Mindful Monday, Mindful May: Glitter

Happiest of Mondays and Mindful Mays, my friends. May you have many moments of merriness and sparkle. 

Mindful Monday: Learning 2 Breathe--Empowered

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Happy Mindful Monday, friends. We’re finishing up our exploration of the L2B program, today, and thus far we’ve gone over these themes:

B: Body, learning to listen to our bodies

R: Reflect, reflecting on our thoughts

E: Emotions, we can surf the waves of our emotions

A: Attend, attend to what’s inside and outside of us

T: Tenderness, try some tenderness; take life as it is

H: Healthy habits; practicing healthy habits of mind

Last, but not least, we have E: Empowered

When we learn to slow down and listen to our bodies, reflect on our thoughts and emotions, attend to what’s inside and outside our bodies, practice tenderness towards ourselves and others, then create healthy habits so we continue to do all these things—this is when we feel empowered.

Which is not to say we’ll always feel successful in doing all these things.

But that’s when we practice any one of the themes some more. Empowerment isn’t always succeeding, but rather always knowing we have the tools to help us succeed.

That knowledge is power.

And you, my friends, are powerful. I wish light and love and peace as you move more mindfully into your week.

 

*If you’d like a way to put more mindfulness into practice, this holiday season, consider getting one of these Holiday Thrive journals I’ve put together. They are self-care guides to help you not just survive the stresses of the holidays, but thrive through them.

Mindful Monday: Learning 2 Breathe--Healthy Habits

Happy Mindful Monday, all you fantastic people. We’re back to discussing L2B and thus far we’ve gone over these themes:

B: Body, learning to listen to our bodies

R: Reflect, reflecting on our thoughts

E: Emotions, we can surf the waves of our emotions

A: Attend, attend to what’s inside and outside of us

T: Tenderness, try some tenderness; take life as it is

Today we go over H: Healthy habits; practicing healthy habits of mind

So many times during our days we’re given external cues from family, friends, teachers, co-workers, media, advertisements, etc. Cues can be powerful things, poking us in just the right way to get us to do something.

We can do this for ourselves too, give ourselves mindfulness cues. Here’s a worksheet of suggestions.

And here’s a video about healthy habits of mind.

Putting these together, what are things we can do to help us create habits of healthy living, healthy thinking, being more mindful?

I would love to hear your thoughts.

 

*If you’d like a way to put more mindfulness into practice, this holiday season, consider getting one of these Holiday Thrive journals I’ve put together. They are self-care guides to help you not just survive the stresses of the holidays, but thrive through them.

 

 

Mindful Monday: Learning 2 Breathe--Tenderness

 

Happy Mindful Monday, everyone. We’re back to the L2B thing and thus far we’ve gone over these themes:

B: Body, learning to listen to our bodies

R: Reflect, reflecting on our thoughts

E: Emotions, we can surf the waves of our emotions

A: Attend, attend to what’s inside and outside of us

Today we add on the T: Tenderness, try some tenderness; take life as it is

The Davis Behavioral Health L2B team has put together a series of cards that can be found here. The cards have questions or prompts for each of the themes that help explore the themes and ourselves more deeply.

Some of the Tenderness cards include the questions:

·       “What kind thoughts can I practice saying to myself?”

·       “How can I be kind at home? School? Work, etc.?

·       “How does it feel when someone is kind to me?”

These are great journaling prompts to get us delving into our hearts and minds so we have more positive go-to thoughts when things start to spiral up or down or out of control.

May we never be out of control. That feeling’s the worst.

And may you have the best of feelings as you move more mindfully into this week. I hope this helps you feel, look for, and have gratitude towards moments of peace and love.

 

*If you’d like a way to put more mindfulness into practice, this holiday season, consider getting one of these Holiday Thrive journals I’ve put together. They are self-care guides to help you not just survive the stresses of the holidays, but thrive through them.

Mindful Monday: Thanksgiving

Happy Mindful Monday, everyone! Happiest of Thanksgiving days/weeks/weekends! I'm wishing you so much love and peace to move you mindfully through this week. 

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link here

Mindful Monday: Learning 2 Breathe--Attend

 Happy Mindful Monday, all you lovely people. We’re working through the L2B program and so far we’ve done these themes:

B: Body, learning to listen to our bodies

R: Reflect, reflecting on our thoughts

E: Emotions, we can surf the waves of our emotions

So, today we are at A: Attend, attend to what’s inside and outside of us

For this, I’m simply going to borrow from here, a memo from the Body-Mind to all Body-Mind Owners:

And now, what do we do with this? Slow down, be more mindful and present with everything.

Mindful eating includes paying attention to sensations as we eat; practicing gratitude for all the people whose work made it possible for us to eat this food.

Mindful walking includes paying attention to movements of our muscles, our lungs, our arms swinging, our hips swaying; practicing gratitude for our abilities to move in whatever way we can.

Mindfully going into this week includes paying attention to our intensions and what we hope/plan to do, closing our eyes and seeing how things will play out; practicing gratitude for our skills, abilities, and all the people in our lives whose work make it possible for us to likewise work toward what we want to do.

I am wishing this for you, my friends, that your week is blessed and full of peace and love as you move more mindfully through.

 

*If you’d like a way to put more mindfulness into practice, this holiday season, consider getting one of these Holiday Thrive journals I’ve put together. They are self-care guides to help you not just survive the stresses of the holidays, but thrive through them.

Mindful Monday: Learning 2 Breathe--Emotions

Happy Mindful Monday, everyone. Today we return to L2B.

B: Through this program we’ve explored the idea of learning to listen to our Bodies and the practice of doing mindful body scans. For a review of this theme, go here (Oct 3) and here (Oct 10).

R: We’ve also explored the idea of Reflecting on our thoughts. To reflect on them more objectively—thoughts are just thoughts—and to replace them, when needed, with more helpful and/or productive thoughts. Spots, affirmations, positive thinking. There are so many tools available to help us reorganize our brains. For a review of this theme, go here (Oct 17) and here (Oct 24).

E: Now, we’re going to take the two previous explorations and apply them when looking at our Emotions. A short mindfulness practice we can do daily is simply this—

·       To begin noticing our thoughts, the emotions that go along with them, and where we feel these physical sensations in our bodies as they arise throughout the day.

·       Practice being kind to ourselves when uncomfortable feelings come up. Don’t try to push them away, but rather pay attention to how and where they show up in our bodies.

·       We can view the strong emotions (anger, frustration, sadness, boredom, jealousy, etc.) as strong energy in our bodies and minds.

·       Then, as we breathe and find calm, redirect our thoughts to more positive/productive thoughts, we can ride the waves of those emotions as they get smaller and smaller.

Thoughts are just thoughts and emotions are just emotions. We can choose to act on them, or we can choose to act in other ways. Ways that are truer to who we feel we are at our cores. Whatever you choose, my friends, I hope it brings you more joy and peace and love as you move more mindfully into this week.

 

*If you’d like a way to put more mindfulness into practice, this holiday season, consider getting one of these Holiday Thrive journals I’ve put together. They are self-care guides to help you not just survive the stresses of the holidays, but thrive through them.

Mindful Monday: Power of Thoughts

 

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Happy Mindful Monday, people of the world. Here we are again. Let’s reflect on the power of thoughts again.

Years ago, one of my good friends introduced me to RecoveryInternational. Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, baby. This is wonderful stuff. I’m not going to go into depth, here, but if you want tools to identify and change your thought processes and patterns, look into cognitive behavioral training (or retraining?).

I bring up Recovery International specifically because they incorporate these things called ‘Spots’ that help you replace the negative or unhealthy thoughts and feelings with more useful and positive thoughts or feelings. Phrases you can use to remind yourself in the moment, or on the spot, that will support your mental health and wellbeing.

Some examples include:

“Any decision will steady you.” –for those moments you just don’t know what to do, and emotions can well up and even paralyze you. Making a decision will help you move forward, and any outcome becomes a learning opportunity.

“Fear is a belief—beliefs can be changed.” –oh, yes, I know this one well. I need to practice it almost daily. And then…

“Muscles can be commanded to do what one fears to do.” –right? So if I can’t wrap my brain around changing my fear-belief, and I still feel stuck, I can command my muscles. Refocus my attention. Do.

“Humor is our best friend, temper is our enemy.” –this is one of my favorites. I love this one. Humor can fix almost anything.

So, my friends, what are your thoughts about all this? About any of the above, or anything else that helps keep your brain boat afloat?

As always, I hope something in here helps you this morning, this evening, whenever you’re reading this. And I wish you peace and love as you move more mindfully into this week.