Year of Mindfulness

 

New Year is the busiest time for me, people want to begin the year with change, they feel more hopeful and they want to take care of themselves.

I am thrilled this year because I have been asked more about meditation and about how to practice mindfulness then I ever have before. It means people realize that the louder the world is getting the more longing for silence.

When I say the world is loud I talk about TV, Radio, computer, texting, emailing, etc.. It’s all noise for the brain. You can’t even go to the bank without the TV hanging on the wall feeding us with news media. When you walk into stores including Whole foods LOUD music is playing. The mind get’s scattered, distracted, we shop more, we get anxious.

 The mind takes in 1000 bits of information every second. It’s never quite, it’s going and going and we don’t even know how it is affecting us until the body begins to ache with tension, we feel agitated, emotions get’s the best of us and we react a lot quicker, often leaving us with guilt.

 Even when we are not physically doing something the mind is raising thinking about past or future. 

Stress causes the Cortisol in our body to spike to a level that will eventually affect our creative thinking, metabolism, our sleep, blod pressure and can cause all kinds of physical issues.

We get so far away from a balanced mind that we begin to create stories in our head. Stories filled with doubt, fear, judgment etc… Stories that comes from; “What if, should have, could have”.  These are all based on our mind being in future or past.  We spend more time away from the present moment and loose out on living now.

 It’s easier to clean the house,  the car and the closet then is to clean the mind from clutter.

 Every thought follows with an emotion, after the emotion a reaction

Tension will occur your neck, shoulders and lower back and if there is never a moment to relax you are always on high alert it could have devastating effects on the body.

So how do we stop the thinking? We don’t.  It’s not about controlling the mind or shut of our emotions. We can’t stop the thoughts,  they will always be there. But we can observe them and listen to the quality of them. We can work on not letting them send us into a head spin of negativity.

Before we react, we pause, observe, take a breath or two and align mind and body with the circumstance.

 Once we hear our own thoughts and actually listen to them we begin to see and feel the effect they have on us and we can then make a choice to shift the pattern of them.  Trying to understand them rather then pushing them away, making peace with them, know where there is coming from let them come and let them go. This is called mindfulness.

So when we meditate it gives the mind a pause, and brake.

Just like a computer needs space and even rewiring so does the mind.

I like to sit and meditate first thing in the morning, begin the day with a clear and calm mind.

You will find after meditating a sense of clarity; you just gave the mind freedom and space so you can invite new fresh thoughts, more happy and positive. Your body will begin to release the tension.

When we practice mindfulness we bring ourselves to the present moment. We lift the veil that is clouding our mind, we navigate ourselves beyond the ego; the thinking and into our essence.

Most people have a hard time with the thought of doing nothing, but that is the whole point….to BE…

We watch the thought coming and going, we feel the breath rising and falling.

Try to sit for 2 minutes in the morning, breathe and observe. ( yes, you do have 2 minutes )

At the end of the meditation see a vision for what you would like to receive for the day….

When 2 min becomes easy, do 5…then 10 etc…..

Blessings and love

Camilla