You might already have a mindfulness practice or believe that you use mindfulness.
I want to help you crack your mindfulness code.
Without Mindfulness in your life, you will often fall victim to your own poor choices.
What’s worse, is what can happen from not having the awareness that mindfulness brings, and then feeling like life is random.
You may think life just happens and you don’t have a choice, that couldn’t be further from the truth.
When I think of ‘mindfulness’, I immediately think Body – Mind Connection.
What the mind thinks, the body responds to. What the body does, the mind observes, this is where and how your patterns are formed and what shapes your body.
This is where and how you transform your life.
It’s not something you think, then you manifest an awesome life and you get everything you want. When you become conscious of your thoughts, then put that into action.
Every thought has an emotion attached to it. Your subconscious holds onto every thought. Isn’t that profound?
It’s no wonder we have the challenges we have in life if we have no way of clearing all those thoughts.
As a somatic practitioner for over a decade,
I believe your body is the activator, the tool for releasing those thoughts you no longer require. Those thoughts without a purpose are where your trauma come from and what
cause the dis – ease, dysfunction and emotional challenges that ruin your life.
Mindfulness, awareness, body – mind connection, are tools that you
constantly and repeatedly use.
The regular practice of them, refines your practice of mindfulness..
This is a constant and evolving process til your end days.
There is too much “mind” in the world. When we are aware of being in our body we experience the
world from a deeper place. Feel first, Observe, then ask “where does that come from”. Then take action.
One of the most effective ways to crack your mindfulness code is through observing others.
By witnessing others unconscious actions, it brings your awareness to what you’re doing in the moment.
After a lifetime of repeated patterns, how You, do You, becomes an unconscious pattern.
“How you do one thing is how you do all things”
How you walk, how you move your body, how you hold your head when you’re talking to someone.
The words you use, how you use them, how you eat, what you eat, even how you turn a door knob.
These all say a lot about you and how people get a feel for you.
What you’re unconscious of, is what others are experiencing from you.
Your non verbal messaging, which comes from your inner world.
How others experience you is where you will have a blindspot.
This is how you teach others how to treat you.
Frustrated with how your partner, children coworkers treat you?
It comes from you!
How much are your patterns working for you, or against you?
Being aware of your patterning helps you to understand why you’re stuck.
This means facing your shadow… your inner world.
Your shadow, is where your answers are. Answers to why your life looks the way it does.
Even why you look the way you do.
The more you face your shadow, the more you become who you’re meant to be.
This is the path to mastering your life and cracking the mindfulness code.
Your shadow may actually be what you find charming in yourself.
Imagine following yourself with filming crew for a day.
Whether you’re running errands, walking, breathing, at the gym,with your kids or spouse.
What would the movie of you show in the replay? That’s where your blind spot is.
Observing yourself consciously is where you start realizing all the unconscious acts you do.
Your posture, how you breath, how you walk, run, slump over in your chair is what the replay shows.
You’ll ask yourself, “is that me?” “It doesn’t even look like me.., Did I say that? Is that how I look?”
These are all judgements and how you judge yourself.
Although, this is how the outside world is judging you too.
When your realizations(mind) meet your body(action) is what I call the
Mind Body Intersection
The moment you get it and switch to a new pattern.
You do this by centering yourself into your physical and emotional alignment.
These are mindful adjustments that align your body with correct new thoughts.
They’re not easy to master, you need constant reminding, especially when first starting,
so you can shift into the new pattern of being mindful of your actions. That’s why observing others is a helpful reminder. It’s unlikely you can do this alone. It’s the nature of your programming
that holds you in your pattern. Even if you’re in pain, you’re likely to stay in your pattern
rather than choosing a new one. That darn old comfort zone!
Recent research has proven it takes sixty six repetitions before it becomes a pattern that replaces
the previous.
This is why routines and rituals work.
You’re out of alignment and lacking consciousness when:
– multi-tasking (especially if you think you’re good at it)
– driving too fast or aggressively
– flipping through social media when talking to someone
– talking over or interrupting others
– almost any time you’re on social media
– judging others or yourself
– alcohol, drugs, emotional eating or other addictions
I am short listing here, but you get the idea.
What do want to become mindful of? Where is the Pain in your life?
Where do you find yourself in mindless moments throughout your day?
Remove the randomness and gain control over what your day, your life, looks like.
Discipline becomes your mindfulness practice and that’s
what gives you control in your life.
Making decisions that you don’t find easy at first, then following through with action
is how to crack the mindfulness code .
Action is an important part of the awareness formula.
The cellular memory shifts when you consciously create new movement.
A new life, a new body starts manifesting as you create new patterns.
Creating new patterns rewires your brain and releases the emotional baggage from your body.
Being a somatic practitioner for over a decade taught me these principles.
It was fascinating to me when a teacher in a training would teach us the verbal information, then the actions of the
teacher didn’t correspond. I often wondered why I didn’t believe a lot of what I was being told.
When I started teaching the modalities, I understood the students experience.
You can have a wall full of certificates, achieved high education and have alphabets beside your name (phd,Dr Msc etc.)
If you are not embody your teachings, you won’t be received the way you expect.
Mindfulness is what puts you in your body, and in the moment.
When you’re dealing with frustration, physical or emotional pain, and you can explain it away, that’s your first clue.
If your sentence starts with “I can’t because….”, you’re dealing with body – mind disconnection issue.
All the talk therapy in the world will not impact you as fast or as effectively, than if you get out of your head and into your body and feel what’s really going on in your life.
I’m not saying it’s easy, I’m saying it’s possible.
Buying into society beliefs is a good example of mind first behavior.
By the time I was forty, I was physically, mentally and emotionally exhausted. But I wouldn’t say that because I couldn’t see that everything about how I was living was causing my discomfort in life. From the relationships I chose, to the food I ate to how I spent my time. I can sum it up in one word, Mindless. I was empty and didn’t know what I was supposed to be doing. I was already going in too many directions and didn’t know how to slow it down. So one day my body started to send me messages. I admit that I was an over achieving, multi tasker mom of teenagers, whose husband worked away for months at a time. I managed everybody and everything connected to our household and my career. Neither my body or brain functioned very well. It took losing my memory and receiving grim medical diagnosis’ that resulted in multiple surgeries to pay attention.
My first breakthrough was by cracking the mindfulness code and finding my body – mind connection.
The changes in my body & my brain have been so significant, I am unrecognizable to many who knew me previously.
I love the feeling of being in my body. Something I hadn’t heard of and didn’t know was possible.
This has been so significant, it has changed every aspect of my life.
Since then, I have dedicated my life to sharing with women who were just like me, that:
…what’s happening in your life. That’s why unlocking your awareness, and cracking your own mindfulness code is so important.
Most people think they understand what’s happening in their body and they don’t.
I’ll share a small example from a case study.
You’ve walked with a limp most of your life. You say, you broke it when you were twelve and it’s bothered you ever since.
You just deal with it. What was going on in your life when you were twelve? How did you feel supported?
Where there fights between your parents that affected you? Maybe there was a divorce and absent parenting, added to that
shuffling between households and blended family situations. Were you being bullied in school?
Because of the long term pain in your ankle:
– you couldn’t wear the pretty shoes, the ones that you loved and made you feel special.
– your work involved being on your feet for long days, this was been painful and went on for years
– you weren’t aware of how you over compensated in walking with pain, it then traveled up your body
– over the years you developed hunched over posture
– you stopped enjoying activities you loved
– you didn’t notice how your face was changing, you looked older than your years
– your self talk is abusive, sad, deflating
– you prefer to be alone
You can’t stand people who are happy anymore.
You don’t go out much and popcorn and the couch are you regular date nights.
You wonder what life is all about. Why is it so unfair?
You may even consider ending your life.
In my opinion, mindfulness is awareness of what your body is doing when you’re not
paying attention. When you’re distracted or caught in a pattern where you no longer think about
what you’re doing in the present moment.
In order to be mindful, aware, you’re constantly changing your behavior. This is part of the formula.
Sounds easy but according to the research, they say people would rather risk dying than change their patterns
because the uncertainty of the results creates too much discomfort to consider.
So I ask you, why is cracking your mindfulness code important?
Lorrel Elian