Category: MindBody

Posted in MindBody, Practices

Self-Care While Serving Others: Wellness Tips for Caregivers

Posted on by Sabrina Renee

hands people friends communication

Do people depend on you?

Being a support system for other people is sort of like having a superpower. Your presence has energy that others can feel just by being around you. It feels safe, making it easy for them to open up and maybe even ask for help.

 

Those who have this quality are likely to be spectacular beings, but being there for others can have its challenges. On one hand, being the person that others depend on can bring you a sense of fulfillment, knowing that you have a positive influence on someone’s life.

 

On the other hand, being the person people depend on can feel like a heavy responsibility, that could ultimately cloud your focus of what matters most.

 

It’s easy to lose yourself in what you believe you “should be” doing for others, while your needs get pushed to the bottom of the priority list.

 

Before you find yourself experiencing angst, frustration, or worse, resentment, it’s important to become aware of your relationship with being there for others.

self care isn t selfish signage

 

Checking-In With Yourself

Some people have very welcoming energy about them, once you’re around them you feel comfortable and safe to speak your truth. This is a wonderful gift that could easily be taken advantage of if you’re not careful.

 

People who are always there for their loved ones, coworkers, and sometimes the occasional stranger on a park bench, aren’t always there for themselves. It’s challenging to set a boundary that requires you NOT to be available for other people, after all it has become a part of who you are.

 

This doesn’t mean that being of service is a bad thing, but too much giving and not enough receiving is a recipe for an imbalanced lifestyle.

 

A good place to start is by checking in with your experience as well as how others are doing. The next time you are needed or being asked to do something, ask yourself:

 

  • How do I feel at this moment?

  • Can I handle this emotionally?

  • Am I doing this for the right reasons?

  • How will I feel after accomplishing this?

  • Will this hurt me or anyone else?

  • Is this way of helping aligned with my highest good?

 

eggs and lighted candles on marble top

Check in With Your Wellbeing

Get curious about how serving others is impacting your wellbeing. By deepening your connection with the service you provide you are more capable of creating a much-needed boundary.

 

Because if you are willing to do anything for anyone, you’re going to quickly burn yourself out. The more attentive you are to your own needs the better able you are to show up for those who need you most.

 

Tune into your energy levels, check-in on how you’re feeling, listen to any resistant thoughts popping up, all of these are signs that you need to take care of yourself.

 

When your energy is replenished you have more to give, no matter what pops up in your day. Start by checking in with how you’re feeling moment to moment and allow the honest answer to surface within you.

 

There is a difference between feeling overwhelmed and feeling disconnected from the way you serve your community. The only way to understand which one you are experiencing is by turning inward, which may not come naturally to someone who does so much for other people.

 

It can feel selfish to consider your own feelings because the obligation to others is so deeply rooted. The people who invest a considerable amount of time and energy into the needs of others are wired by service.

 

If left unchecked this can be a driving force toward resentment or anxiety about what you do and who you do it for. By tuning into your personal experience and choosing to be present you can tap into the truth of how this affects you.

 

love romantic bath candlelight

Self-Care is Necessary

 

When caring for others more often than not the mind is wired to focus on them, considering their needs before your own comes with the territory. But when you aren’t at your best you can’t deliver your best self to them.

 

Your performance may suffer, your energy levels may deplete, you may be physically present while your mind is somewhere else. Something as rewarding as serving, providing, and caring for others shouldn’t have to come at the cost of your mental health.

 

What I would love for you to take away is that there is most likely something in your life that isn’t getting the attention it deserves.

 

Maybe it’s the lack of healthy food your eating or movement you giving your body. Maybe it’s the way you deal with the hardest challenge in your life or the troubling emotions that feel too impossible to handle. I’m telling you to pay attention.

 

Look at how you treat the unpleasantness in your life, and how it returns the favor in your lifestyle. Notice the lack of attention you give yourself, while you glorify the attention you give others.

 

Raise your level of self-awareness so that you can truly begin to deal with and heal from whatever is going on in your life. This is the first step to being better for yourself and for those who need you most.

 

 

Love. Heal. Grow.

Posted in MindBody, Practices

A Guide to Creating Conscious Change: Alignment vs Action

Posted on 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.

  1. 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.

  2. 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.

  3. 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.

Posted in MindBody

How To Start Your Morning

Posted on by Sabrina Renee

The choices you make at the beginning of the day set the tone for the rest of your day. This is the most important time of your day to practice mindful awareness. First consider the initial thoughts as the day begins. Then consider the time you prioritize for getting ready, as well as transportation to work or school.

Is your attention focused on what you have to do or are you enjoying the first moments of your day? Do you stretch out your body or jump out of bed and into your routine? Are you allowing enough time between your alarm and the moment you need to arrive somewhere? At any point have you expressed gratitude for simply waking up and having the opportunity to begin again?

Mindset
Notice if your thoughts are focused on what needs to be done next and bring them back to right now. Your thoughts live in the future, taking you away from the present. If you find these thoughts are negative tell yourself “Today will be a great day because” and name three reasons.

Body
Check in with how you are feeling today. Notice the sensations in your body, any tightness or tension you’re holding. Take a deep breath and on the exhale relax your body. Bring attention to all five senses and practice gratitude for being able to use them all for another day.

Responsibilities
When looking ahead into your day do so with an attitude of gratitude. Instead of viewing your responsibilities as chores or burdens, appreciate all of the amenities these responsibilities have brought you.  Give thanks for your job, for your ability to go to school, to drive or find transportation to anywhere you need to be.

 

 

 

Setting Intentions for The Day

 

Overwhelm is experienced when you lack preparation. Plan the day out first thing in the morning with an intention. An intention is an attitude or way of being that you aim for throughout the day. The most fitting intention is to become aware, starting with your thoughts. 

A few other intentions that would help you optimize your day:

  1. Patience

  2. Positive outlook

  3. Gratitude

  4. Kindness

  5. Confidence

  6. Productivity

  7. Practice pause

  8. Practice stillness

  9. Focus

  10. Clarity

 

 

 

If you’re reading this in the middle of the day you can still set an intention for the remainder of your day. Change doesn’t happen when you get a fresh start. It happens when you become aware of your choices and make a conscious effort to choose something better for your mental and physical health. Start by setting an intention, by checking in with your thoughts, by being grateful for this very moment. Just start.

Posted in Healing, MindBody

Practices of a Healthy Mind

Posted on by Sabrina Renee

What is Meditation?

 

“A quality of high attentiveness and concentration. An attitude of open mindedness and curiosity.” 

Meditation is the disciplined practice of concentration and focus, whether it be on the breath, a movement, a repeated phrase or an object. It can be done while sitting in a chair or on a mat, standing, lying down, practicing yoga or taking a walk. Essentially, it is the act of paying attention and increasing your focus muscle, inviting a sense of calm and clarity to the mind. This is often misinterpreted as clearing the mind of all thought, but that’s definitely not the point of meditation. It’s about practicing the art of slowing down both mentally and physically.

There is no end goal to meditation. It is a practice meant to be applied throughout your life. The more you practice the better you become at practicing stillness. It’s important not to become discouraged by any difficulty in the beginning. One of the biggest challenges when starting a meditation practice is that there is no instant gratification. The world we live in thrives on immediate answers to questions and solutions to problems. Moreover, our emotions are lacking regulation because we simply don’t take the time to experience them as they occur. It isn’t easy to face the reasons why we feel pulled in 6 different directions at one time, however it is important to get in touch with those reasons.

Slowing down and paying attention is exactly what we need to balance us out in such a fast paced society. It allows us the chance to be present and appreciate what we have in the midst of striving for more. The mind won’t function at a higher rate with the same mentality that burns it out. The definition of insanity is repeating the same actions and expecting new results.

So what is Mindfulness?

 

Mindfulness is a practice of awareness. Practicing awareness is bringing your focus to either your thoughts, physical sensations or breathing, whatever is occurring at this moment. When you are being mindful you are utilizing the traits of patience, acceptance, forgiveness, nonjudgment and having a beginner’s mind toward yourself and others. Whether in the form of anxiety or a difficult emotion, we need to start paying attention to our emotions and learn to regulate them in the moment.

 

Although mindfulness and meditation are both practices they are not one in the same. Mindfulness incorporates the principles listed above and can be practiced at any moment. It is the simple act of paying attention to the minor details that are normally glanced over. Brushing your teeth, showering and walking out of your house, just to name a few. For instance, have you ever driven from one place to another and didn’t remember the actual driving process? After learning how to drive it becomes habitual. The mind kicks in when it’s necessary, like an emergency brake or when traffic breaks so we speed up. But for the majority of the time we allow our autopilot to take over. 

 

 

If we can allow our awareness to shut off when we are operating a vehicle daily,

how many other vital moments are we missing?

 

 

 

Mindful Awareness Meditation 

This is a simple discipline that will both challenge and change you, combining both mindful awareness and meditation into one very powerful practice. First you need something to focus on and in this case it will be your breath. The only way to know when you are distracted is if your attention is on one thing to begin with. The breath is portable, easily accessible and always in the present moment-making it the ideal single point of focus.

Next you’ll need to find a comfortable posture. If you’re choosing a chair I would recommend one without arms to practice proper posture, feet flat on the floor. Placing your palms on your knees, facing the ceiling or resting on your lap (pretend you’re holding a giant imaginary wheel.) Remember you can also lay down and practice on a mat. I wouldn’t suggest doing so on your bed; your body understands that comfort zone as place to sleep, not pay attention. 

Finally set a duration of time, preferably 10 minutes to start, and focus on your breath. Your thoughts will absolutely interrupt you and pull you away from your purpose. Some may be unpleasant or fantastical, continue to remind yourself gently why you are sitting here. Keep coming back to the breath. Losing your train of thought is just another form of practicing patience with yourself. Don’t attach expectations of disciplined stillness onto this practice when this is something you’ve never done. And don’t give up at the first sign of frustration! 

 

Struggling to sit in stillness for 10 minutes is why you should continue to practice sitting still.

Practicing Discipline and Responding to Distraction

When you first begin to meditate your thoughts will be running wild. Your mind thinks this way 24/7. The only difference is now you are paying attention to those rapid thoughts. That’s a HUGE step in the direction of progress. Remember meditation is a disciplined practice. Be kind, patient and forgiving toward yourself when losing track of the breath. Keep coming back to the breath over and over and over again.

The time of day you choose to meditate varies for each person. Most of the books I’ve read recommend doing it first thing in the morning to set the tone of the day. I’ve found it helps pairing meditation time with a responsibility or chore. My morning practice takes place after I brush my teeth. I sit on a chair or mat for at least ten minutes, focusing on my breath and visualizing the day ahead. On the days that I am extremely distracted struggling to stay still, I gain the most from my practice. With that experience in mind I know it’s important to continue checking in on my moods and thoughts throughout the day.

Keep coming back! This advice can not be said enough. Come back to your breath, the chair, the reason why you sat still to begin with. Only then will responding to the mental distractions become easier. It’s not about clearing your mind but rather working toward peace of mind. Committing to meditation, even just ten minutes a day will build your awareness of self and increase your ability to regulate emotions. 

TRY THIS AT HOME!

If there were a way to slow the chatter of your mind, learn to control your moods, and ultimately become a better person you’d jump on the chance. Meditation is that practice. It is not a quick fix because it’s the journey that is meant to change you. Only in experiencing moments of discomfort are you pushed to fulfill your potential. Practicing stillness makes you grow through what you go through. 

Whatever success looks like in your life meditation will only help you get there. Commit to your future self’s mental health and practice meditation for one week, 10 minutes a day. Pay attention to the challenges, not with a judgmental mind but with an open awareness- get to know the real you. 

Meditation is not just for religious people, spiritual people, or those who believe in something higher. It’s for those who wish to function optimally in an ever-changing world.

Posted in Healing, MindBody

Coping With Anxious Mind

Posted on by Sabrina Renee
“Problems cannot be solved with the same mindset that created them.“
-Albert Einstein

 

If you’ve experienced the power of anxiety you understand that it can often paralyze your mind and body. When your thinking gets hijacked by anxious thoughts it can create havoc in your life and quickly destroy inner peace. It’s possible to understand how to cope with an anxious mind but first, you have to get ahead of it. Taking back your thoughts starts with changing your thinking.

 

The time to learn how to redirect your thoughts isn’t in the midst of an anxious moment. It isn’t when you’re body is reacting to the emotion you’re experiencing. It definitely isn’t when you’ve already taken a negative action toward yourself or another person. The right time to understand the importance of redirecting your thoughts and shifting your focus is before it arises again.

 

Coping With An Anxious Mind

Coping with an anxious mind is a marathon, not a sprint and the training is extensive. The mental exhaustion caused by the creation of hypothetical scenarios is enough to keep you indecisive and filled with fear. That same amount of energy can be utilized to rewire the mind to focus the attention on the present moment.

As with all change, it begins with awareness of yourself. It requires a practice of separating the components of anxiety, understanding the mind and body connection, and implementing pause to practice responding appropriately to the experience. The separation exercise is what I use and teach my client, to break anxiety into 3 tangible parts: Thoughts, Physical Sensations, and Behaviors.

 

Each person’s level of anxiety differs from manageable to debilitating, with multiple levels in between. By understanding the cycle of anxiety you can acquire the tools to combat it when it rears its ugly head, no matter how intense it is. It’s essential to separate yourself from anxiety-producing thoughts such as self-doubt, fear, angst, scarcity, etc. The thinking mind is one of the first things to get hijacked when under anxiety’s grip, therefore it’s important to practice noticing when it begins creeping up. 

 

How to Take Action

The trick to communicating positively with your thinking mind is to ask the right questions. If you ask “why do I feel this way?” you’ll typically start spiraling even quicker into whatever negative emotion you’re feeling. However, if you try asking yourself “how can I feel better?” you’ll get a more direct answer leading you away from how you feel and toward where you want to feel.

 

  • What thoughts are you experiencing right now?
  • What questions am I willing to do to heal from here?
  • How can I feel stronger? Happier? In control? More confident? 

 

Physical sensations in the body are connected to the thoughts you are thinking, emotions you are feeling, or behaviors you are choosing to act on. An example of this anxiety would be heart palpitations, sweaty palms, dry mouth, tight chest, clenched fists, etc. This is the body reacting to warn you of danger or protect you because it perceives your anxiety as life-threatening.

When you zoom out of the severity of the situation, or when you’ve finally calmed down, it seems silly to have jumped to such intense conclusions. But the truth is the mind and body were working together to keep you safe and protected, from yourself. 

The solution? Start paying attention to your body like it’s a science experiment through mindful awareness. This exact process helped me combat debilitating anxiety and I believe with some consistent practice, patience, and a smidge of humor you could do the same.

Start by taking notice of how your body is reacting. State it to yourself without judgment, be curious, open, and present at this moment. Avoid words like good, bad, scary, always, never, happy, sad, exciting, nervous, etc. Describe your experience with facts only, not emotion or past experience. 

 

“My heart is beating very fast, interesting.”

“My palms are sweaty, huh.”

“My breath is shallow.”

“My stomach/chest feels tight.”

After each observation, take a few deep breaths, inhaling through the nose and exhaling through the mouth. Make your exhalation a bit longer than the inhalation to relax the muscles, letting your mind and body know you are taking control now.  

 

Behaviors are decisions you come to after your thoughts have driven you to choose a particular path. However, behaviors under the influence of anxiety are intoxicated with whatever emotion you are feeling.

For instance, if your anxiety is fueled by fear of public speaking, your thoughts will trick you into thinking you are inadequate, and your physical sensations may be a closed throat and trembling body, therefore your behavior will be to never practice public speaking. Because you were under the influence of fear you’ve lost out on the opportunity to rise to the occasion of trying something new.

To be sure you are choosing your behaviors with a wise mind practicing pause is a significant practice. Before you make a choice under the influence of anxiety pause. Run through the ‘thought questions’, check in with your physical sensations, and decide if you’re capable of making a conscious decision right now.

When your thinking mind has been hijacked by anxiety everything has a sense of urgency, time is flying by, and each decision feels as if it needs to be made quickly. More than likely there is plenty of time to take time to sober up your thinking through deep breaths, come back to the present moment, and make a conscious effort to think clearly again.

 

Let’s Review

The thoughts in your thinking mind are influenced by the emotions you have or currently are experiencing. These emotions are what fuel the behaviors and decisions you choose. By practicing the separation exercise each day you can get a better understanding of what your triggers are, how they influence your decisions, and what it will take to take control over your thinking.

Remember, you don’t want to consider your exit strategy when the building is already on fire. Start working on your thoughts and noticing what experiences they lead to before you fall into the tight grips of anxiety.

 

Dealing with anxiety is in no way an easy feat, and rewiring your thinking process won’t be either. The choice you need to make is, which difficult road will bring you closer to solutions and peace of mind?

Love. Heal. Grow.

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