Making friends with your monkey mind

  • Making friends with your monkey mind

… While driving on Sunday to our family Sunday lunch I shared that with my husband that I was preparing earlier for the Mindfulness of thoughts meditation I was about to guide on Monday. He first asked me but how does that go together meditation Mindfulness of thoughts? Isn’t meditation supposed to be about quieting and being without thoughts?

I was so happy he asked that and offer me an opportunity to practice the answer to that question which is so frequent for all people who are starting with meditation.

So when we do a formal sitting meditation, we let go of the expectation that there will be no thoughts. Our mind secrets thoughts. To have the expectation that it just quiets down is a bit far reached. When we start with the breath, we can be with a breath for a while, feel the body, and after a while there the thoughts start appearing. In our daily lives people often without realizing just get lost in thoughts or follow a stream of thoughts that Is actually not serving them.

In the mindfulness of thoughts practice we practice becoming aware that we are thinking, naming our thoughts, not pushing them away, maybe with some thoughts staying and feeling into the underlying feeling tone, without getting lost in the depth of that thought. What we do, is befriending our thought.  When we allow it to sit right there, as it is, without going further into planning, or making scenarios, or getting lost in memory, we notice the stillness and spaciousness within. This way we just made friend with our monkey mind and that is a gateway to more peace within.

If you want to work deeper with thoughts – those thoughts that you would define as judgement or belief, i would encourage to journal them and use your writing as an anchor to really work with them. Byron Katie in her book for example states the following:

“Once the mind is stopped on paper, thoughts remain stable, and inquiry can easily be applied. Avoid
the temptation to continue without writing down your judgments. If you
try to do The Work in your head, without putting your thoughts on paper,
the mind will outsmart you.” (from “Loving What Is: Four Questions That Can Change Your Life” by Byron Katie, Stephen Mitchell)

 

What would bring more peace to me right now?

  • What would bring more peace to me right now?

Living in the moment, Jason Mraz

I was in meditation the other day on the theme of peace and I inquired what would bring more peace to me right now…

Because of focusing on forgiveness this month with mindfulness meditation teacher trainer, one part of getting and insight into peace was through the process of forgiveness.

 

Forgiving myself for how I have hurt myself and bring hurt to others,

Forgiving others how they hurt me.

 

Accepting that it is part of human that we knowingly or unknowingly hurt eachother or have done so in the past.

 

Being patient with myself because forgiveness takes time and needs deep healing.

 

Finding peace in the moment, true peace, without spiritual bypass, requires sitting with all that is. Tending to our emotions and feelings, thoughts (I would use RAIN for that practice)

 

We can find that feeling of peace whenever we take a moment and intentionally get in touch with all in us.

 

We cannot attain a feeling of peace in moments of depletion. Lama Rod Owens says in relation to forgiveness: we need to be grounded, have a feeling of being supported, a feeling of being connected to a community, then we have healed enough to start forgiving to others. Adding to this we also need to understand the common humanity in all of us.  Then there we can have reach a place of more peace within us.

My choice of song for this month.. connected to mindfulness of thoughts and topic of forgiveness is Living in the moment by Jason Mraz. 

“I’m letting myself off the hook for things I’ve doneI let my past go pastAnd now I’m having more funI’m letting go of the thoughtsThat do not make me strongAnd I believe this way can be the same for everyone”

I am connected

  • I am connected

"My roots reach deeply, I am connected to the core of me"

On the morning of my morning walk in the forest today

My mantra today was

“My roots reach deeply

I am connected to the core of me”

This is part of the lyrics of the “I am connected” by Beautiful Chorus

For me in singing those lines

feeling the connection between the nature and myself

I enter the feeling that enables all other feelings to be

And still be still like a mountain a tree with all that.

Feeling of Belonging

  • Feeling of Belonging

Feeling of belonging and connection

Feeling of longing familiar to many people. I am no exception. Often this longing also includes a further illusion, fantasy that is a coping strategy to escape even more out of the present and body to the mind. Instead of getting more in touch with the uncomfortable, you go away in something that creates a further longing, desire. Have you ever thought how close are words Longing and Be(longing)? The journey to add Be to Longing is what Michael Singer in his podcast from Fighting to Harmony describes when we stop fighting with “No, I don’t want this, I want that. “ In Enneagram1 word and embodiment practices this means learning more about Willfulness, Will and Willingness. How do we do that? By practicing mindfulness, sitting, establishing true intimacy with self.

 

A true feeling of Belonging is possible only when we are connected with our bodies. That is the core message of Sebene Selassie in her book You Belong (2020)  Chapter 3 is a great read on how to Ground yourself in your body.

In the 9 steps to inner peace coaching program we usually start with establish ing a good connection with body. We use the body guidebook that I have gathered from my studies with Hippocrates institute, Mindfulness meditation teacher course, Breath coaching course. The guidebook includes essential topics for  a solid, grounded body. Session 1 of the guidebook is all about body connection.

I want to share here couple of lines that Sebene writes on belonging (Selassie, 2020, p. 74)

  1. Belonging is: we belong simply because we are alive
  2. Belonging is in the present moment- if you choose to open to it. *My comment: this is such an important point. It reminds us that the feeling can dissipate if we don’t cultivate presence and high frequency in our body. It explains to be why sometimes I totally feel connected to people I meet and some other time I feel like looking for reasons for separation from other people. At the end this is an outer representation of my own quality of being. And as life goes, it is inevitable that we go through challenges and if in those times we do not know how to respond in a skillful way, with compassion we can notice that we are closing off, we don’t want some feelings to be part of us and it’s even hard to recognize them, let alone welcome them and say You belong. You too, are my beloved.
  3. Belonging is revealed through awareness: when we cultivate the capacity to know what is happening in any moment, the we can connect to belonging
  4. Belonging is embodied: We can only experience belonging in these bodies.

 

People

  • People

People who need people

This is an amazing performance of Barbra Streisand classic People. I have been doing a lot of observing and learning on the topic of Belonging and connection. One Wednesday as we were doing our usual group meditation and the feeling was connection and belonging was present, this  song “People” and the feeling of the community and being part of the greater whole came to awareness.

When i was looking through the lyrics of this song, I found these lines meaningful:

:We’re children, needing other childrenAnd yet letting a grown-up prideHide all the need insideActing more like children than children”

“No more hunger and thirstBut first be a person who needs people”

I guide in the 9 steps to inner peace my clients to first come in touch with their needs, stay in touch with their bodies, without separating their mind, body and soul and prioritize their needs. Yes, there is a mindfulness involved to discern between indulgence and taking proper care of your needs. Often I work with this topic with the Ennea1 and 2 energy. Both energies are inclined to have their own right way of idea of helping others and using mainly their energy to fix, help on the outside, to the other and have difficulty to connect with their own emotions, feelings and needs. Through re-establishing connection with the body, we are putting a new foundation to relationship with self and others.

Trust

  • Trust

Trustfall

by Pink

Last week we dedicated to explore the topic of emotions, feelings, interpretations and integrity with the AEIOU Breakhtrough women group.

Beyond all specific names a lot of our live is driven by fear and protection, some from love.

Fear and protection are emotions: doubt, anger, control, pride, envy.

Love is joy, peace, content, happy, wonder, bliss.

In this life it is part of us to feel fear. Sometimes it is there with a good reason and really save’s our life, sometimes it keeps us in the cage of familiar and away from freedom.

My aspiration would be to recognize the fear, so that I can make a conscious choice to live a soul aligned life. To recognize the saboteur that shows up in the name of fear and protection. So eloquent, so wise, so persuasive. In Buddhist term my aspiration would be to say “I see you Mara” and have the patience and self compassion to sit down with it with the intention of making a choice. And sometimes when we recognize that we have been holding on to something old because of a feeling of security,  the choice might be to let go of that, recognize the fear behind holding on, and taking a Trustfall.

From Pink’s Lyrics:

“Go where love is on our sideIt’s a trust fall, babyIt’s a trust fall, baby”

Self-compassion

  • Self-compassion

Self-compassion

gateway to authentic self

Last Friday, 17.2.2023, I had an opportunity to talk about Self compassion, emotional resilience and decision making in collaborations as part of the AEIOU breakthrough female leaders.

I have described self – compassion as a gateway to more authentic me. It is linked to our ability to hold ourselves when the feelings of pain, shame, guilt, self-judgement come up. It enables us to see more of who we are with self honesty.

 

According to the research that dr. Kirstin Neff did there are three components of self compassion:

–       Self kindness – connected to the deep feeling of Care, so we are able to hold ourselves in whatever feeling is coming up, recognizing harsh words and judgements toward self and asking ourselves Is this kind? Is this loving to myself? Would I actually say this to someone I love and care for?

–       Common humanity – realizing it’s not just you feeling i.e. envy and judging it. Being able to take an emotion that we label with judgement and take It

–       Opening up to broader perspective: What else could be the reason?, What else could this mean?

 

Tending from this energy to our own feelings, naming them, is process of holding ourselves with gentleness. This energy is gentle, tender.

However, as the title of a book Fierce self compassion indicates, there is another facet of self compassion. Fierce self compassion. This is linked to action and assertiveness. To step from the victim to taking charge. This energy is very close to anger. Kirstin Neff mentions constructive anger. To be able to handle that facet of compassion appropriately is still a process of learning and exploring for me. I have witnessed destructive anger inside and outside of myself and now learning more and more to use this energy from the place of a firm “no”, from the center of knowing myself and honoring what my emotions are saying and what my feelings are, what my values are and what is important for me.

 

In Radical acceptance book Tara Brach connects self-compassion and mindfulness that brings in clarity, both together she writes results into self-healing.

I find clarity a tricky one as we can get lost in our own stories, that are still trying to protect the wound in the best possible way. Sometimes talking with trained practitioner about the experience after we held ourselves and recognized the feelings, can bring us closer to the truth and clarity. So with applied self compassion and dialogue with other, the healing can take place. Healing, that brings us a bit closer to Freedom.

Here is my favorite part from Fierce self-compassion: How Women Can Harness Kindness to Speak Up, Claim Their Power, and Thrive, by Kirstin Neff, PhD:

“When we embrace our pain with kindness, we feel loving,

when we remember our common humanity, we feel connected,

when we’re mindful of our pain, we are present. “

If our intention is to live this life with an open heart,  present with what is, then self compassion is an integral part of our journey.

 

All of me integration

  • All of me integration

One of the continuous workshops I attend annually is In Pursuit of Authentic Self.

When i started this work i thought, why would one do a workshop with same title every year?

But in consistency, there is growth and taking note of growth.

We are changing all the time, evolving doesn’t stop.  There is shedding off the limitations and gaining inner power in being more of yourself. Knowing yourself and loving yourself more with all there is.

On one occasion on this growth I have written this poem. Pls read it in a way of understanding that this doesn’t mean “here brilliant, done that” it means what i was able to process heal, i have integrated and then continue.

 

What is on the surface and what is in the depth

Become one

Integrated in all of me.

What is it the parts that I am leaving out

Like someone drawing a self portrait

And doesn’t notice he didn’t draw his ears

Or neck or brows

What I am not noticing that I am leaving
out

Which part of me,

Has vowed to burry so deep that I forgot it
ever existed?

Whenever there is a burial

There is a leaving behind

There is a sorrow of aolean scale

“You” brings in the myxolidian scale, the
joy.

The new soul, reborn, integrated in true
nature

Seeing myself wholly.

Old stories let go

Let me see new world and new me in it.

 

Getting real

  • Getting real

Getting real

by Susan Campbell, PhD.

This book is a must read for topics of being true to yourself, congruency, authenticity.

It offers the language for the journey back to self as well as better understanding of what we experience when we decide to recommit to ourselves and being real, congruent.

Getting real requires peeling off the layers of seeking approval, safety or trust to feel safe enough, trusting enough for the essence to come through more.

When the essence is able to flow more through you as appropriate, one becomes more at peace with who you are.

This journey is accompanied  with noticing where we are controlling out of fear and protecting ourselves. It requires the willingness to stay with uncomfortable feelings to get to a place of real intimacy. It requires the courage to find your own expression.

 

Here are some of my favorite parts from Getting real:

It is part of the human journey to start out whole, then to continually cut off parts of ourselves in response to real or imagined pain, and to spend the rest of our lives searching for what we have cut off, buried, and forgotten about.

When you know how to notice and stay with an uncomfortable experience, you have true freedom. You are not compelled by your conditioning to need things to be a certain way for you to feel okay.

When asserting your desires, you′re going to bump up against the other person′s boundaries. You might even push some buttons along the way. By bumping against her with your request, you′re ″calling her out,″ you′re asking her to be more than her limited view of herself. Or you may be giving her practice holding her ground. Either way, it′s not going to do her any real harm

 
 

I am enough

  • I am enough

Thursday

by Jess Glyne

Years ago we enrolled together with my dear friend Eleftheria to Brene’s Brown online course The gift of imperfection. We did the journaling and challenged and supported eachother. One part was also taking your own selfie and writing on the palm of my hand I am enough. It took many hours of sitting with myself and group to accept a bit more of me, to come to a place of really buying more to the writing on my hand.  Maybe starting with giving myself persmission to just be true me once a week:)

As the lyrics say:

Sometimes I’m shy, and I’m anxiousSometimes I’m down on my kneesSometimes I try to embrace all my insecuritiesSo I won’t wear makeup on Thursday‘Cause who I am is enough