The Conscious Mind: Living a mindful life

Being mindful and living in the present moment is one of the healthiest things that a person can do for themselves. It can be very difficult, especially if you have developed a pattern of worrying about the future and feeling angry about the past. Living in the past harbours resentment, guilt and sadness....while worrying about the future only creates anxiety and fear. Why would you want either of these in your life? I write about these things because I understand them and because they are important to me. Living a happy life truly is important to me! I don't want to waste what I have been given on things that I cannot change...

Since taking my 200hr Yoga Teacher Training back in 2018, I have really worked on my own mindfulness. Efforts aside, I have read A LOT about the idea of living in the present moment and I strive to do so as much as possible. I quickly catch myself when I'm not in that place and slowly steer myself in the right direction. It takes a lot of work! Like a lot. An incredible amount of work and dedication. You don't wake up one morning and decide that you're doing to be a mindful person and BAM! It's done! It is a learned behaviour. It is a habit. Bad habits are formed over time and they take time to correct or change.

I've been taking a self-paced online Mindfulness Coach course for about a year and a half. The teachings are quite eye opening and I began to realize as I venture through the course, that a persons mind is the only thing stopping them. It can be a hindrance or a gift. I began to see patterns. Not only in myself, but in others. I really started to pay attention to other people's attitudes toward life and how negative some of those attitudes can be. I have always considered myself to be an empath...but over the last number of years, I have noticed that other people's negative energy severely drains me. To the point where I often need to take time to recover after being around them. Do you notice that you feel this way? Do you feel exhausted after being around certain people? These people are sometimes referred to as energy vampires because it feels as though they suck the life out of you.

I am no professional (um...not yet anyway...) but I have grown and learned so much about myself since I've started this course. I've made some pit stops, hit some speed bumps, maybe even taken some U-turns before turning back around...but I feel as though I have grown an incredible amount as a person. I didn't want to stay stuck being unhappy and instead did the hard work to unpack and unravel my feelings and understand their message. Nobody is stuck! Being stuck is a feeling, not a fact. The message of 'feeling stuck' teaches you that you are committed to a behavioural pattern that may have helped you at some point in the past but is not serving you anymore. In order to evolve into a better version of yourself...the pattern needs to be broken.

Mindfulness is keeping your focus and awareness on present moment. It is being able to acknowledge distractions in the form of thoughts of the past or the future, and redirecting your awareness and focus to what is going on at that very moment; sights, scents and sounds. It is accepting a situation, without judgement. It is keeping a clear and relaxed mind on what is actually taking place and being able to stray from delusion and distraction.

Mindfulness is something that must be practiced. It's challenging and it takes work! It takes a deeper awareness of ones self; thoughts and emotions. In my opinion, in order to truly live a life of gratitude and contentment, it must be lived mindfully and with intention. Now as I said....this takes practice and therefor time. It takes a conscious and willing effort. There are many ways in which a person can live mindfully but I have listed below, a number of simple and straightforward ways to introduce mindfulness into your life!

1) Start and end each day by counting your blessings and being grateful for what you have. You will never be happy in life if you cannot first look at what you have be given. Comparison only robs you of joy....look for the little things and always hold those thoughts and ideas in your mind.

2) Keep a journal. Even if at bedtime, you take 5 minutes to let your thoughts and emotions flow...it can be highly beneficial for your mental health and wellbeing by keeping us grounded and eliminating negative emotions.

3) Notice distractions when they happen. Don't fight them. Allow them to enter your mind and then redirect your focus to something else. It could be your coffee mug, a co-worker walking by your office, a car driving by, etc. Now that you've pulled your mind away from the distraction, go back to what you were originally doing.

4) Connect with nature by getting outdoors. If the weather is nice, open windows in your house or office. Take a walk on your breaks, lunch hour or when you're available to. Nature is truly healing.

Sounds pretty simple eh? They are! They're a great start in to the journey toward a more mindful way of living. Baby steps, patience and hard work!

xo