Mindful mindshift

During many of our experiences, we can learn to suppress our feelings as a coping mechanism in difficult situations. Why may we choose to ignore our feelings? There are many reasons why we might choose to ignore our feelings - here are a few examples. • Being ridiculed for expressing feelings • Feeling guilty about our feelings • Pretending our feelings don’t exist • Someone may have taught us to do this • Not knowing what to do with difficult feelings • Ignoring feelings is an accepted norm in some circles • Ignoring difficult feelings while working at feeling good • Expressing aggression instead of our softer true feelings • Not taking the time to notice our feelings • Relying on others for soothing our feelings • Being afraid of how someone will react • Not wanting to be seen as vulnerable • Labelling feelings as negative • Conditional self-acceptance What happens when we ignore our feelings? When we ignore difficult feelings, they remain stuck in...

Mindful motivation about evolving It is not our work to say no to ourselves. What we need to do is explore options and do our best. We need to value ourselves and our work. And every time when we step up, we will get taken a bit more seriously. We evolve. Why say no to ourselves? Sometimes by not even trying!? Is misplaced fear holding us back? Are we afraid that they won’t be interested? We owe it to ourselves to let THEM say yes or no. Getting a no helps us to narrow it down. Narrowing it down leads to a resounding yes! Keep going

It can be challenging to get over a crush, even when we realise it won’t work out and we really, really just want to get over it, but the crush can still continue to drag on and on for months or years. We can bring our resistance to letting go out into the open! When we say to ourselves that we can get over it – we can walk away, we can let go, move on and put it in the past – when we say this, our resistance arise! Imagine a tight first, and inside it is a ball of really sticky bubble gum. When we try to open that fist – tight bubble gum strings hold our fingers back from opening up. This is what our resistance is doing to our emotional world. Luckily we can dissolve resistance. When we observe the resistance, thoughts and emotions dispassionately - without reacting to them. When saying, again - we want to stop resisting. The remaining resistance arise again. Again we observe it without reacting – we can feel relief, as it keeps dissolving more and more, until we do not...

Why do we need more room inside? As we grow up, every so often we get too big for our shoes and clothes. We know it is time for a bigger size, when we put something on and it doesn’t feel comfortable, or it down right hurts us. On the emotional front, we can also become very  uncomfortable when the moment-to-moment experiences of the world are too big for our inner space to convey. We can be overwhelmed. Over time the discomfort becomes familiar that it becomes comforting or safe or we even see it as part of our identity. But - this state of being does not serve our best interests. Luckily, over time we can obtain as much inner space as we need, by doing as little as 1.5 minutes of work per day. This can be some of the most rewarding work of all. Just like getting new clothes that fit well, when we expand our inner space, our emotions fit well. Can you imagine what it would be like to have a much bigger inner space? Double the size that it is now? Triple the siz...

Adapted from Brian Johnson's newsletter There is an equation that can help us reduce our suffering. Suffering = (difficult emotion) x Resistance. Where: Difficult emotions are inevitable. By resisting any difficult emotions, we thereby increase our level of suffering. Therefor - to suffer is optional. The key to reducing suffering is to reduce our resistance to painful or difficult emotions. We need to embrace our difficult emotions - whenever we notice them. Embracing difficult emotions eliminates the resistance, and by eliminating resistance, we eliminate unnecessary suffering and we are in a much better place for taking action and being creative. How can we become more aware of the difficult emotions that are present in us? How can we stop reacting to them? How can we embrace them a little more today? When we pay attention to the difficult emotions, and label any accompanying negative thoughts - without reacting to them... we can get creative - to work on s...

Growth mindset affirmations - based on the work of Carol Dweck The following information is written mainly as affirmations. Here goes: Words have power over the way I think, and what I think shapes my reality. Option 1 – When I deem success to be resultant of talent only, and I then face a challenge – my brain freezes. Option 2 – When I am stretched and I believe I can meet the challenge, my brain lights up – ready for anything. I believe that self-belief, hard work and determination eventually lead to success. • Self belief – I believe I can improve and change. When I decree a dream, or want to attain something that I value, I figure out how to do it. When I face a challenge, I find ways to get through it, or work around it. Determined by my choices, there can be no hurdle that is insurmountable. I am focused, and I pursue my dreams relentlessly. I follow passion and it becomes my occupation. • Hard work – I put forth relentless hard work, the result of whi...

When we have a fixed mindset, stressful social situations can make us feel so threatened and overwhelmed, that we may become unable to cope. The more we view ourselves and others as incapable of change and think about social battles as if they will last forever, the more likely we are to experience chronic emotional and physical stress from the challenges of daily life. A subtle shift in mindset can make an enormous difference in all aspects of our lives. How about a mind-shift to a social growth perspective? There are many benefits to having a social growth mindset: • We stop the habit of worrying all day • We have healthier physiological responses • We reduce social, emotional and chronic stress • We are less likely to perceive challenging tasks as threatening • We keep calmer and perform much better on many levels • Social stress do not affect us - this can have many unexpected benefits • We experience positive feelings about ourselves and our performance • We ...

Feelings of being rushed, pushed, pressurised, trapped and/or defensive are the products of stored patterns of reactivity. The choice we make to rush - however many times a day - is stored within pattern recognition for triggers and many external influences can trigger these patterns leading us to feel rushed. The triggered reactions can be very overwhelming, are often destructive and may become an obstacle to achieving some or other desired outcome. We need to consider whether we want to keep wasting precious resources due to these unhelpful patterns. Some of the thought patterns may include: - worrying about having too much to do - worrying about how we are perceived - worry about the next tasks that have to be done - worrying about being late or making someone wait - worrying about important upcoming events and deadlines - worrying about other people’s problems and emergencies We can make the effort to dissolve our patterns of feeling rushed. Once these patterns ...

A deep desire to be happy often includes a need to be 'liked' by others. Unfortunately, not everything that makes us happy will please others and the expectations of others may be in conflict with what brings us joy. We can learn to notice and dissolve our unhelpful people pleasing patterns. Our need to please may include limiting beliefs about what we are allowed to feel, be or do. We can have our inner goodness mirrored to us by everything around us. Look through eyes of love at what it means to be an authentic being - who is loved, who makes others smile, who embodies love. Feel that presence of lightness. Notice - what does it actually take to be happy? • We don't need to sacrifice our own well-being • We don't need to manipulate perceptions about ourselves • We don't need to guess what would make others like us • We don't need to worry about meeting the supposed demands • We don't need to pretend to feel something that we don't feel ...

Every so often in our lives we encounter people who resort to character assassination. In an unfair and dishonest way they deliberately attempt to destroy someone’s character, reputation, credibility and so forth. A major weapon that they use is unjust criticism and shaming of someone when they are not present. It is clear that there is a personal agenda at work, but what exactly is on that agenda might not be that clear - the person may try to gain something? They might have a scarcity mentality? They might feel sadistic, greedy, superior, jealous or insecure? They may try to pass it off as taking a moral position, while they make no effort to be compassionate. How can we avoid participating in character assassination? • We can refuse to participate with the character assassin • We can set a high priority on being compassionate and kind • We can still be assertive, even when we are compassionate • We can reserve our judgements for the purposes of learning • We can ass...

Adapted from the "just one thing" bulletin Humans evolved to be afraid. Multiple systems in our brains continually scan for threats. We are vulnerable even to tiny subliminal threats - whether they are real or imagined. We can feel threatened by stimuli that we are not consciously aware of and the resulting fear may not be consciously experienced, although it may result in stress responses in our bodies. There is a wide range of social cues that can trigger fear - like indifference, criticism, rejection, disrespect, seeing a frown or scolding look on someone's face, hearing a cold tone of voice, rapid fire talk, being interrupted repeatedly, receiving an indifferent shrug, someone turning away or walking away, irritation, caustic tone, edginess, superiority, pushiness, nagging, argumentativeness, eye rolls, sighs, demands, righteousness, sharp questions, judgement or put downs. When we receive subtly threatening input, we tend to react - we may feel cautious,...

Adapted from the "Just One Thing" bulletin When our suffering is recognised - when we become aware of and embrace its presence - the pain, frustrations, discontentment and even anguish - it is this very step that is needed for reducing and eventually dissolving the suffering. While we are often more readily able to notice suffering in ourselves, it is not so common that we notice and recognise it in others. We can somehow tune out from the stress, strain, unease and anger in others. Why is this a problem for us and them? Each person needs someone to bear witness to and really get their suffering. If their suffering goes unnoticed, it remains an open wound. When we do not recognise the suffering of others it affects us too. We become at odds with the nature of life, our hearts remain closed and small issues grow bigger until they blow up. When we deliberately overlook someone's pain, we may tend to act uncharitably towards them and avoid them - even when t...

When we worry and ruminate for a long time – in other words we ‘over-think’, we may engage with mental constructs of the future and past, as well as unhelpful comparisons and evaluations. We may generate coherent stories about perceived failures, stories that justify our actions and that describe who we are. We may turn our thoughts and emotions into problems that need to be solved before we can be happy. We may try to directly challenge the content of our thoughts or our stories. By being caught up in the content of our thinking and attempting to avoid our feelings, we get entangled in a cycle of unnecessary suffering. How do we solve this problem? Through mindfulness we learn to sense ourselves as more than our body, history, thoughts and emotions, but rather as a unique, unchanging, ever-present context for all of life's experiences, just like the big sky that contains many things. (1) Present-moment awareness – this means maintaining non-judgmental focus ...

Thoughts and ideas about patterns. In the ideal world, when we become aware of a need to act - we would proceed to act decisively, compassionately and mindfully, even as we eagerly step into the unknowns of our experiences. For many of us this is often not the case. When we go into action it can be far from decisive. Acquired patterns of reactivity may influence how we take action. Our actions may be governed by primitive pattern mechanisms designed for ensuring survival in pre-historic times or for automating repetitive tasks. Each one of us approach events in a unique way - especially the big, important steps in our lives - in our jobs, relationships, business endeavors and so forth. These big steps can become challenging when we recreate the pain, resistance to action or obstructions we encountered during our past experiences. Becoming aware of our patterns, understanding them and gaining insight about them, may enable us to dissolve or guide our patterns toward...

Who are we without the story lines about difficulties from the past? Some of our stories can make us feel resentful, sad, frustrated or ashamed. When we let go of these stories, when we stop identifying with them and when they no longer form part of our identities, we are at peace. Feeling compassion for others does not mean we will relive stories about our difficulties. Being compassionate enables us to hold our boundaries through self-compassion and deal with the flow of events in a peaceful way.

I thought of a way to explain emotional regulation to someone who is not familiar with the subject by using an analogy of cars. Imagine that emotions are little cars moving in our bodies - each car goes from their own unique point A (in time) to point B (in time). They appear at point A and once they reach point B (usually after about 3 minutes of being thoroughly acknowledged), they disappear.  Normally they do this freely and the traffic flows nicely. But. As we know, sometimes there is peak traffic and there could be a traffic jam or a car can get get stuck behind an obstacle or the driver might need directions or might be confused or misguided or even try to avoid reaching point B. This is where regulation gets into the picture. The traffic officer regulates the flow of the cars through heavy traffic, or help them to find their way. He takes a little bit of high quality time with each one, learning from the driver - maybe finding out where he is going or generally just ack...

Part of being human is having needs. The reality we face is that everyone has needs and we can expect to occasionally arrive at some kind of discord here and there when sometimes needs of others are not in line with ours. In healthy relationships, conflict - when used effectively - can bring people closer together, when they work together to increase their compassion and understanding for one another. Being afraid or even terrified of conflict, may lead to passive and/or aggressive behaviour. When we are afraid of conflict or try to dominate others, we may learn to rely on negative behaviour to get our needs met. Why?  • We may be afraid that assertive expression of needs may have negative outcomes. • We are afraid that overt disagreement will lead to being hurt or abandoned. • We do not want to say something directly due to fear about how the other person may react. • We may be afraid that we will not get our needs met. This fear may begin in childhood. The co...

Intentions come from inside. While setting our intentions, we are present. It connects us with a chosen direction. It inspires us to continue. It creates the conditions for things to happen or change. Intentions are rooted in reality. By setting an intention, we have already accomplished what we set out to do - we cannot fail. Intentions are supple. Intention is the seed of what we desire and therefor already posses. Our intentions guide and carry us. Examples of intentions • We are prepared to let go and see what happens. • We invite curiosity and a sense of experimentation. • We are open and stay present with the experience. • We are practicing awareness, kindness and compassion. • We learn, listen, reflect and engage as best we can. Exercise 1: 2 hours: Give attention to existing intentions. Before speaking or acting there is an intention. Slow down to notice and evaluate intentions. What desires and aversions are fuelling our intentions? Do our current intentions...

By focusing on how good we are in comparison to others, the brain chemicals released are likely to make us feel very good. Over time, this can unfortunately contribute to a judgmental mind-set. Constantly judging to compare ourselves with others can stimulate anxiety, fear, anger, overwhelming stress responses or self-righteousness and may change our mind-set to one that lacks compassion for ourselves and others - a mindset that is out of touch with feelings and needs. When we find ourselves or someone else to be lacking, it can lead to all kinds of judgments. A judgmental mind-set and resulting stress responses evoke feelings in us that can make it challenging to express ourselves, connect with others or to focus on the things we want to achieve. An added energy draining challenge is having to propagate this self-righteous image in order to keep feeling good about ourselves. We can be driven by a need to feel good through comparing ourselves to others. Our thoughts and acti...