Namafit.com Blog

The Fitness & Yoga Job Network (blog)

You are here: Home / Archives for meditation

meditation

Healing Anxiety Through Mediation

by

woman meditating in lotus pose
woman meditating in lotus pose

For most of us, it’s common to wake up and immediately feel stressed out about the day ahead. Bogged down with endless to do lists, responsibilities, daily practicalities; anxiety begins to loom over us, and we can’t fathom taking a moment to ourselves to truly connect, and when we do, we’re faced with re-living our anxiousness.
Suddenly, we read an article, or watch a YouTube from one of our favorite influencers—that tells us the benefits of mediation. We’re told everything from sound peace of mind, stress management, healthier mental process, etc. But we’re not sold. If life could only be so…Simple. Even though we’re not convinced, we attempt at mediation. What harm could it cause? After all, five or ten minutes in the morning is harmless right?
Finally, we find ourselves listening to guided mediations, and breathing exercises by some of the top spiritualist, thought leaders. Slowly we can see the changes in our moods, attitudes. As time progresses, we’re thinking positive, enjoying the benefits of putting the dedication, and hard work we’ve committed to ourselves.
And then… Life happens.
Something that we weren’t expecting to happen, does. Our day becomes unmanageable, we’re struggling in some aspect of our life, and the anxiety resurfaces. The feelings of powerlessness meet’s us in our need to get everything done, but the problem is… We don’t know how to handle the emotions that we’re processing—which leads us to feel paralyzed. We then believe that perhaps we just need sleep, and we can start over the next day. Until we lay down and discover our anxiety is looming over us like a black cloud.
What happened? You may ask yourself. You thought anxiety was a thing in the past. You’d overcame it and can’t identify with that person who was always on edge, who was so shaking and fragile.

The truth is, it’s easy to feel despair, and lonely when confronting anxiety. We crave control and thrive on it. We return to our mediation practice day after day, hoping that we’ll find ever lasting peace of mind. Perhaps we’ll find our nirvana. But what if I told you that losing control, feelings of despair are a good thing? Yep, that’s right!

I have personally found that mediation is best used as a tool to enable self-exploration that promotes self-awareness, profound inner peace by leaning in and looking at the painful aspects of ourselves dead in the face. Furthermore, as we observe our discontentment and dis-ease, we realize that our psyche is inviting us to embrace these so-called negative aspects that we’d rather judge, flee and abandon.

When we choose to reject feelings of anxiety, despair, discontentment we approach our mediation practice with the intention of resistance. Resistance shows up as: “I must focus on the positive.” This is to say that we spend our mediation time avoiding our truth and become undone the moment our true feelings surface throughout our day. However, we must keep in mind that our mediation practice is ours and this is the space we create for ourselves to be as naked, vulnerable as we need to, and without apology.

By allowing ourselves to lean into our discomfort, we give ourselves permission to feel out of control. Anytime we give ourselves permission to heal by first acknowledging anxiety, we build self-trust and allow feelings to surface without harshly judging ourselves or our mental state.

The moment we can release the need to neglect any part of ourselves and build self-trust— we then find ways to work with what we’re feeling and thinking. As our day progresses and the stress factors show up, we can choose to go with those feelings. Our anxiety becomes our practice by checking in with ourselves and not taking on a victim mentality. The next time you’re in your meditation, simply allow whatever feelings that exist below the surface to arise. This can be feelings of joy, peace, contentment. Or it can be hostility, pain, suffering, resentment, anger, fear. Whatever feeling you experience allow it to come out of you, allow your breath to pull it to the light and dissolve. At first you may that you can’t quiet your mind, and the restless voice that is repeating in your head won’t stop. That voice in your head has a space in your mediation. Give it some love by allowing yourself to hear it out. You will find out that there’s no need to control your thoughts or attempt to make yourself feel anything. Your job is to show up for yourself, and as you address and explore your feelings—you’ll be able to work through it with a new story that frees you from it altogether.
It can be dangerous to force ourselves to paint positivity over our traumas and anxieties, because we don’t allow ourselves to build healthy self-esteem. While it’s true that positive thinking can in-fact change our entire life, and possibly assist in our healing—we can’t skip the steps to building our mental and emotional foundations. When you’re meditating and the same old stories and anxieties come to surface, it can cause us to feel that we’re not getting anywhere. Keep in mind that healing the emotional body and mental landscape is like physical exercise. We don’t get easy results at first—we must earn it. As we persist in our exercise, we slowly begin to witness changes in the body, and we desire to push our bodies to see further growth.
In mediation, we’re not pushing our emotions. We’re setting the stage to examine them, as we consistently do that; we become comfortable with leaning into our emotions. Feeling our emotions helps us deal with our triggers. Our triggers are the body’s reaction to external stimuli. Once we allow ourselves to confront these triggers in our mediation, the body starts its own healing process. The healing process naturally helps us deal with heavy emotional weight such as anxiety.
Healing anxiety through mediation can cause us to feel overwhelmed. There are days we feel extremely happy, and the next day we can feel highly sensitive. This emotional imbalance is a key indicator that our body is regulating itself. Needless-to-say, the body and the emotions are becoming congruent; which is a shock to the nervous system. Keep in mind that your immediate inclination will be to recoil. Instead of recoiling, show up for yourself. You’ll be reminded that you can land safely now that you’re building a healthy self esteem and foundation. So, I invite you to explore, fall and get back up. Do it again, and land.

Alas,
Breath by breath. You find your center.

Everyone Can Meditate – Here’s Why

by

When I tell people that I am a meditation coach, often I get the response: “Oh I’ve tried meditation, I can’t do it – I just can’t get myself to have an empty mind or to focus”.

I am always perplexed by that statement. Meditation is literally just breathing and noticing that you are breathing. It is that simple. Everyone breaths – how can people not breathe. One thing is if you tell me: “I’ve tried burping the alphabet and I can’t do it” or “I’ve tried rolling my tongue and I can’t do it”. Those are actually difficult things – but meditating is something we all do, you just may not know it.

The problem is many people believe meditation is this state where you can sit for hours, cross legged on the floor, saying OM and not having a thought in the world. That – to be honest – does sound nice and a little bit painful. It’s like running – most of us can walk, some of us run, and others run marathons up a hill. Meditation is the walking part.

The whole premise of meditation is about being present. About being there in the moment with yourself and learning to accept your thoughts and feelings to the point where they don’t distract you from simply breathing. That’s it. And we can all do that.

We all do it, you might not notice. It’s when you are watching a scary movie and to calm yourself you breathe deeply. Or when you are at the dentist trying to breathe and take your mind off what’s going on in your mouth. Its when you are eating a piece of dessert, and you focus on scooping it up in the spoon and enjoying each bite. So much of everyday life is meditating. Don’t make it a new task or new objective – you have enough of those. Be aware of the moments where you take a step back from just functioning and focus on yourself. Tell yourself “huh – I am meditating”. You just might come to realize you are a pro.

Follow me on nikafiguringitout.wordpress.com for more tips for every day life

Mindfulness For Decision-Making

by

Mindfulness is everywhere. You can’t read a magazine or website without it showing up in one way or another. There’s a reason for this and it’s fantastic that the western world is embracing this incredibly important mental health tool, but it always seems to be described the same way: “Being present in the moment” or “Create better focus”, when really it’s so much more than that.

beautiful woman brunette with eyes closed

Photo by Luciana Sena one Pexels.com

Did you know that when you sit and bring your attention to your breathing, being present, focusing on something specific, you’re really shutting down the chatter in your brain? You’re really taking control of what your brain is doing instead of letting it do what it naturally does when there’s free time, which is think about things and stuff and more things and then more stuff.  When you take over control and make your brain quiet down, you’re creating space inside yourself for your intuition to take the lead and guide you to what your inner being knows to be true. You’re removing the logic of your thoughts and letting what your heart wants to come to the surface. It’s your “gut feeling” all the way.

This is a hugely important tool for making decisions that you just can’t seem to settle on.  What direction should I go with _____? Which job should I take? What do I believe about _____ deep down? Why do I let certain behaviors make me so angry? This works for anything from what to eat for dinner to unveiling what childhood experience shaped the way you think about something.  

While there are tons of excellent guided meditations for this, you can do it yourself in just a few minutes.

1.Sit or lie down quietly and comfortably and close your eyes.

2.Take a few big, deep breaths and sigh them out while you let all of your muscles relax; feeling your body get heavy.

3.Then ask yourself a question and let it go.

4.Bring your attention to the air coming in and out of of your nose. Just feel yourself breathing.  

5.If you start to think about things, just be aware of it and bring your attention back to your breath. Stay there, breathing, just for a few minutes.

You may get an answer immediately or it may just come to you later on, but you’ll answer from your authentic self and you’ll know what to do or what it is you truly want in a situation.   So give it a shot! Keep doing it and it may soon become your go-to guide for everything you do.

Photo by Luciana Sena on Pexels.com

How do you talk to kids of different ages about mindfulness?

by

Source: Joyfully Jenna

I think it’s all about framing it correctly. When I talk to kids of all ages, I frame mindfulness as something you can’t do wrong. This way, kids don’t see mindfulness as an obligation, but as something they can do to improve their well-being.

While everyone practices mindfulness differently, a few things that generally work well across the board are:

  • Meeting people where they’re at—look at what state your kids are at; it makes sense to approach kids differently if they’re jumping out of their skins after PE vs. if they’re zoned out after a boring class. Evaluate what your students are doing before approaching them.
  • Games—everyone likes games. Doing things like playing a song and asking students to focus on individual instruments, having students focus on certain elements in a room, or making a mood jar can really help pull them back to a calmer mindset.
  • Group routines—having kids do exercises that make them aware of their bodies and how they feel in the moment can help calm down big groups. This could mean anything from breathing exercises to physically shaking out any anxious energy left over from the class before.
    Checking in individually—kids of all ages can benefit from someone checking in on their state of mind and giving guidance on how to be present.

Working with kids from rough neighborhoods provides another level of complexity. They carry a lot of trauma with them, and their minds are more often in a state of stress. In these cases, it’s important to tell them to acknowledge these burdens as they focus on being in the present moment.

Person holding a jar of water filled with glitter

Call Attention To Your Mental Health

by

Originally posted on www.acupofteawithme.com

About two years ago now, I saw a cute post on Pinterest about a daily mood log. It was originally created on the post for bullet journalists as something to log on a daily basis. I decided to put this mood log/tracker in the front of my paper planners to see how I do throughout the year, find my triggers for my anxieties and depression and bring attention to ways I can better my mental health.

mental health word cloud

My main thought with tracking my moods was that your worst day only lasts 24 hours, so if I could get through my “worst day” I can definitely continue to live another day that could be even better. Pain never lasts forever.

As a whole year comes and goes, you can look back and see how well you are doing or if you need to find a way to change your moods. Keeping up with a simple daily task can also help you to feel accomplished. When you think that everything in your life is going “wrong,” at least you did one thing “right” by logging your mood for the day as it comes to a close.

Another advantage to tracking your moods is that it can be used as a cheap way for your own personal therapy, since you are actively acknowledging what you are feeling like on a daily, weekly, monthly and yearly basis. This helps you draw attention to your ups and downs and how you can pinpoint how to fix your extreme lows.

You also can use this tracker as an active way to recall everything that has happened over the year. It is a great way to keep a detailed personal history of your mental state. With this active history log, you can thus see your patterns and time when you might drop into your lower moods.

I have done this for two consistent years thus far and the results are amazing. Sure, I’ve had some bad streaks or bad months. But seeing all the days that I did have a positive mood feels good because I know that I did right by staying on task and it allows me to connect to my mental health.

Here is a tip though. Plan colors that you will have consistent access to. Seeing a change in shades of red or blue can throw off the whole tracker and become confusing. Also, keep a pencil with your tracker for the days you can’t color in your moods. Simply writing a “P” for pink or a “G” for green can suffice until you have the opportunity to go back and fill in your color.

All of this seems trivial and minor, but I guarantee, it will make you feel better when you see your progress and you are able to call attention to your mental state. You can use my example of a mood log/tracker with my personal two years of tracking in the featured blog post image. It’s still the beginning of the year so it’s not too late to start!

http://acupofteawithme.com/2019/01/03/track-your-mood/

Simple Mindfulness for School Teachers

by

What are some mindfulness tools that could work for teachers?

I think one of the most effective ways teachers can bring mindfulness into their classrooms is to integrate it into things they already do. Mindfulness is about being present, so think about ways you can get kids to be grounded in a moment.

Are you walking through the hallway after lunch? Try to get your students to notice 3 things in the hallway. Is your class in the middle of having a snack? Have your students think about what flavors they taste in their food. When you’re doing this, leave room for silence, but call things out. Guide them in noticing the details around them and what’s going on in their heads.

Another important concept to remember when practicing mindfulness is to hold space for resistance and discomfort. Acknowledge that there are stressful factors around you and create space for them as you ground your mind and body in the present moment. Be aware that the tension between your mind and body might be uncomfortable. Not doing this would be disingenuous, and being honest with what is in your head is part of being mindful.

cairn of rocks by the ocean