Wow, it is amazing what a whirlwind it feels like at the end of the school year! Graduations, graduation parties, the overflow of paper work that comes home from school, class projects, teachers gifts, sport tournaments, dance recitals… need I say more? In this week’s article we will look at a few simple solutions to help your transition from Spring to Summer flow with ease and grace! It will have you sipping lemonade with your feet up and a smile on your face in no time! You do know that the Universe hopes your Spirit will soar each and every day?
I was honored to be a guest speaker at the esteemed Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) this past weekend. Myself and four other speakers were asked to speak about Mastering Mindfulness. I explained how you can use your environment to help master mindfulness. You might ask “Why?” or “What is mindfulness?”
The Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines mindfulness as “the practice of maintaining a nonjudgmental state of heightened or complete awareness of one’s thoughts, emotions, or experiences on a moment-to-moment basis.”
The best way for me to describe the state of mindfulness is to connect you with the awareness of a gap between your thought and action. When you begin to find the gap between your thought and action it distances you from your reaction to the trigger or stimuli. For example, if you have a desire to loose weight but you keep binging on cookies it is because you are reacting to a want (which is a thought). But, when you can put a “pause” between the “I want that cookie” and the act of eating it, your chance of successfully abstaining grows substantially. Often times the best way to begin connecting to the gap is to make it a habit to take five deep breaths before reacting to your want or need. This will bring you into a state of full awareness, which will empower you to make conscious decisions.
I encourage you to play a little game this week. Begin to become mindful of the amount of stuff you have in your home. In today’s culture, we have 2x more things in our homes than 50 years ago! Each week and sometimes each day you are tempted by the consumer marketing machine to bring more and more items into your home. Studies show that the average women will spend more than eight years of their lives shopping. (The Daily Mail). Create a gap so that your brain doesn’t resort to autopilot and just buy something out of habit or lack of mindfulness. This game will help you become more mindful of the items that are in your home or the ones that you are thinking of bringing home.
Place a piece of paper on the wall near your entrance with the names of each person staying in your home. Every time someone brings a new item in the house put a point next to his or her name. At the end of the week tally each person and choose the winner by determining who had the least points for that week. This will help to create a gap between the “I need to have it” and the actual act of purchasing the items and bringing them home. It will also help you to know how many things you are bringing into your home each week.
Mastering mindfulness can be as simple as playing a game that helps you develop a new-found awareness around specific things. If you need help finding your gap, click here to schedule your discovery session.
Happy Soaring!
XOXO
photo credit: coe-onlinetrainingcourses dot com