Mindful Thought: Relationships pt2

 

Today second part of relationships and Mindfulness. This part shows a light on how we often mirror our family culture and how that can negatively impact our relationships and life.

In the  60's and 70's a lot of groundbreaking research was done about attachment theory (Bowlby and Ainsworth to name a few) and from that many psychological researchers have examined the different ways secure and insecure attachments with our parents or caregivers affect our attachment style as adults. 

If your parents showed you love, responded to your needs and validated your feelings, you will more likely develop a secure attachment style. You then seek out and desire the same attachment style as an adult.

If you had an insecure attachment with your parents, then you may have a fragmented sense of self, which leads to low self-esteem, anxiety in relationships, doubt to trust others.

You will seek out relationships that mimic that same attachment style, not because it feels good but because it feels familiar.

The relationship with your parents is the very first one you have and the most influential example how to interact with others and communicate in a romantic relationship. The way love is expressed between parents, the way parents show love to their children. Playfulness, hugs, word of admiration, affection.

Those similar patterns you use to show love to your partner.

The ways in which anger and conflict were managed in your family plays a large factor in how you communicate with your partners today.. 

Whether or not you express your emotions openly or hold emotions in, especially negative emotions, parallels how your parents communicated with each other and with you as a child. For example, conflict may be dealt with in the family by talking openly and assertively or by not talking about it and perhaps expressing the negative emotion in passive aggressive ways. 

Conflict may be expressed in direct yet verbally aggressive ways like yelling or name-calling. 

Your styles of communication are formed by observation and direct experience of your primary role models in childhood.  

Poor conflict management is the number one predictor of divorce in couples.

Same-sex parents serve as a model for your own behavior and opposite sex parents are projected into potential partners. This also works in reverse, in the sense that you may search for the opposite of a father who was stoic and uninvolved. Another example, a person may be very sensitive to criticism and argue frequently with partners because their same-sex parent had difficulty advocating for themselves and became a "doormat" in the relationship. We tend to want to emulate our parent's relationship when it is perceived as healthy and positive.

Are we doomed to play out these patterns or can we change this?

Yes! Change starts with self-awareness! Start to identify where patterns of communication, thoughts, and feelings originate. Reflect on your childhood and try to remember the patterns you had in interacting with your parents. How was love expressed? How was conflict dealt with? How were negative emotions expressed or not expressed? Therapy is a great tool for this process. Problematic reactions and behaviors can oftentimes be traced to unhealthy parental interactions. External messages from our families about communication, self-worth, and a host of other issues become internalized and assimilated into our own thoughts.

When you have negative thoughts and self-criticism, ask yourself: Whose voice is that? 

Is this what you think and believe, or does it come from somewhere or someone else? If your parents are still living, you can also start to notice how you interact with your parents today, and then see how those patterns may be playing out in your romantic relationships. After you become aware of your patterns, learning about other ways of interacting is key, and then applying those new ways is imperative. This part is difficult! But Mindfulness will help you. In the first week we talked about the narrative and story

in our head and how to stop believing this propaganda and just see them as thoughts, nothing more.

Meditating will help you become more aware of those thoughts and patterns and you can train your mind to step out of it.

And because we are talking about this in the spirit of Mindfulness I want you to look at your parents or caregivers with compassion. Just as you are formed by your genes

and upbringing, your environment and experience, so are they, they are playing out their own patterns. Not fully aware of the consequences of their actions. Perhaps unable to change. Look at them with compassion and forgiveness. 

You are aware, you examine and break the patterns, you grow as a person and that is something to be grateful for ♥

Anyone of you listening to this that suffers great trauma, Mindfulness can help you but not give you the professional help you need. Be sure to seek out help in rl ♥

Meditation's Impact on the Brain (ty Bronus ♥)

 Bronus posted this youtube link in our Discord and I want to share it with you:

Mindful Thought: Emotions pt4

Today our pt4 of Emotions, and we will take a closer look on

how Mindfulness helps us to deal with negative emotions and the sensations and pain they cause in our body

Yesterday I shared how we can stop reacting when emotion is triggered. 

The 3 step process:

 A stimulus

 the stimulus sparks an emotion

 and the emotion sparks a reaction

 

How Mindfulness adds another step to this process:

Instead of stimulus-emotion-reaction,

you have stimulus-emotion-exploration-choice. 

When you are reacting, maybe sometimes it works out well for you, 

most of the time it does not. 

Reactions are almost entirely out of ego. 

Choices are almost entirely out of consciousness. 

The Kindness Club: The Great Bell Chant

 Today at the Kindness Club we watched this short 7 minute video called The Great Bell Chant (the end of suffering).    It’s read by Thich Nath Hanh and chanting is by brother Phap Niem. 

Wild geese

 

WILD GEESE

You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
For a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting —
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.

Mary Oliver (September 10, 1935–January 17, 2019)

Mindful Thought pt3

 

Today we explore more what emotions are and how they steer our reactions and our life. 

Let's take a look at the evolution of our emotional programming and processing.

Emotional competence is a developmental process that has 3 components: 1) emotion expression; 2) emotion knowledge; and 3) emotion regulation As we grow up we go through different levels of cognitive ability.:

As a newborn baby we are not aware we exist, emotions are purely based on survival, to influence our caregivers and surroundings.

Often you can see on a baby's face how nature trains the right muscles to communicate the emotions they will need to express themselves later in life.

Gratitude Diary on Discord

Come join us on Discord and write in our Gratitude Diary what you are grateful for today

https://discord.gg/xw9u7ME

'Gratitude is like most desirable traits and qualities in that it is usually not enough to simply decide to be grateful—we must actively practice it to cement its place in our lives.

There are many reasons why gratitude is such a desirable quality, aside from its inherent goodness. As we recently wrote in a piece on the benefits of gratitude, performing simple daily acts of gratitude can have a big impact on your health and happiness.

These effects are particularly evident in the practice of gratitude journaling. It only takes a few minutes a day, but it can give you a lasting mood boost that can take you from feeling “okay” to feeling “great” on a more regular basis."  ~https://positivepsychology.com/

 

The Kindness Club: What Is Your Life's Purpose?

Today we watched a video called, "Seek Life’s Purpose with Your Guardian Spirit," by The Honest Guys.  They are two brothers from the UK who have been creating meditations since 2009.  You can find them on the web and they also have a channel on YouTube.

Like most of us, I have often asked myself  – what is my true life purpose? Am I fulfilling that purpose to the best of my capacity, or do I avoid it by being busy and distracted out of fear of failure or not measuring up? 

When I was a mother of young children, my purpose was clear – take care of their needs, teach them good values, encourage their natural curiosity, and love them in all the best ways I could. At other times, I found satisfaction and personal fulfillment by writing, being a mentor to those in 12 step programs, activism in social justice causes, and being a loyal friend and confidante to loved ones.  But were these really my life’s purposes?  

Yes, because one's true purpose is about recognizing your own gifts and using them to contribute to the world.  Pablo Picasso once said, “The meaning of life is to find your gift.  The purpose of life is to give it away.”

We are all continually evolving and growing as we make our way through life, and so it is important that we remain open to continually discovering - and giving away - our gifts.

New at the Center: a mailbox and a need help button

 

The Center is an immersive experience that allows you to take a step back from all the stress and strains in your daily life, the soft ambient sounds and hazy colors allow you to focus on your meditation or just relax to regain your balance and spiritual well-being. We are here to support and inspire you therefor we placed the mailbox at the landing spot, (ctrl drag your notecard to the box) we want to hear your story, comments, suggestions and questions ♥

However we are not professionals so if you find yourself in a crisis situation and need rl help or support we added the need help button, on touch it will give you a notecard with useful links to sites, information, chat, phone numbers for your region. 

Mindful Thought: Side Note

On Friday late I had a conversation with someone who asked me if Mindfulness makes you a better person and if that means she had to 

transform in a Sister Theresa like personality.

I have two answers for this question. Mindfulness makes you a better person and no, you do not transform into a saint.

In our Western world Mindfulness has evolved to a wellness type movement focused on being better, working better, feeling better etc. 

In Buddhism the Pali word for "mindfulness" is sati. Sati can also mean 'retention, recollection, or alertness. Mindfulness is a whole-body-and-mind awareness of the present moment. To be mindful is to be fully present, not lost in daydreams, anticipation, indulgences, or worry.

Mindfulness also means observing and releasing habits of mind that maintain the illusion of a separate self. This includes dropping the mental habit of judging everything according to whether we like it or not. Being fully mindful means being fully attentive to everything as-it-is, not filtering everything through our subjective opinions.

Here the big difference is we completely let go of the ego and therefor feel no judgment towards others as we see them not separate from ourselves 

therefor love and kindness for everyone becomes possible. What you perceive as yourself you can not harm.

This state of enlightenment is hard to achieve for most of us as we run the treadmill of our Western society and are bombarded with so many things constantly fighting for our attention. That does not mean we can't adopt and integrate the beginnings of these teachings in our lives. 

The reason why I share this with all of you is that even those small beginnings do change our life. And no, not to turn us into saints. 

Human life is suffering, on top of all things most of us have to go through there is the awareness of our own inevitable death. 

This death anxiety subconscious influences our behaviors on a psychological, spiritual, and cultural level. 

There is a relation between human violence and death.

Yet in our society aging and death are almost a taboo and we all join the race to ignore it and not talk about it. Infinite youth is a relic and worshiped 

as the ultimate goal. And this while facing and/or discussing death can actually be a meditation for living fuller lives.

Mindfulness can not cure any of the challenges we face as human beings but it can help us how to perceive them and how deeply we let them affect us.

If you have a car accident today and your car is wrecked, this can be an example human suffering. In Buddhism the car accident is not the suffering, the car accident

is an experience, what the mind does with the experience is the suffering. You can feel depressed and lost in negative thoughts for a week about your car or

the trained mind would be grateful to be alive, that it was not worse and learned from the experience. 

This is two perspectives of the same event.

Most of us do not have the trained minds of Buddhist monks so we will probably feel the more negative experience. Mindfulness can make it less worse, because

we are in the moment and aware of our thoughts and get faster out of that state of mind and at the end perhaps come to the conclusion we are grateful we are healthy and no one got hurt.

This example goes for almost everything in our lives. You will still feel sad, angry and disappointed even if you meditate every day and practice being in the present moment a few times a day. The same misfortune and negative events will still happen to you. Mindfulness will help you perceive them from another angle, 

be aware of the thoughts you have and adjust those thoughts to what is helpful.

So this does make you a better person over time and those around you will benefit from it and notice the change in you. It is however a process of win and fail and learning every time. The good thing is every day is a new day to start over ♥ 

Mindful Thoughts: Gratitude pt5

 

I start with this quote I found on a blog I linked at the bottom of this notecard, no idea who wrote it but it is a great quote to share with you ♥

“If you do not respect your whole, you cannot expect to be respected as well. Don’t let your partner love a lie, an expectation. Trust yourself. Bet on yourself. If you do this, you will be opening yourself to be really loved. It’s the only way to find real, solid love in your life.”

Self Love is not about putting yourself first in a manner it hurts those around you, nor is it posting 10 pictures on Instagram a day, that is the self-love we act out to get validation from others. 

Treating yourself to expensive meals, spending a night with someone regardless the consequences, procrastinate and delay everything to later, rejecting things that take effort, reject challenges, seeking validation and approval from others, believing it's all about you...

This may seam about self-love but it is actually not, it takes the idea of self-love too personally, while self-love is a journey that is primarily focused on the self, it doesn’t mean that you must become obnoxiously selfish, thinking of no one but yourself.

Every time you don’t get exactly what you want, you might become frustrated or annoyed, leading to a mental state that is the opposite of what self-love is supposed to achieve.

While a temporary happiness comes in the form of direct benefits – if your goals and wishes becoming fulfilled as clearly and quickly as possible- the satisfaction and happiness is short term and makes place for more disappointment, frustration and wishing things were different and total lack of gratitude.

Nothing of that will stop the nagging 'voice' or thoughts, this internalized dialog is at the root of much of our self-destructive and maladaptive behavior.

This critical inner voice is experienced as thoughts within our head. The stream of destructive thoughts forms an anti-self that discourages us from acting in our best interest.

Most common thoughts like “You’re stupid,” “You’re not attractive,” or “You’re not like other people.”

Or about your career, like “You’ll never be successful,” “No one appreciates how hard you work,” or “You are under too much pressure, you can’t handle this stress.”

Or about your relationship, such as “He doesn’t really care about you,” “You’re better off on your own,” or “Don’t be vulnerable, you’ll just get hurt.”

So what do I mean then with self-love???

Time is your most important currency, live mindfully, truthfully, and intentionally. Try to train your mind to no longer get lost in thoughts, stop jumping on the train of association. Help yourself by leaving little reminders everywhere to call yourself to the present moment.

Things to do: Hang little Post-its or Stickers in the bathroom, your office, your car, the kitchen... to remind you to be in the present moment. 

Treat yourself well; physically, emotionally. Listen to your body and your mind at the most basic level – if something doesn’t feel good, then it is probably bad for you. Protect yourself, from the dangers of both greasy food and toxic friends.

Eat healthy, exercise regularly even taking walks, sleep enough hours, and surround yourself with people that help you grow and not pull you down.

Don’t limit yourself, but don’t confuse self-love with hedonism. Moderation is good for the soul.

Treat yourself with the same respect, kindness, and mindfulness that you would offer the people who matter most to you in your life.

Love yourself with the same patience and tenderness you would give your own child, partner, sibling, or parent.

Be kind but be stern; learn to discipline, but learn to forgive. You are your own greatest fan, your own greatest rival, and your own greatest love.

Learn to see yourself in ways you have never considered.

Things to do: make a reminder to be kind to yourself. Draw a heart on your wrist, on your water bottle,

hang little smile and heart stickers on your mirror, smile at yourself. 

Most important one: stop identifying with your nagging, critical inner voice

You can take power over your critical inner voice. When you become aware of what it is telling you, you can stop it from running your life. The challenge is to identify it and ‘flush it out’. To do this, when you slip into a bad mood or become upset. Investigate: what caused the shift? What happened and, most importantly, what did you start telling yourself?

 The fact that your mood shifted from feeling good or relaxed to feeling down or irritable is probably a sign that you perceive through your critical inner voice.

When you have identified that your critical inner voice is advising you, what is it trying to get you to do? 

When you pinpoint the actions it wants you to take, take control over your critical inner voice, decide to take action against it and acting solely in your own interest.

Things to do: every time you become aware your critical inner voice is telling you negative things

answer no, not taking it and shush the voice giving it no importance.

And here we come to the most important part for self-love

Self acceptance and gratefulness for who you are right now.

You set the standards for your self-acceptance. You decide to stop grading yourself, or keeping score with yourself, you can adopt an attitude of forgiveness. In fact, once you stop your lifelong habit of assessing, and reassessing yourselves and compassionately understand your past, you'll find that there's really nothing to forgive. Of course, you can vow to do better in the future, but you can nonetheless accept yourself precisely as you are today, regardless of our shortcomings.

We don't have to actually do anything to self-accept. Only change the way we look at ourselves. Changing our behavior is a matter of personal preference but not a prerequisite for acceptance.

Focus on our positives, practice self-compassion, forgive our self for our faults.

As soon as we can give our self approval and be grateful for who we are at this moment we stop needing other's approval. 

Finally, there's no reason at all to not change the sense of your self. And we may need to remind ourselves that our various weaknesses are part of what makes us human. So in the pursuit of unconditional self-acceptance, we might even want to take a certain pride in our imperfections. After all, were we beyond criticism in the first place, we'd never have the opportunity to rise to this uniquely human challenge.

Things to do: every morning before getting out of bed take a minute to think about something you are grateful for, can be something little or the sun shining through your window, the smell of coffee or happy you woke up in time...

Great article and tips for self love

Eckhart Tolle Teachings 

Quote by Mizu: What i like to think about past/future is.. that it's like a book that is still being written... no point in thinking about past, the pages are already filled - and you can't change them anymore... and future, is empty pages... no point in thinking "wonder what will be written here", if there's still pages to be filled before it , today

Mindful Thoughts: Gratitude pt 4

 

Gratitude and Self-Love

Today we look at gratefulness and how it is intertwined with self-love.

When you take a minute to look at how much you have accomplished, for yourself or others, you feel empowered, efficient. Often, we tend to focus on the failures, or negative experiences in our lives. 

When you were little, you may have been led to believe things about yourself by your parents, family members, school, friends, religion, culture, …and you may have decided to adopt those things as truth. Some of those things may be have been positive; others were negative.

And so, you have gathered evidence that affects your ability to show gratitude and self-love. That evidence may be real. It may be false.

Often, we feel guilt, shame–and think about what we should have done. We dwell on what’s missing, or what could have been, or how we should look, or what we should have said…

Learning how to be grateful for the good things in your life can help reverse that trend and put you on a path toward self-love and a more positive outlook on life. 

Gratitude is a huge help with any stress in your life. You may be five minutes late for work every day, no matter how hard you try, but you can be thankful for the fact that your boss values your contributions to your job enough to overlook something that might be grounds for dismissal for someone else. And in times of trauma, gratitude is a huge coping method. Even though you may have just suffered a mighty blow to your life, being grateful that things could have been worse, and that you are still alive to see another day, is an effective way to draw your focus away from the negative, and eventually adjust and move on.

Be thankful for yourself!

Being happy with who you are is something to be thankful for in and of itself. So many people walk around every day, upset with themselves because of something arbitrary, and it is usually something they could change. Being grateful for yourself is the cornerstone of self-love; the more you are able to develop your sense of self-love, the more you will be able to be grateful for what is around you, and vice versa.

If you have a people-pleasing personality, you may find it hard at first to put your own thoughts and feelings before others, but the more you make yourself aware of yourself, the easier it will be to learn self-love, and to be thankful for it.

Appreciating yourself helps you build your self-esteem and self-worth as well. And all of these things combine to help you create a positive body image, as well as a positive inner sense of self. Being grateful for your body can really help when you’re sick or injured. It might also just give you the added jolt you need to appreciate your life, despite facing a current downturn.

Naming the things about ourselves that we’re grateful for, or choosing to do things differently because we have the power to see ourselves as perfect, innocent, and capable of change is a good choice. You are worthy. You are good enough, You are perfect. Curious about how to get to a place where you can say all those things to yourself and believe them? 

Tomorrow I will teach you little tasks to help you feel acceptance, appreciation and gratefulness for yourself ♥

Spring Forest Qigong Wednesday at 3pm led by Cythe

It started more than 4,000 years ago when Chinese scholars, studying the workings of the universe, discovered and established the Eastern scientific principle that everything is energy.

One of the best ways to help yourself maintain a healthy lifestyle is to practice Qigong. Qi means  “energy" and Gong means "to work with" so simply put Qigong means working with the body's energy.

Spring Forest Qigong is a modernized form of qigong developed by International Qigong Master Chunyi Lin after years of qigong, tai chi, martial arts practice and intensive meditation.

Spring Forest Qigong is a simple, effective system of movements and meditations that can be done anywhere, anytime, and by anyone.

Spring Forest Qigong can help you increase your energy and improve your physical, mental, and spiritual health.

SFQ empowers you to:

● Discover your natural ability to help heal yourself

● Acquire the power to help protect yourself from ill health; mentally, physically, and spiritually

● Learn knowledge and skills to continually strengthen your health, well-being, and mental outlook throughout your lifetime

● Develop your natural capability for helping others to heal

Spring Forest Qigong is an integrated form of healing, helping us to heal on all levels – physically, mentally/emotionally, and spiritually. Although each person and situation is unique, the benefits of practicing SFQ can include:

● Pain-free movement and greater flexibility

● A sense of happiness, contentment and peace

● Reduced stress and tension

● Improved metabolism, digestion, and elimination

● Balanced energy

● A more youthful appearance

● Increased awareness and mental acuity

● Increased strength and vitality

● Restore organs to their healthy, optimal functioning by giving them an “inner massage” and thus slowing the aging process

 

Qigong is the science of the body. Many people also consider it a “healing art” or “energy art.” There have been many medical studies done on qigong. Qigong has been found to be beneficial to helping improve health and wellness, and researchers often recommend further research.

https://www.springforestqigong.com/qigong-and-science

 

The Wishing Tree

 

New at the Center, The Wishing Tree, on touch you can type your own wish in local chat to add to the tree and you can also take a peek at other's wishes ♥

Mindful Thought: Gratitude part 3

 

Practicing gratitude can be a game-changer: it has far reaching effects, from improving our mental health to boosting our relationships with others. And that is what I want to bring to your attention today: gratitude towards others, lovers, partners, family and friends. 

Living your life with gratitude helps you notice the little wins — like the bus showing up right on time, a stranger holding the door for you, or the sun shining through your window when you wake up in the morning. Each of these small moments string together to create a web of well-being that, over time, strengthens our ability to notice the good.

Hydonic Adaptation (fancy term for getting used to something) and negativity bias undermine our lives but also our long term relationships, we take each other for granted, we get bored, complacency.  We focus on the negative events in our lives and relationships.

Gratitude is the antidote.

Moments of gratitude help us recognize the value in our partners and friends—and a valuable partner is worth holding onto. In a number of studies researchers found this to be true, when we feel more appreciative than usual of our partners, they also report more feelings of commitment.

Gratitude has long-term consequences: The more grateful we are, the more committed we are over time. Feelings of gratitude are tied to the motivation to maintain a relationship.

Being motivated to stay in a relationship is only part of the story. We also need to act on that motivation. And gratitude is valuable here as well: experiencing gratitude also promotes behaviors that help us hold onto our relationships.

We are more thoughtful and responsive to others’ needs on days when we feel grateful for them.

We are more caring and attentive listeners during discussions—a key for promoting intimacy in relationships.  Gratitude helps us gain and maintain that intimacy. 

When we work to maintain the relationship our partner feels appreciated and 

this is where the good stuff happens. Recognizing you have a valuable partner and acting accordingly can help your partner feel more valued. 

We  signal those feelings through more caring and attentive behavior—for instance, by asking clarifying questions of our partner when he or she is discussing a problem. This has profound effects.

Now to complete the circle, an appreciated partner is a grateful partner

On days when they feel more appreciated by us, they experience increases in their own feelings of gratitude. And this makes sense: What partner is more valuable than one who clearly values you?

And this is where the benefits of gratitude really take off. So now, both partners are focused on maintaining the relationship. In this way, that first moment of gratitude can spark an ongoing cycle of gratitude and generosity ♥

One to watch: Saying "Thank You" Improves Relationships