The Powerful Practice of…

Mindful Awareness

What is mindful awareness and how can we utilize this super power to change what isn’t working in our life?

This week we are bringing our awareness to our habits, tendencies and most importantly to our habitual thought patterns. Pair this mindful awareness with focused attention and powerful intention setting and we have a formula for successfully shifting our mindset AND therefore our reality

Let’s begin this process by tuning into what areas of our life ARE working…

• What area of your life flows?
• What area of your life aligns with joy?
• Do you have great relationships? (or one particular amazing relationship?)
• Is your body in good physical condition?
• Does money just seem to flow to you?
• Does laughter come often & effortlessly?
• Do you sleep soundly?
• Do you enjoy your own company?
• Do you have good energy?

Now…pick one. Pick an area in your life that works well and take a few moments to bring awareness to your regular thoughts around this subject. Write down a few key words and thoughts that you regularly use and think to describe this area of your life.

These habitual thoughts you have around this area of your life serve you well and align you with your Soul, and most likely your purpose and your joy. 

Keep these thoughts!!

Our thoughts & our words affect our feelings and emotions which then governs our decisions and our actions

Over time, due to the repetition of our thoughts, we develop habits and tendencies that essentially create our reality 

This can be a good thing or a not so good thing

it all depends on the quality of your thoughts

Thoughts are energy and carry a certain frequency. Every thought we think, through our attention & awareness is either moving us towards alignment with what we want or through complaining, judgement, criticism & anger moving us towards what it is that we don’t want.

Now… Let’s tune into the areas of our life that don’t seem to be working as smoothly… or not at all.

Pick an area of your life that isn’t flowing so well. Take a few moments to bring awareness to your typical thoughts around this subject. Write down a few key words and thoughts that you regularly use and think to describe this area of your life.

Mindful awareness is a practice of witnessing our thoughts, our words, our habits & tendencies WITHOUT judgement so that we can redirect our attention back to what it is that we want. Through the thoughts we think and the words we say we have the power to change these habits & patterns and make new choices and create new stories for ourselves.

For many of us, these habits and behavior have been years in the making and just as repetition of these thoughts created our reality up to this point, it is now in our power to create new repetitions and patterns that shift our thoughts towards what will serve us best.

Beside the few key words and thoughts that you regularly use and think to describe this area of your life that isn’t working write some key words and thoughts that are opposite. These will give you new thoughts and ideas to shift into.

Example; if you are worried about something, notice if your thoughts tend to go towards the worst-case scenarios and everything that could go wrong. When you are aware that you do this – you can then consciously direct your attention to a better feeling thought – to a best-case scenario. This may feel “phony” at first depending on how deeply & repetitively you have taught yourself (or been taught) to focus on the negative & what is not working. Over time we can re-train our brain to actively focus on the best-case scenario and all that can go right!  

It is so important to understand that even though many of these habitual thoughts & tendencies may have been programmed into our sub-conscious when we were young, we CAN plant and program new thoughts & ideas into our sub-conscious mind creating new habits. Using our focused attention and the power of intention to program what WE WANT to be, think, speak, attract and become is a very powerful practice.

Cultivate self-compassion

Compassion is crucial for this process. Many of us may have created these habits & behaviors as a means of protecting ourselves and so this has an additional emotional hold on our reality. Know that only WE can decide when it is right or safe for us to let go of the behaviors or habits we currently have and only WE can decide when it is time to create a new habit or behavior. In extreme cases this is sometimes personally described as “hitting rock bottom” or “losing everything” And as drastic as that sounds it is what leads to internal inspiration to make these changes.

The great news is…

we don’t have to lose everything or hit rock bottom to make these changes

With mindful awareness, focused attention and intention setting we can shift our world and everything in it, in the right direction.

Where to begin…

1. Mindful awareness – a practice of observing and witnessing our thoughts, feelings & actions while consciously choosing non-judgement towards ourselves in the process. This practice is developed and made stronger through daily meditations of silence & stillness. Through this daily practice of meditation, we begin to witness & observe our mental chatter without attempting to change, control or resist them and in doing this there is a strengthening of our inner awareness that we can carry with us throughout our day.
2. Focused attention – once we have decided that we desire to make a shift in our habitual thinking, we practice daily with our focused attention. This requires much compassion for ourselves as each day life will bring us many challenges and obstacles. Remember it took years of repetition to create the habits, judgements & habitual thoughts that you currently have so give yourself plenty of time to allow the new conscious repetitions to take root and grow.

The science of neuroplasticity has proven that repeatedly practicing a new thought or response will create new pathways and new habitual patterns in the brain. With focused attention – WE finally get to choose which thoughts we want to believe and which thoughts we are ready to “kick to the curb”  

3. Intention setting – if you have been following me for a while and are used to these tap ins and blog posts, you know that every week is all about setting powerful intentions for ourselves to bring into our day. With these morning intentions, suffering begins to subside and success begins to replace the suffering. One day at a time, one intention at a time. Intentions are powerful tools we all have access to that will move us towards what we want and away from what we do not want.

This Week’s Intention Setting

1. Once you have decided on which area of your life you would like to focus on and you have become aware of your current habitual thought patterns in this area, ask yourself; “What new thoughts would I like to create around this topic”
2. Write these new thoughts down. Throughout your day, when you notice (through mindful awareness) that habitual thought re-occurring in your mind – STOP. Take a few deep breaths, observe the old thought and proceed with replacing it with your new thought! REPEAT!

My (most recent) personal story…

I have recently realized that I get “crippled” by my to do list and always seem to run out of time. As I observed my thoughts through mindful awareness, I noticed I was repeated saying to myself “I don’t have enough time” and then I noticed the tension in my neck and shoulders when ever this thought was in my mind. Not only did this create tension headaches for me – but the energy I wasted worrying about time, absolutely exhausted me. This was my cue that something needed to shift. I applied these teachings over the last few weeks and now, when I notice this thought – I stop and take a few deep breaths, I consciously relax my shoulders down and replace it with my new intentional thought “I always have enough time to do everything that I want and need to do” The result? Less headaches and a powerful realization that I actually do always get done what I  need to accomplish. I also freed up precious time that was previously wasted on the stress I put on myself anticipating not having enough time!  This illusion of not enough time was only something I had created – with my thoughts!

Let’s Tap this in….