Click here if you’d like me to read to you!
Last week, I led a magical mindfulness retreat in Imperial Beach.
Yep. I got to spend a few weeks down there, lucky me.
We started every morning with beach yoga,
Injected mindfulness into activities and coaching throughout the day,
And ended with craziness like spontaneous dance parties!
Read about what Michele uncovered there.
It’s awesome (in the true sense of the word) when we give ourselves the gift of time and space to explore our wondrous selves.
Instead of teaching mindfulness classes, I like to teach my students how to practice mindfulness.
I think we’ve all read enough about it, and talked and shared what we know and what we’ve experienced.
That’s the easy part.
What’s more challenging is being mindful during our daily lives.
This is key to healing from our addictions and living consciously,
And is essential to overcoming emotional eating:
Moving through the world in the way that we imagine we want to
when we’re dreaming of being our best selves.
One of the biggest barriers to living mindfully is our fear of uncomfortable emotions.
The minute we start to feel uncomfortable,
We retreat from mindfulness in order to avoid this discomfort.
For most of us, it’s become an automatic response that we aren’t even aware of,
So we don’t even know that we’ve abandoned ourselves into habitual mindlessness.
We only notice it after we’ve spent some time zoned out in the fridge, Netflix or Facebook.
My clients think that the answer is to toss the junk food, cancel Netflix and uninstall Facebook.
I don’t think this will help them become more mindful,
Because the possibilities for escaping into mindless numbing are endless.
Sleep became a favourite of mine, when I decided not to use food anymore.
Can’t really remove sleep from my life, nor would I want to.
I have a more effective answer for you.
We practiced it on my retreat, and the results were transformational.
Instead of retreating from the uncomfortable feeling,
Go into it.
Fully.
Get to know it.
Here’s how:
1. Sit comfortably and close your eyes. Take some slow breaths.
2. Go into your body and find where the feeling resides. Take your time, you’ll find it.
3. Focus on the feeling. Without judgment, resistance, or analysis. Just still your mind and put all your attention on the sensation. And wait. That’s all.
4. Just notice. You don’t need to do anything. Just focus and stay.
5. At some point, you may notice something change. Maybe the sensation moves. Perfect. Just move your attention to the new part of your body it’s showing up in. Stay there. Maybe it starts to tingle. Watch it and let that be perfect. Maybe it starts to dissipate. Perfect too. Just let it.
6. It may be that there is no movement or shifting. Let that be perfect too.
7. At some point, you’ll be ready to stop mindfully observing your sensation, and you’ll probably be ready to continue with your day. Let that be perfect too.
In my coaching sessions, within just a few minutes, the energy of the emotion shifts, in one of the ways mentioned in #5. It’s quite magical, and can be very emotional. You may feel a bit raw after – treat yourself gently.
Here’s the big takeaway from this exercise: we have spent our whole lives choosing mindlessness and self-medication to avoid a bodily sensation that, when observed without judgement or expectation, usually dissipates within minutes.
Often, insights and inner wisdom bubble up spontaneously.
Keep a notebook next to you and write them down – they are love letters from your Highest Self.
What could be better than that?
It’s very helpful to have a compassionate and neutral witness to this process, especially if it is scary for you or you can’t stay with it. I would be honoured to be that person for you. I don’t usually do single coaching sessions, because I have found that long term change takes time, but if you would like to learn this technique, click here to arrange it. It’s that important and life changing and I want you to have it in your ‘mindfulness toolbox’.