think and behave the way we do.  With awareness, we can align with our values and live life with integrity.

But having awareness is only the foundation.  It then takes courage to share our message.  As I look back over the last month, I have worked hard to bring that awareness more to the forefront and now it is time to pull up the “big girl panties”, be brave, and share those conversations with my whole heart.

Empower Your Mind & Muse

It is time for me to step into my own tag line.   The creation of Miz Mindful was to share how deeply mindfulness has changed my life.  Not to be confused with meditation, when I speak of mindfulness, I am using it as a lifestyle.  Mindful in all my situations, not just a 20 to 30-minute practice.

Sharing that takes a ton of vulnerability on my part.  Sharing all the scary stuff, my suits of armor, my closed heart. In addition, my unbalanced sense of trust: Not trusting others while if I’m completely honest with myself, it was that I didn’t trust myself to create appropriate boundaries.

Never wanting to appear weak, I often became stone-cold with my heart feels at the same time overtrusting words over actions because of hope. My lack of trust of others, when I honestly looked deep, was more of my lack of trust in myself to create appropriate boundaries.  That was probably my biggest fear.  It would prove the misconception that I was unlovable and people would leave me if I didn’t put them first before me.

My two biggest tools to date that are moving me forward are mindfulness and self-compassion.  Using the non-judgment component with myself – my thoughts, feelings, and behaviors have changed my life in leaps and bounds.

I still have a long way to go but so far on am still on my path of daring to lead

I would love to hear what you think about courage and vulnerability.

 

 

Art & Business – What’s Your Vision?

I don’t know about you but the task of writing a business plan has always been a daunting task for my artist’s brain.

I often froze at the first thing – The executive statement * Crickets*

The summary of your business plan with market analysis, product or service, financial analysis, mission statement.  Can you say right brain paralysis?

But on the other hand, I am a gal that likes to have goals and visions of my future.

So, breaking the plan down into a vision statement and then breaking down the vision into small achievable steps where I can still be my artistic creative self, appeals to me.

For the rest of the month, I am working on my Vision Plan.

Ahhhh…a much better feeling for me.  AND I want you to play along with me.  We can keep each other accountable.

I have a fun and creative idea for bringing this and the community of mindful misfits together and a great way to get to know each other.

I created my first “vision board” using my FAVORITE website – CANVA. It is called MOOD board in the templates which suites my personality even better.

It’s an amazing place to design and create all the visuals to not only support your business but to spark your creativity for your social media!   (Just click on my vision board at the top to check it out)

I love it so much I have a monthly subscription but there is a free version (not just a free trial)

Go play.  I give you permission!   Once you have designed it come back here or to my youtube post and leave the picture or a link and let’s share the vision!

 

Have a fun and creative day!

 

Face Your Fears with Mindfulness

It was about a year and a half ago, I was going through a tower moment in my life.  I felt my entire world, as I knew it was crumbling right before my eyes.

You know the feeling. We have all had those moments where everything you planned for, dreamed of or had high expectations for fall apart before your very eyes.

The emotions are overwhelming- swirling around you like a pig pen cloud or drowning in all the emotions where you just can’t breathe.

Unfortunately, or fortunately, I have had quite a few of those moments.  In hindsight, most of those moments are what fueled the necessary changes in my life.

One thing is I often turn to my art to help me through those tough times.  The drawing is a self-portrait I titled Ms. Fear.  She was the catalyst for my dedicated mindfulness journey and the evolution of Miz Mindful.

I delved into how mindfulness and meditation could help me overcome my fear responses.  The fight, flight, or freeze response.   My go-to response for the majority of my life – learned early on as a child was to freeze.  The first time I heard about the freeze response was during groups for dealing with PTSD.

As my journey continues I am able to assimilate that fight, flight, or freeze response into naming and then owning my fears.

Fear of Success – Setting the bar too low and using perfectionism and procrastination. This was my way of fighting back – against myself.

Fear of Failure – Never having or attaining what we want or dream of.  That was my flight response.  It took me on the never-ending path of worry and self-doubt.

Fear of judgment – The I am not enough response that I know all too well.  I’m sure most of us have been there.  Not smart enough, pretty or handsome enough, too big, too small, not educated enough, too quiet, too loud or the list goes on and on.  This is the freeze response.

My practice into mindfulness NOT meditation is the biggest tool to help me deal with my fears and the natural responses from them.  Retraining my brain for different responses, new pathways for my subconscious autopilot response.

Just a note – meditation before the foundation of mindfulness and changing those pathways can trigger them more than help them.

Mindfulness starts with awareness and focused attention.  It leads you to the path of being in the moment with judgment.

Ms. Fear became my visual as I was learning to re-direct my thoughts.  An exercise I learned early on, was when those negative self-doubt, self-defeating, and the full gamut of negative self-talk started, was to give it a name, say thank you, and let it move on.  It helped stop the runaway train that can easily occur.  So I named it Ms. Fear and thanked her and it allowed me to move on from it.

In addition, I was learning to do something every day to act the opposite.  The opposite I also gave a name – Miz Mindful.

I like her much better.  She gave me permission to give myself self-compassion and self-empathy.  Miz Mindful continues to evolve and I live my life less fearful and more fulfilled.

What is your biggest fear of the three?  What is your go-to fear response?

Let me know in the comments

error: Content is protected !!