When Mindfulness is Most Relevant
I have been wanting to write this blog post for a while and I am so excited that I finally have the chance to!
This summer I have done a ton of work on myself with being mindful of my actions, words and behavior around others. Being a blunt person is in my nature and sometimes I’ve said things that have offended or came off wrong to people. From doing plant medicines and seeing a therapist these past 6 months (which I recommend everyone do), I realized that a lot of my patterns are from fear and this rubs off on my behavior and how I express my feelings to people. We don’t fully realize the power that our fears can have over us, at least I didn’t. If we are fearful of being around a group of people (during these times especially) our attitude becomes defensive and we act out or snap because we feel uncomfortable. What I actualized, is that the best way to be more mindful is to determine the feeling that is causing these emotions and to feel the feeling itself. By labeling the feeling you are no longer controlled by it. You have the power now to understand, feel and release this feeling. And so with lots of work, I have been able to really take a step back and observe my feelings and even observe the feelings of people that are close to me. For example; when you get close to people you start to understand when they are happy, sad, angry, right? Correct! Well I used to internalize that when my husband was quiet and not talking a lot (like he normally does), I was the reason for his mood change. I finally took a step back and asked myself why do I always blame myself for his change in attitude. I dug even deeper in asking myself why do I become fearful when his attitude changes and then I realized that I was scared of being the cause of that change in mood because I didn’t want him to leave me. The fear of being abandoned. Im sure we all heard this before but the fact that I was able to get to the single root of the problem, made me feel lighter in a way. It was no longer something that was not understood. It was fully understood and now something more direct to work on. Trust me, it is not an easy process and there will be times where the emotions you’re feeling are too strong and are coming from all directions and you just want to kick and scream! It’s ok to do that too, no one is judging you because we are all human. I say as long as you are not hurting anyone including yourself, kicking and screaming from the roof tops is fine! We need some sort of release for these intense emotions that build up in our bodies.
My sign is a Sagittarius, so my element is fire (and boy am I a fire sign, let me tell you!) I am constantly calming the fire in my chest and sometimes when the fire is too hot and high to control, I need to do something to calm that energy. There are a few things I have picked up recently that I feel that helped me and could possibly help you. I have created a routine for myself in the morning, which consists of 5-10 minutes of a morning meditation leading to a cardio and strength workout and ending with a freezing cold shower. In the morning, our first instinct is to shut off the alarm on our phone which makes us more likely to look at our emails, Facebook, Instagram, etc. This can cause stress first thing in the morning. What I recommend is to start your day out with a meditation. You can use your phone and find one on youtube which is what I do sometimes when I am too lazy to think of one. You could also try this meditation by expressing gratitude. Meditation is simple yet complex. A simple meditation can be naming 5 things you are grateful for. This starts your day out with positivity which to me is so simple but definitely hard for some people. I became friends with such a beautiful soul this summer and in his apartment he had a fire escape he used as a balcony. He called it the grateful balcony and every time someone would go onto the balcony, they had to say 10 things they were grateful for. I have never done this out loud in front of people so when it was my turn I was super nervous! However, after the first 5 I was able to blow through them. You can be grateful for anything whether it’s being able to drink coffee or for the people that you love. Saying what you’re grateful for is such a powerful tool that not many of us have fully realized yet and that is why I wanted to share this with you.
I used to play soccer and loved to exercise outdoors with sports. However, in these times its not so easy. My husband started doing push ups every morning and so I decided to join him. While he did push ups, I did squats and then we would meet in the middle and do crunches together. Even the smallest of workouts makes a difference to your energy. When I began working out, I started out small. I only did 25 squats, 25 fire hydrants and 25 Crunches. Every week I added another 25 reps to each exercise. Now I am up to 100 reps for each! We all know that when we work out we release endorphins that make us happy so why not find something super easy and convenient to break a sweat. This sweat is very necessary and perfect for my after workout cold shower which I will be talking more about in my next blog (so stay tuned).
Being mindful is definitely a journey of many lessons and trial & errors. I didn’t expect to be completely mindful in a day and nor do I think that I am the master of being mindful. Right now I am currently working on being mindful of myself, which I have come to believe is truly important as a healer/light worker. I will be talking more about this in the weeks coming up, so keep an eye out for this as well!
We are all the masters of our own journeys in life and by sharing this with you, I hope to have opened your mind to something worth doing more research on!
Until next time…