I have dabbled in mindful living for about a decade, ever since I first read Eckhart Tolle’s ‘New Earth’. While it all made sense to me intellectually, and I spent many hours striving to capture that ever-elusive ‘present moment’, I only ever got glimpses of it. My moments of mindfulness were like glimmers on the surface of a pond, a bright reflection of light there for an instant and gone the next. I travelled to Thailand and Nepal, took yoga classes and eventually became a yoga teacher all in the pursuit of the Now.

I consider myself to be quite in touch with my spiritual side and meditate often. I have spent many hours researching and practicing being present, and still I often found myself in stretches of unconscious thoughts and behaviours.

The statement that made me stop and my tracks.

One evening I was watching a magic show on TV. The program revolved around faith healing and whether it is fact of fiction. Darren Brown, the presenter (or is it performer – I will let you decide) said something that completely startled me.

His sentiment was this:

You become the story you tell yourself about yourself.

That was my a-ha moment. Although I understood it intellectually, I never managed to integrate it into ‘knowing’ before. So I started deliberately practicing mindfulness. I started paying attention to every now that I could anchor in. I would sit and breathe or fully engage with whatever I was doing. Whether it was writing articles or putting on my computer, taking a shower or tying my shoes. I started paying attention more and more, especially to ordinary and boring things in my life. Things that I did as part of a routine that required no attention.

 As I started practicing mindfulness during those moments when I could have easily switched to auto pilot, I started to become aware of my thoughts and self-talk. I heard some interesting things – and some very mean things from myself… about myself.

The awful things you say to yourself.

‘You will never make it’, ‘you don’t deserve it’, ‘you are not worth it’… These have been thoughts that I have been working on changing. Each time I would stop the thought and change it into something positive. I would re-frame it to ‘look how far you have come’, or something similar. You become the story you tell yourself about yourself.

Then there were other stories that I would tell myself, stories relating to my abilities and the fact that I am living with depression and (sometimes nearly debilitating) anxiety. I would hear things like ‘this is too overwhelming’ and ‘it is too much, too big, someone with depression cannot possibly get this done’. You become the story you tell yourself about yourself. And every time, every mindful moment when I managed to catch that I simply reminded myself ‘all you need to do is one thing… just one thing… just this one thing’.

And once that one thing was done, I would take a moment to breathe consciously and sit with the heaviness inside of me that has become a rather permanent companion. I would sit in the darkness of me and breathe. And be mindful of my breath. And then I would pull myself together and do the next ‘one thing’. It would start non-committal, and then, as I practice being mindful I would quickly become absorbed in what I was doing and forget all about the heaviness… if only for a few moments of ‘now’.

Seeing the change.

I had changed my story from thinking that if I attempt one thing, I would have to take on everything… and be perfect at everything. But what practicing mindfulness has taught me is that there is always just one thing… because there is always just that one moment. And that one thing in that one moment is all that matters. Because all of those ‘one things’ eventually sting together to create a life filled with purposeful and conscious living.

You become the story you tell yourself about yourself.

Find out how you can increase your self-love and change the story that you tell yourself about yourself through Remembering Your Worth.

The post You Become the Story You Tell Yourself About Yourself. appeared first on .

We are multi-facet-ed beings….

**  A version of this article first appeared at www.empathevolution.com

The post Aspects of You appeared first on .

Our emotions have been subjected to suppression; in the education system, work environments, community gatherings and even in family and celebratory events.   Basically society seems as if they don’t want us aware of ourselves or are surroundings.   As if we are here for everyone else but ourselves.  That is simply not true no matter how indoctrinated society as a whole has become.

Medication has numbed an entire (mostly American and Asian) population of people.   The mass accepted modern medicine inclination that “care” and “numbing” equate to “healing” is VERY dangerous and obviously wrong in the eyes of any holistician, nutritionist, chiropractor, or physical therapist.  Pain, is a feeling, an emotion, of the physical body which is warning you of how to respond not ignore the area.  Without pain we would never know what is wrong with the body, where it is coming from, or what it takes to lessen the pain.

If you think very literally of your emotions as “internal feelings” it is very clear to understand why it is so important to be able to listen to these and not have them obstructed by modern pill medications or emotional disassociation (a result of emotional and physical abuse).  Emotions are our bodies’ internal dialogue system; a result of our aura field picking up on the surroundings and therefore communicating with us of what is around us energetically.  Hard to spell out or label but easy to feel.   That is why they are so important.   I have been observing my emotions for a long time now, and have come to an amazing conclusion recently about anxiety specifically.  Here is a little story of how my anxiety was reading my surroundings and protecting me.

As I was driving down the road, with beautiful mountain scenery, on cruise control in a very peaceful state; this being a 2 hour drive that I am very familiar with the route,  I noticed at two different occasions my anxiety kick in full force, for no reason, no one behind me, no thought on my mind creating the anxiety.  I wondered why?  What followed within 10 minutes (not instantly) of these anxiety spikes where police cars, radar detecting the drivers on the highway.  Wow I thought! That’s what my anxiety was! It was warning me! As someone with PTSD I have never viewed my anxiety or depression as anything but a horrible result of my upbringing, until this moment.  This has completely changed my understanding of my emotions, my intuition, and what they have been trying to tell me. These feelings were not a result of abuse or being weak, they are a warning, a guide, and our greatest protection for self preservation.   I now am viewing my depression as speaking – “you are Not in the right place”, my anxiety – “watch out, proceed with caution”, my joy obviously confirming “I am in the right place”, and my fear as standing for “false evidence appearing real”.  Giddy anxious feelings are saying “something good is to come”.

So if your overwhelmed, please take time to listen to your emotions, they change with your state of mind, the entertainment you watch, the surroundings, and the people you spend time with.  Choose the positive over the negative; though it might be lonely at times, you don’t need t exclude the world completely to feel better.  Personal boundaries allow you to feel better what is all around you.   Spend time feeling and listening to your emotions to learn how to navigate your life in a direction that takes you to happiness, instead of misery or a pill bottle. Namaste

The post Emotions and how they speak to our Conscious Mind  appeared first on .

The post Trust your gut- what your intuition is trying to say to you. appeared first on .