Surviving a Thought Storm

Posted on February 5, 2023 by Sabrina Renee

In this article, I share a simple technique to help you ground into your body and out of the chaos brewing in your mind.

Understanding How You Feel

The purpose of today’s article is to learn how to survive a thought storm by grounding into your body. But first, let’s understand what a thought storm is and the best way to do that is to understand the power of worry. If you’re not a big worrier then switch that word out for stress or anxiety, whatever hits home for you the most.

I chose worry as an example because we can all relate to that feeling. On some level, in some are, even before quarantine each of us had little bits of worry and/or stress in our lives. It’s normal, we’re human and to an extent, it could even be healthy to consider the dangers of the world. But lately, it feels extremely heightened, like no matter where you turn something scary is there and you’ve always got to be prepared for it. There are a few problems with living in a constant state of worry, like your body living in a stressful state rather than visiting one, and the lack of positivity you’ll attract since you’re literally never on the lookout for it.

But what I’d argue is the most significant problem of all of the energy you feed the negative emotional state. The more we worry the more there is to worry about, and the more we’ll find evidence that we should continue to worry. Such a vicious cycle of straining the mind and the body without ever truly offering relief. And as a result, feeling like we’re constantly swept up in a storm without any control over where we’ll land.

If you don’t understand how your inner world works, both body and mind, then you’re never going to feel like you’re in control.

The truth is we don’t ever really control what happens outside of us but we do have control over how we respond. The difference between response vs reaction is a pause, a moment of consideration before allowing emotions to get the best of us, but more importantly recognizing that we have the ability to respond. In fact, as humans floating around this world filled with so many stimuli pushing and pulling us in different directions, it’s our job to respond (responsibility-ability to respond… get it?)

Now that you’ve been reminded of your ability to respond to what’s going on around you, let’s get familiar with what’s going on within you.

Let’s Talk Momentum

Worry and stress and anxiety and tension, these all have momentum on their side. Momentum is energy that is generated from within and pushes you toward an outcome or circumstance. Each time you experience one of those sensations or emotional states you’re essentially feeding the energy that propels that momentum. This could be a healthy cycle or a detrimental one, it all depends on what emotional states you’re constantly calling on.

If you’re reading this article chances are the emotional state of worry on your mind and body is quite familiar. So when you start to worry you’re going to be late for work one day, remember it’s not the first time you’ve experienced worry, and because it’s an experienced emotional state it has A LOT of momentum power behind it.

You’re no longer ONLY carrying the feeling of being late to work. Now that you’ve begun to summon the emotional state of “worry”, all of the stored energy from your history with worry starts to usher in a powerful momentum to keep this state going. So even if you make it to work on time there’s a chance you’ll remain worried all day, finding more reasons to feed that energy.

That’s how powerful momentum can be.

When you experience an emotion you also feel a physical sensation in your body. The mind holds memories of stories while the body holds memories of feelings. Each time you call to mind an experience the body relives that feeling as if it’s happening right now. The problem is you’re so focused on the narrative, the story of the memory playing in the mind, that you neglect how it’s showing up in the body and trick yourself into trying to “think” your way out. Unfortunately, some negative narratives have been played for so long that they have too much momentum behind them, making it nearly impossible to think your way out of them.

The mind and body connection is an extraordinary tool of communication, but too often it’s working against you because you’re unaware of its power. Let’s change that today.

Become Aware of Your State

If you’re in a negatively charged emotional state the first step is to become aware that you’re in that current state. It sounds simple, and honestly, it is, but when you’re stuck in “thinking” about things it can get complicated.

Awareness starts with observation, not a judgment of how you’re feeling or wishes that you could feel. Wanting to wish away a negative emotion isn’t the way to create change because it’s not coming from a place of acceptance. First, notice what’s coming up for you in the form of thoughts and physical sensations and practice being okay with it at that moment. Start there and start over and over if you have to, which you probably will have to.

If you haven’t practiced disciplining your thoughts or mindset, not something you’re good at yet. It’s okay to wave the white flag and admit that you’ve experienced this negative emotional state for so long that it’s got a strong momentum. Maybe you’re really good at being worried, stressed, tense, or anxious. That’s where you are right now and that’s okay. Be there to create change there. Running from discomfort makes it impossible to allow your momentum to be transformed into an energy that works for you rather than against you.

You can’t win the battle in your mind because you’re not familiar with how to discipline your thoughts. So what can you do? Notice how it’s showing up inside your body.

See you spend so much time in the mind creating stories, talking to yourself, and thinking about the past or the future, that your first instinct is to “think” your way out of a problem.

But what about when thinking IS the problem?

What about the stronghold those thoughts have on you that creates a storm in your mind that sweeps you away in an instant?

What’s the solution when you’re fighting a battle in your mind you’ve lost time and time again?

The solution is to ground in to your body.

Try This Practice Today

It takes time to shift from getting caught up in a thought storm to learning how to ground into the body. What’s important to remember when incorporating a new healthy habit is that it’s only possible with consistent practice and repetition. The next time you find yourself being pulled back by the momentum of a stressful or heavy pattern of thinking, remember you have the option to make a different choice.

Once you become aware that you’re caught up in the same old way of thinking, pause. Notice the direction this pattern takes you toward and remind yourself you have the power to make a better decision. You can always shift your focus from your mind to your body.

✨Try this practice: Choose 5 things to pay attention to that are happening within or around your body. Starting by focusing on the physical sensations you’re experiencing will be the most powerful because it’s taking you out of your mind and into your body. Grounding isn’t an instant shift from chaos to peace, it starts with simple observations, open curiosity, and gradually calming the mind down.

✨ Ask yourself “what are 5 things I notice about my body right now?” As you begin to observe whatever is happening within you stay away from labels like good or bad. Learn to treat yourself like a science experiment and get specifically clear and unbias about your answer.

✨Imagine that your opinion about what is happening doesn’t matter, all that matters are the symptoms, sensations, and experiences that are unfolding within you. Remember that your memories are emotionally charged so it’s important to notice when they begin to creep into your explanations. For instance, a simple shift from “my chest hurts” to “I feel tight sensations in my chest” or “I can’t breathe” to “my breath is very shallow” could make all the difference in how you process this moment.

✨Some emotional states are more charged than others, which have the potential to spiral you quicker into feeling lost in the storm. Grounding into your body, and noticing what you’re feeling and the world around you invites the chance for the storm clouds to begin to clear.

✨It’s also an act of self-love to remember and tends to the body while there is chaos brewing inside the mind because the body is simply reacting to the mind’s direction. The body can be directed to a calm more centered space, much quicker than changing your negative thought to a positive one. As a result, the mind will slowly find its way to a place of clarity, so you can move yourself toward solution-based thinking rather than an irrational problem-focused perspective.

Start Where You Are

Whatever emotion you’re feeling, whatever thoughts are circulating through your mind, whatever sensations are pulsating through your body, you can start this practice today. Surviving a thought storm isn’t about conquering the chatter of the mind, it’s about recognizing how powerful that momentum of energy has become and seeking shelter by noticing the impact it has on the body.

The more you practice observing your thought storms and the power of their current, the more likely you will be to pull yourself out of mental distractions and into physical sensations. The more you tune into the body the stronger your awareness becomes and continues to expand, this is what will help you eventually discipline or even break those thought patterns.

The more you practice anything the better you’ll get and the more capacity you’ll have to handle even more. So before you jump into wanting to change your negative thinking into positive thinking, start by noticing the quality of your thoughts today and it’ll lead you to the physical state of your body. It’s fascinating to watch how intelligent the mind-body connection truly is, now imagine you were part of that conversation?

You can be! All you have to do is open your eyes to what’s already happening, moment to moment, with acceptance and patience.

Start where you are, with how you’re feeling, and watch the subtle changes unfold.

MindBody, Weekly Insights

A Journey From Maiden to Mother

Posted on January 8, 2023January 21, 2023 by Sabrina Renee

Moments of Transition

The past few weeks have brought on more tightness, tension, pangs of discomfort and even douses of pain than I remember experiencing before. While my tolerance for pain is quite high I’ve also never had to endure it so consistently for such an extended and unforeseen specific amount of time. As my body prepares to give birth in the next four weeks or so I’m being stretched beyond limits I onced perceived for myself, a true time of growth and expansion. From restless legs and pelvic pain to getting up to pee multiple times and finding it impossible to get back to sleep, I’ve begun to experience life through a different lens. One of transition from what once was to what will be, more importantly how it all is right now.

This transition isn’t one that took place over night, or even just over the past 9 months. In fact, I’d argue it started a few years ago, the moment my husband and I decided starting a family was going to soon be a priority. Back in 2020 when the world began to change in unprecidented ways we both felt called to share with one another the visions we saw for the future. That discussion consisted of what type of parents we wanted to be, the values in which we’d raise our children with, the intention we’d pour into ourselves to welcome this chapter into our lives, and the type of environment all of this would take place.

For the next two years the goal was to turn inward and get curious about the parts of us that were longing to grow. Individually we assesssed the values important to us and the goals we wanted to pursue before conception like health, nutrition, spirituality, healing, and other paths of maturity. Now, this isn’t to say we decided on the perfect time to concevive, I don’t believe any of us has the power to play God in that sense. But we did decide that an important part of conception was the intention that came before, the life we cultivated beforehand, and the energies we were planning to merge to create life.

For two years healing, maturity, love, and learning, and unlearning, were a priority both individually and collectively.

For two years we dove into becoming the greatest versions of ourselves, establishing deeper connections to our ideal selves and inching closer to them each day.

For two years we leveled up before ever “trying” to have a baby.

I’m so grateful this was our path.

But I’m also reminded of how mutlifaceted transition truly is. Shifts into who we are becoming start in subtle ways, most of the time before we are even paying attention and long after we’ve begun to see. This helps ground me into perspective in moments when my joints are achy and my legs are so swollen it hurts to walk. It reminds me this is yet another shift in transition.

And sure maybe it isn’t as glamorous as working out, eating healthy, or learning deeper self-love practices. But I’m also reminded that those moments weren’t always the most fun either. It felt good to share my life vision with my life partner, to talk about our desires and dreams about the future, but the work that came after wasn’t all sunshine and rainbows. It was two years of leaving no stone unturned so that I could face my inner world head on and heal the blocks that stood in the way of becoming my greatest self.

Transition isn’t meant to feel good all the time, it’s meant to uproot and redefine. So I’d like to believe these false contractions and sleepless nights are wonderful opportunities to help me continue to expand, pushing me toward the culmination of all my past efforts. The more I practiced shifting my mindset from “why is this happened?” to “this is happening because…” the less personal and painful it feels, and the more I’m willing to be with what’s happening rather than focus on my opinions about it all.

Being Okay With How Things Are

A struggle I faced this week is not feeling grateful 100% of the time about being pregnant. Even feeling the urge to complain about my physical discomforts and the ease of living that had been taken away. On a particularly challenging day where the baby’s head pushed deeper and deeper into my pelvis I sighed loud and said “JUST COME OUT ALREADY!” Almost immediately I felt awful, and here’s why.

Now maybe that doesn’t sound like the craziest thing to say to you but to me it felt like I committed the ultimate sin: not being grateful to be pregnant. To me, saying that was like saying I’m over this, I dont want to do this anymore, I’m tired and just want this to end already. And in that moment maybe it was my truth. My frustrated, exhausted, impatient truth.

I came down so hard on myself for not feeling enthused about being pregnant anymore and for finally giving into the urge to complain about the discomforts in my body. Expressing my truth felt like trading in my immense gratitude for a heaping pile of guilt because I “shouldn’t” be feeling anything less than joyous every moment of everyday of this pregnancy.

As my emotions cooled down, and my loving husband comforted my hormonal self, I began to see cleary that there were lots of expectations at play. The reason I came down so hard on myself for feeling that way was because I expected myself to feel a different way, all the time, everyday, no matter what this transition brought into my experience.

It’s funny, recently I was explaining the word perspective to my 5 year old niece after a conversation about change being hard, especially when we want things to go our way and they don’t. We talked about how perspective gives us a chance to see things differently and that different isn’t always bad. Sometimes, if we’re open to how things change, we may find a new even better way of looking at things, if we’re willing to try. And as I was simplfying this concept to her I realized how much more complicated I was making my own life.

It’s easy to want things to be particular.

It’s hard to accept that life changes.

It’s even harder to hold onto what we want as life is already changing.

Sometimes it’s just about choosing the road of least resistance.

Sometimes choosing to accept the change is a lighter load than holding onto how we wish things were.

And in those moments we accept ourselves as we are, adding a little more self-love and a little less judgment to our lives.

Accepting Life As It Is

Daily mindful living is a mantra in my home, an intentional lifestyle choice fused into how we move about the day. It’s been a refreshing challenge to welcome that way of navigating life into pregnancy. The beauty of mindfulness is that the principles apply no matter who you are, what you’re going through, or how it’s making you feel. But in my experience it’s been exceptionally powerful during trying moments that test your patience, faith, and belief. So it’s safe to say practicing mindfulness throughout pregnancy is a wonderful training ground for parenthood that’s soon to follow.

Acceptance and non-judgment are the attitudes that have come up for me most recently. These are the attitudes and lenses in which I’m anchoring into during challenging moments. I’d like to believe each of the attitudes feed off of one another but in particular acceptance and non-judgment are joined at the hip. Because once you’ve accepted life as it is you can recognize the judgment you’ve been passing about it. On the flip side, once you’ve recognized how much you judge your experience or circumstance, you can begin to accept what is rather than focusing on your opinions about how it makes you feel or how it should be.

Anchoring into these attitudes, along with any other mindfulness practice, is just that, a pratice. It’s implying that you’ll never truly master these ways of being and that’s the point. To continue coming back to apply what you learned last time and the time before that so you can choose to expand your consciousness once more, open your heart once more, open your mind once more. Mindfulness is a simple and profound in that it releases the unneccessary while inviting expansion.

Expansion.

That’s a reoccuring theme for me.

Physically, emotionally, spirutally, even on a cellular level, expansion has been happening within me for quite some time.

Maybe that’s one of the many miracles giving birth is meant to teach, how to expand beyond this version to create the next.

To expand from maiden to mother, from one archetype to the next, never able to shrink back to who you once were with a brand new capacity to hold what’s meant for you.

What a terrifyingly empowering thought that I will never be the same again.

As I enter the week ahead I leave behind my opinions of how it “should” be, what things are “supposed” to feel like, and how I “think” life should be moving. And instead I’ll practice anchoring into accepting what is, noticing judgments, releasing the heavy burdens of the unneccesary and tune in to what’s right in front of me. The expansion of my being, my body, my soul. It’ll be a trippy ride to reflect on one day, but imagine how powerful it’ll be to present to the push and pull of it all, right here right now.

May you choose to live mindfully in anyway you can this week.

Start small, start now, just start.

MindBody, Practices

A Guide to Creating Conscious Change: Alignment vs Action

Posted on October 19, 2022 by Sabrina Renee

Awakening to Your Life

Mindfulness is the practice of moment to moment awareness, awakening to your life as it is. This is a simple yet powerful practice that allows you to adopt a new set of attitudes, to view your world with a fresh pair of eyes. Becoming aware of who you are and what you are doing at this moment brings you out of the thinking mind and into the body, where experiences have been happening unnoticed. By bringing your attention to the experience of your physical sensations you are learning to ground into the present moment, whereas the thinking mind will take you away from it.

Awakening to your life as it is will bring opportunities of profound change into your life. Often people choose only to look at the future to dream, or to the past for reflection as a reference for the change they want. These ways of viewing experience and creating change can only get you so far. It’s the present moment that will reveal all the things about yourself that you’d like to change and how your current lifestyle choices are shaping you as a person. Therefore, if you want to become a better version of yourself tomorrow you have to start paying attention to how you’re showing up today.

The Steps of Conscious Change

A conscious change is one that you are involved in, have contemplated thoroughly, and decide on deliberately. Now is always the best time to time to create conscious change in your life. The first step, as you already learned, is becoming aware of what needs to change. But before any change occurs willingly most people wait until they’ve become frustrated with their own ways or circumstances. The laziness will begin to annoy you, the tardiness will impact your relationships, he procrastination will ruin yet another weekend, the doubts will no longer hold up as truth. You know deep down it could be better, and you also know that the responsibility for these changes falls on you. At some point, you will have to break up with your way of living and welcome change. Choose to do it before you’re at your wit’s end and save some energy for what’s to come. Here are the 3 steps to creating conscious change or A.C.T.

Awareness

Becoming aware of what needs changing is the first and most important step. Nothing can shift in your life until you become aware of what needs to. This is the starting point for inviting the new and releasing the old, where you learn to focus on what is serving your highest good.
Choice

After taking some time to observe there’s of your life you’d like to change, you’ll then get ready to make a choice. Sometimes this choice is a giant leap into the unknown, while other times it’s a simple step in the right direction. Even if it’s a small change it can conjure up some indecisiveness within you. This step is about deciding on what feels the best rather than comparing what “would be” better. You can’t see how things will play out exactly but you can tap into your intuition and figure out what course is best for you to take.
Trust

Finally, it’s time to trust this entire process. Trust in your ability to observe what behaviors, thoughts, or habits need to change in your life. Trust that your choice is a stable one that will bring you closer to who you envision yourself becoming. Trust within your ability to consciously create an overall improved lifestyle for you. Each time you actively build inner trust you strengthen the foundation of your relationship with yourself and your ability to make things happen in your life.

Observing Misalignment

To understand whether you are on the path bringing you closer to who you wish to become, it’s important to know when you’re misaligned or veering off course. An indication that you are experiencing alignment is when you are feeling positive and pleasant emotions. Alignment is the experience of feeling good and allowing more good feelings to find you. This happens when you are thinking healthy thoughts, making choices that line up with your idea of happiness or success and position yourself in a way that invites more of this feeling. An indication of misalignment is when you are feeling negative or unpleasant emotions. In this state of being, you are allowing more of these experiences to gravitate toward you. This happens when you’re thinking of harmful or uneasy thoughts, making choices out of emotional reactivity that do not align with your idea of happiness or success.

Although alignment is the ultimate goal, it’s important that you learn to notice when misalignment is occurring. The most notable thing to become aware of is the experience arising in your body. When you’re thinking troublesome thoughts or experiencing an unpleasant moment, it does not stay only in your mind. It travels throughout the body depositing stress in pockets of your muscles, bones, and internal systems. If you can begin to link your mental experiences with your physical ones you’ll begin to uncover certain patterns of behavior that follow your thoughts. For instance, if you are thinking thoughts of self-doubt your shoulders are likely to slouch and round forward; if you are experiencing an anxious thought that may appear in the body is a fast heart rate or sweaty palms.

Once you’ve become aware of misalignment in your mind you can locate it in your body. The thought patterns you’ve created over the years are powerful and often difficult to shift into a more pleasant experience. That’s why it’s important for you to recognize how misalignment shows up in your body, because that you can change by moving. Move your body in a healthy way, go for a walk if you can, stretch your arms, roll your shoulders back and release the tension in your face, unclench your jaw and take a deep breath. All of these simple choices will help bring you toward feeling better. The closer you are to feeling better the closer you become to alignment. Once you have tapped into the feeling and experience of alignment you can begin to take action toward your goals.

Planning Your Action

Deciding to take action or make an important decision isn’t something to be done without consideration. The right plan of action taking at the wrong time could push you further back than when you started. This is where the importance of alignment comes in. Making decisions in a state of clarity will bring you closer to the change you wish to see, whereas making decisions in a state of emotional reactivity most likely won’t. Although there is a huge difference between allowing your emotions to overcome you and channeling their energy for change, some people can’t quite point out those differences. For most people, emotions running high isn’t something that you thrive off of. It’s actually more likely to stress you out than bring you clarity or confidence about what’s next. This is why alignment and action go hand in hand.

By orienting yourself in the direction of joy, happiness, and success, you are aligning with your higher self. The more you consciously align with yourself the easier it will be to take action. Think of alignment as making your way to the diving board, each step bringing you closer to what you want to do, have, or be. The closer you get the more intense you’ll experience feelings of excitement, joy, and maybe a tinge of apprehension, but you keep moving. toward what it is you want. Now imagine jumping off the diving board as your plan of action, diving into the unknown whether it be by a single step or a massive leap. Don’t rush your way into action without appreciating the role and significance of aligning yourself with what’s meant for you.

Let’s Review

Mindful awareness is the key component in creating any conscious change. Awakening to your life as it unfolds means to release resistance to the state of your life now, so that you may invite new opportunities to find you. Before you begin to make changes you must first become aware of the areas in your life and things involved that need change. In this article, I’ve mapped out 3 steps of creating conscious change that can serve as a guide to making strong decisions that instill your inner trust. By first becoming aware of what needs changing, then making a conscious choice of how to move forward, and finally learning to trust the outcome and your ability to handle it. After you’ve made your decisions and have begun to experience that inner trust, you can learn to build on it by practicing alignment.

The simplest way to practice alignment is to become aware of the moments you’re feeling good and work to invite more of that feeling. This does not mean resisting negative emotions or rejecting unpleasant experiences, these are all apart of the journey. Instead, it’s about becoming aware of both alignment and misalignment, observing and understanding how they both show up in your experience. Misalignment will be tied to negative emotions and bodily sensations of feeling contracted or tight. Being in alignment will feel more open and flowing, with pleasant thoughts and positive feelings. After you’ve become familiar with how it is you want to feel continue striving for that feeling, building up the opportunity to take action. A plan of action is powerful on its own, just like aligning yourself with how you want to experience life is powerful. however, together they become an undeniable force propelling you toward the life you are creating.

You are the creator of your life experience and you are responsible for the ways you choose to respond to the world around you. Every day you are capable of bringing yourself closer to your higher self. It’s in the choices you make, the thoughts you observe, and the behaviors you begin to uncover. Bring a sense of curiosity to what it is you’re noticing within yourself and work on releasing judgment. Who you are today doesn’t have to be defined as good or bad, right or wrong, success or failure. Practice mindfulness with how you are showing up each day as a means for understanding the person you’ve become, not condemning or judging but welcoming. Allow your experience to be one that reveals deeper levels of yourself and uses them as ways to expand.

If you want to create conscious change in your life never stop paying attention. Keep aligning with what feels good and releasing what does not. Keep coming back to the present moment and all of the wonders it has to offer. And when this road gets more challenging than you had anticipated, keep coming back to the breath. Because as long as there is another breath cycle flowing through your body, you have another chance to begin again.

MindBody

The MindBody Connection

Posted on June 8, 2020January 21, 2021 by Sabrina Renee

I taught a deeper lesson on mindbody wellness in this video!

white petaled lotus — Photo by Susanne Jutzeler on Pexels.com

Before you dive deep into this article, ask yourself “How am I feeling right now?” A common answer is “I’m fine” or “Doing alright, and yourself?” because it’s one of those questions asked without the intention of truly checking in with how we’re feeling.

Most people will ask this question to their mind, waiting for a cognitive answer to surface. This answer will be the sum of your thoughts on an experience, but not necessarily how you’re feeling. This is a true testament to just how powerful the mind truly is. Even though it’s not where feelings are experienced, this is where the question is answered.

Another way to check in with how you’re feeling is to ask yourself “what’s going on in my body right now?” Weird right? I bet you wouldn’t think to check in with how your body about how you’re feeling today.

The truth is that’s where the sensation of your feelings are being experienced. But before you understand the body, let’s venture into your mind.

Thoughts

Everything originates from a thought. Your beliefs, ideas, assumptions, and worries all begin in the mind. Therefore what you think you then become. But what if you’re not paying attention to what you think?

Well, your thoughts are creating the life unfolding before you, whether you are aware of that fact or not. Of course, the goal is not to suppress your thoughts or control them, but instead, learn to guide them in the direction that aligns best with your desire.

A good place to start practicing this is detaching yourself from thoughts, seeing yourself as the observer of the experience rather than the experience itself. By understanding the power held behind your thoughts, you’ll begin to appreciate the personal power of the mindbody connection.

Imagine your thoughts as cars speeding down a highway, while you, the observer, sits quietly on a bench watching them pass. Watching for the first time will absolutely be overwhelming. Your natural instinct is to jump in because you identify yourself with the mind and feel the urge to control these thoughts, their speed, and their intensity.

These thoughts surface within you but are separate from who you are because you are not your thoughts. You are the awareness of those thoughts. At first, it may feel extremely difficult to watch the speed and intensity that these thoughts are forming at, you may even feel compelled to attach yourself to one trying to stop it.

These thoughts have always been going at this speed, with this amount of intensity, the only difference is you are just now tuning into that experience. You have the opportunity to become the observer of your experience each time an intense emotion pops up, leaving you with two choices. Either reacting with emotion or responding with awareness.

An emotional reaction to something is a sign that you’ve been consumed by the emotion you are experiencing. That emotion decided to take the reins and decide the next best course of action.

This means if you were observing thoughts of anger you’d follow the urge to attach yourself to that thought, leading you into more anger. When you choose to respond, however, you recognize that emotion is a part of your experience, but you are not that emotion.

In other words, you are feeling anger but you are not anger. If you were observing thoughts of anger you would continue to until it dissipates or transcends to another emotion. To respond to a situation means to first become the awareness behind your experience so that you may decide what to do rather than be led by that emotion.

Practicing mindful awareness of your thought patterns and the ways you choose to handle them is a simple and challenging practice. Simple in its nature of just being with how you’re feeling rather than doing something about it.

Challenging because it’s the opposite of what you’ve trained yourself to do all these years. Each time you observe, detach and respond you are strengthening the mindbody connection by separating yourself from it.

Physical Sensations

Let’s revisit the question “how are you feeling today?” a question exchanged so often from person to person that you can answer on autopilot. The question itself asks you how you’re feeling yet people rarely take the time to check in with what they’re feeling.

Instead, they are likely to rely on what their mind tells them about how they’re feeling. Now that there is a separation from you and the mind, and you understand the difference between reaction and response, it’s time to move onto emotions in the body.

Emotions appear in the body as physical sensations, arousals, or reactions to what’s going on in the mind. These emotions show up differently and in many different forms, but the sensations are quite similar. Heart palpitations, dry mouth, tight chest, tingling sensations, and clenching just to name a few.

For instance, if you were to have a negative thought pop up you’d likely be fixated on the narrative in your mind and forgetting about the body you’re in. When you finally bring your awareness back to your body all of the sensations will overwhelmingly hit you at once. When you take the time to sit with each physical sensation as it arises you are awakening to how your body experiences your emotions.

This simple practice helps you gain clarity on your emotions, how you’re feeling, and the power of their presence. Without practicing awareness of how your mind and body are connected you may miss opportunities to get ahead of your emotion and you end up allowing them to dictate your day.

Identifying The Connection

Practicing mindful awareness with your thoughts and physical sensations takes patience and consistent practice. As you begin to identify the connection between your mind and body, you’ll also begin to identify who you truly are.

Because you are not the mind that creates the thoughts, nor are you the thoughts that you think. Just like you are not the body you have and the sensations you experience. The mind and body will always be a part of who you are, but it is not who you are.

Each time you choose to become the awareness behind your experience you create more space between what is happening and your response to what is happening.

MindBody Practice

Identifying the connection and separating yourself from the experience are both simple practices that can be very challenging. A great place to begin cultivating this practice is by identifying your dialogue separately from your bodily experience.

This is best practiced when an emotion is present but not too overwhelming, this will be the practice for the overwhelming moments. An emotion we are all familiar with is feeling anger, so let’s use anger as an example.

With most intense emotional states you will likely find yourself tangled up in the dialogue going on in your mind, so let’s begin by bringing attention into the body. Notice the sensations you are feeling in response to anger and where these sensations are showing up.

Once you’ve tuned your focus on the body use the tool of a deep inhale and a long exhale to relax into the moment. Repeat as many breath cycles as you need to before finding a sense of inner calm, even alongside your anger.

Now that you’ve brought down the intensity and separated yourself from the experience, turn your attention toward the mental chatter. If this too feels intense for you come back to the breath as your guiding tool of relaxation.

A helpful tip is to place your right hand on your belly as you witness the rise and fall of your breath. This can act as a tangible representation that there are constant fluctuations happening within you, the rise and fall of the belly, the ever-changing sensations in your body, the rapid moving thoughts in your mind.

Once you’ve invited an inner calm into the dialogue of your mind, you can begin asking yourself proactive questions. Rather than focusing on what you don’t want to feel, turn the focus toward how you would like to feel.

Start by asking these questions:

What am I thinking right now?
How am I feeling right now?
How is it appearing in my body?
Am I holding my breath or breathing deep?
How can I accept what has already happened?
What action can I take to create change?
What is the next best step for me to take?
How will this action bring me closer to how I want to feel?

Be patient with yourself as you ask questions with unpleasant answers and bring a genuine curiosity to this moment. This practice may seem simple, and possibly uncomfortable, but it is a very important step toward a happier and more aware version of self. The beauty of this practice is that it is always growing with you.

Be gentle as you begin to discover parts of yourself for the first time, show the compassion you would a friend going through a lifestyle change. Practicing mindful awareness is portable and the right time is always NOW.

Remember all change starts with becoming aware and they all begin with you.

Love Heal Grow

Healing, MindBody

Understanding Emotions

Posted on June 5, 2020 by Sabrina Renee

The MindfullyBri Podcast

Exposure

The year 2020 has been painful, eye-opening, excruciating, exhausting, and expansive. The lesson I’ve learned the loudest this month was to embrace exposure in more ways than one. For the first half of the year my priority was to reach people by creating content for my community serving their highest self. Exposing myself into the world as a mindful entrepreneur who is passionate about helping people love, heal, and grow through their experiences. I think exposure has always been a fear of mine waiting to be conquered, but I never quite knew how. When you set your mind to seeking something in life it has a miraculous way of finding you.

In April I began leading live meditations on Instagram, creating communities founded on self-development and inner work, and making resources to help people handle the issues I’ve overcome. Vulnerably sharing my journey as a means of connecting to those who are going through something too. This year had truly been about stepping into the role of a conscious leader, taking a giant leap toward my purpose on this planet. And while this type of exposure had it’s own unique challenges, overall it’s been a rewarding. Walking into the idea of exposure head on led me to leveling up my awareness of self and ability to serve my community. It’s been an incredibly personal journey, a true blessing and a dream come true that I will never take for granted.

Which leads me to the second half of the year, the time we’re entering where I’m provided a different opportunity to be exposed. This time it’s a much more intense, fearful, painful, and life altering experience. Opening my eyes and my heart to those who suffer the violent reality of oppression, racism, and injustice. I’ve exposed myself to the system that has been created to oppress, demean, and disrespect the black community. In these last fews days I’ve done something I never do and dove deep into the painful reality in my country today. Reading articles, watching videos, interacting on social platforms, and tuned into news outlets that are showing in real time people fighting for basic human rights, only to be met with even more violence and physical force.

While my heart aches over this type of exposure it fuels a different part of me than the first type does. The first type of exposure is an example of alignment, overcoming a limit I set for myself, achieving something I had set out to even though it was scary at first. It’s about me, my goals, my dreams, my purpose. That type of exposure is of personal gain. However this second type cracked me open entirely because it came from outside myself. It’s bigger than me. What I’m experiencing through a screen people are living with in this moment. The words I’m hearing on the news are someone else’s life circumstances. There is no comparison between the types of exposure, but there is a significant difference in the lessons I choose to take from them. One helps me believe I can create change when it’s necessary, and the second one reminds me just how necessary it is to change.

Healing and Serving

Empathy can only be felt toward another person. By empathizing with someone you become connected to that person through your understanding and compassion. That understanding and compassion is the bridge between a personal gain and a collective experience. But until we are able to experience that understanding and compassion within ourselves, we can’t cross that bridge and help someone else discover it. While achievement on a personal level is something to be proud of, it pales in comparison to create change on a lager scale. The second type of exposure is what cracks you wide open, it causes you to become overwhelmed and inspired. Exposing yourself to different cultures, communities, and all of the chaos surrounding you is how you REALLY help others.

Both types of exposure are important to me and so I’ve begun to merge them as one giant realization that by expanding my own knowledge I’ll inevitably be expanding the knowledge of the people who choose to tune into me. All I want to do is teach you how to tune into yourself. Teaching mindfulness is how I serve my people. It’s my duty and obligation to share resources, tools, guidance, and support. It’s my duty as a human being to advocate for the rights of others. And there’s never been a more powerful time to be the lighthouse for those traveling through treacherous waters.

Like all powerful educators, I have to consciously choose to be a student first. The best way to do that is to allow myself to feel the powerful energy that’s surrounding us all and choose to be with it rather than run. It is only through fully experiencing the life of those I’m trying to connect with that I can serve them with intentional compassion. Tuning into emotions allows me to open up to learning by surrendering the notion that I know the answer. Because there is no answer to know, right now is a time to experience emotions authentically. There is no right way to do that. The more familiar I get with the feelings of anger, sadness, hopelessness, and fear the deeper I connect to everyone else experiencing these emotions. Because we are just an extension of those experiencing those emotions. And now more than ever it’s important to make the effort to focus on the ways we are connected and not divided.

Truthfully, I want to scream and shake the shoulders of the people who are actively creating division in the world. The disgust I feel is strong enough to blind me, keeping my attention focused on the horrific events happening to innocent humans. The pain that must be coursing through the veins of the loved ones who are grieving for their babies, fathers, and sons. When I turn the controls over to my emotions there is no telling where my brain will take me. It’s not uncommon to be overrun with emotion, I’d even argue that most people are walking through life this way all the time. But it’s times like these that make it even more dangerous for our emotions to get the best of us. Especially when there are groups of people who aren’t empathetic and who are stoking the fires of the crimes and injustices of the world.

My goal isn’t to stop you from pointing fingers at who’s right and who’s wrong. My goal is to introduce another way of approaching your emotions at this time. Giving you the tools to shift your perspective long enough to create space for another way of coping if your way is hurting, not helping. To teach you to pause long enough and ask yourself if you’re handling this the best way you can. My goal is to start the conversation about the ways humans are causing their own suffering because their personal narrative has hijacked their senses. This article is to help you navigate the emotions that are distracting you, while channeling their energy into what matters most.

Emotional Connectivity

Even if you’re not outraged particularly by police brutality, racial injustice, or the horrifying media that’s been surfacing all weekend, there is still something in your life that elicits negative emotions. There are things that bring darkness out of you, have led you into darkness, or have forced you to become consumed by it all. Humans are running wildly unaware of the power resting in their emotional state. There is a large disconnect from the body and an incredible attachment to the narrative part of the mind, the part of you that creates the persona of who you are. As the division of mind and body grows, the story playing inside the mind becomes your primary focus. You focus so intently on the story of who you are that you forget you are an extension of others. The narrative in your mind plays so loud you forget it’s created by thoughts flowing untamed, and you begin to accept this as truth. With each repeating thought pattern and every decision that aligns with them, you are further separating yourself from what is happening to your body. But the stronger that narrative inside your mind becomes the louder your suffering gets, and the harder it is to see your connection to other human beings at all.

See, each time you experience an emotion it appears in your body in the form of sensation. Negative feeling emotions tend to show up as constriction, tightness, heaviness, and pain. Positive feeling emotions tend to show up as an openness, pleasure, lightweight, and allowance. Tuning into the body while you’re experiencing an intense emotion can introduce the power of the mindbody connection. The more present you become with how your body is responding to your thoughts and emotions, the deeper you can meet yourself. And as you begin uncovering these layers of emotion you can become aware of your choices, rather than being imprisoned by emotion.

You, like every other human in existence, has been driven to experience negative and intense emotional states. And although people experience these emotions for different reasons and triggers, the similar nature of emotional beings cannot be denied. I won’t ask you to understand the people who don’t understand you, I won’t even ask you to expand your awareness to others. Instead, I want to lead you within yourself because this is where all change occurs. Because even though what is hurting you is coming from outside of you, these intense emotions are all happening inside you.

My mind brings me into thoughts of revenge and retaliation, my soul cries out for understanding and love, while my body is the vessel that carries either of these truths out. That’s what I recognize in every other human being right now, emotions flooding their minds, bodies, and souls. When an emotion surfaces with enough intensity it can overcome you, blinding you of any other way of thinking or being. An emotion that is so intense it’s power is intoxicating causing you to act on those thoughts of revenge or act on your soul’s cry for love.

But if people are being taken over by their emotional reactions to the world, they are disconnecting from themselves and from each other. Please, let’s reconnect.

Category: MindBody