Staying on track with mindfulness is a powerful tool for maintaining focus, reducing stress, and enhancing overall well-being. To cultivate mindfulness, it's essential to regularly set aside dedicated time for practices such as meditation, prayer, or deep breathing exercises. This deliberate commitment to mindfulness allows you to develop the skill of observing your thoughts and feelings without judgment.
Furthermore, integrating mindfulness into your daily life by practicing awareness during routine activities like eating, walking, or working can help you stay attuned to the present moment. Consistency is key; by making mindfulness a regular part of your routine, you can foster a greater sense of inner calm, improve your ability to concentrate, and better navigate life's challenges with a clear and centered mind.
The concept of mindfulness as it is understood in contemporary psychology and meditation practices is not explicitly mentioned in the Bible. However, there are biblical verses that touch upon the themes of being present, focused, and attentive in a spiritual context.
One such verse is found in the New Testament, in the book of Philippians, chapter 4, verse 8 (NIV):
"Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things."
While this verse doesn't use the term "mindfulness," it encourages believers to direct their thoughts and attention toward positive, virtuous, and uplifting things. It underscores the importance of maintaining a positive and focused mindset, which aligns with some of the principles of mindfulness practices aimed at cultivating awareness and presence in the present moment.
Practicing mindfulness through prayer can be a deeply spiritual and enriching experience, combining the benefits of mindfulness with a connection to one's faith. Here are steps to practice mindfulness using prayer:
- Select a Quiet Space: Find a quiet, peaceful space where you can pray without distractions. This can be a designated area for prayer or any place where you feel comfortable and focused.
- Choose a Prayer: Select a prayer that is meaningful to you. It can be a traditional prayer from your religious tradition or a personal prayer that reflects your thoughts and feelings. The Lord's Prayer, the Serenity Prayer, or the Prayer of St. Francis are examples that many find suitable.
- Set an Intention: Before you begin, set an intention for your prayer. This can be a specific concern, a desire for guidance, or simply the intention to be present and mindful during your prayer.
- Focus on Your Breath: Begin by taking a few deep breaths to center yourself. Pay attention to the sensation of your breath as you inhale and exhale. This helps you become present and calm.
- Recite the Prayer Slowly: As you recite the prayer, do so slowly and intentionally. Pay close attention to the words and their meaning. Consider how each word or phrase resonates with you personally.
- Engage Your Senses: If your prayer includes physical actions, such as lighting a candle, holding beads, or making specific gestures, engage your senses fully. Notice the texture, color, and scent of the objects you are using.
- Stay Present: If your mind starts to wander, gently bring your focus back to the prayer. It's normal for thoughts to arise; the key is to acknowledge them without judgment and return to the prayer.
- Reflect on the Prayer: After completing the prayer, take a moment to reflect on your experience. How did it make you feel? Did you gain any insights or clarity?
- Express Gratitude: If your prayer includes expressing gratitude, take time to think about what you are thankful for. This can help foster a sense of mindfulness and appreciation.
- Practice Regularly: Like any mindfulness practice, consistency is essential. Try to incorporate this mindful prayer into your daily or weekly routine, adapting it to your needs and schedule.
Mindful prayer allows you to deepen your spiritual connection while also reaping the benefits of mindfulness, such as reduced stress and increased mental clarity. Over time, you may find that your prayer practice becomes a source of inner peace and strength in your life.
While meditation seems a little "woo woo" to some meditation is mentioned in the Bible. Biblical meditation is a spiritual practice rooted in the Christian faith that involves deep contemplation and reflection on specific passages, verses, or teachings from the Bible. Unlike some Eastern meditation practices that focus on emptying the mind, biblical meditation involves filling the mind with God's word and seeking to understand it more deeply, apply it to one's life, and connect with God on a personal level.
Here are key elements and practices associated with biblical meditation:
- Selecting a Scripture: Biblical meditation typically begins with selecting a specific passage, verse, or theme from the Bible. It could be a verse that speaks to a personal issue, provides guidance, or offers comfort.
- Quiet Reflection: Find a quiet and contemplative space where you can focus your thoughts without distractions. This might be a dedicated prayer space or simply a peaceful environment.
- Repeated Reading: The chosen Scripture is often read multiple times. Each reading allows for a deeper understanding of the text and a chance for its message to resonate more profoundly.
- Contemplation and Reflection: During meditation, individuals contemplate the meaning of the scripture, seeking insights into its relevance to their life, values, and relationship with God. This may involve asking questions and reflecting on how the passage can be applied to one's daily experiences.
- Prayer: Biblical meditation is typically accompanied by prayer. This can involve expressing gratitude, seeking guidance, or asking for wisdom and understanding related to the scripture being meditated upon.
- Listening to God: Part of the process is listening for God's guidance or presence in response to the meditation. This may involve stillness and openness to insights or a sense of God's presence.
- Application: After meditation, individuals strive to apply the insights gained from the scripture to their daily lives. This might involve making changes in behavior, seeking forgiveness, showing gratitude, or finding strength in difficult times.
Biblical meditation serves as a way to deepen one's relationship with God, gain spiritual insights, and find comfort, guidance, and wisdom within the Bible's teachings. It's a practice that varies among individuals and Christian denominations but shares the common goal of seeking a deeper connection with God through the study and contemplation of His word.
Once you replace negative thoughts with positive ones, you'll start having positive results................. Willie Nelson.
Everyone can have negative thoughts and do them on a regular basis, though dwelling on them can lead to becoming stuck in them and causing us to be frustrated, overwhelmed, and derailed in our goals and dreams. Changing thoughts can be challenging if you have a tendency to focus on where you've been instead of where you want to go.
Here are a few tips on how you can change your thoughts.
Five tips for changing negative thoughts.
- Take a few moments to acknowledge the thoughts and feelings that come up. Recognizing them as valid can help you take a step back and let the thoughts pass.
- When you start to have negative thoughts, challenge them with positive statements. For example, if your thought is “I’m not good enough,” you can challenge it by saying “I am capable and strong.”
- Stop comparing yourself to others. Everyone has their own unique strengths and weaknesses, and comparing yourself to someone else’s successes or failures won’t help you.
- Find a distraction. Doing something that requires all your focus, such as a puzzle or a newhobby can help you forget about negative thoughts and replace them with something positive.
- Talk to someone you trust. Talking about your negative thoughts can help you gain perspective and feel supported. A friend or a Life Coach can help you look at the situation differently and find a healthier way of thinking.
Getting stuck generally means we are focused on what we don't want. The Universal Law of Attraction states that what you focus on expands, whether that be negative or positive. This law is at work whether you are aware of it or not and may be the reason you are beating yourself up over not achieving your desire, and not believing you can.
How do I focus on what I want instead of what I don't want?
Focusing on what you want instead of what you don't want is a great way to manifest the life you desire. Here are a few tips to get you started:
- Identify what you want: Spend some time writing down or visualizing the specific things you want to experience in life.
- Visualize your goals: Spend a few minutes each day visualizing those goals and how achieving them would make you feel.
- Take action: Take small steps every day to move closer to achieving your goals.
- Stay positive: When you find yourself focusing on what you don't want, take a deepbreath and refocus on what you do want.
- Celebrate successes: Celebrate the small successes along the way, as they will help keepyour focus on the positive.
By following these tips, you'll be well on your way to manifesting the life of your dreams!
That's it for today. You can get my freebie "Five Steps to Intentional Change" HERE!
Change is inevitable.
Even if you resist change, it will still happen.
So why wait, or fret about changes that happen in your life?
Over the last couple of years, a lot has changed in my life. Some changes for the better, some not so good.
For instance, once upon a time, I was naive enough to think that there were some things that would never change. Things like, I would move in the same circle of friends, I would continue down the same path in my career, I would never think of moving or selling my home, and I was staying in my church forever.
If you relate to any of that then you know that change happens whether you like it or not. Friends suddenly move on, that career becomes not what you envisioned, and the Universe has a different plan that is not in a direction you can even imagine.
The most important thing to realize about change is its growth! It's learning to flow with the stream instead of fighting against the tide.
It's understanding that you may grow in a different direction from friends and colleagues and when that happens it's OK to make new friends and new contacts.
Moving and changing to grow and expand is part of fulfilling your purpose.
So, why the heck is it so hard to change?
There are a couple of things:
1. Old habits are hard to shake.
2. You have an enormous desire, though you don't know how to make it happen so you don't make a move.
3. You don't believe that your dreams and goals can really happen.
4. You are afraid of failure and the repercussions that you perceive come with that.
5. You think you need to be perfect before you can achieve your goals and dreams.
All of these reasons are just thoughts coming from feelings that are preventing you from moving forward, changing your present, to achieve your future.
If this sounds like you, I can help you.
First grab my free resource The 5 Steps to Intentional Change. HERE!
Then book a free consult with me and lets get you moving and embracing change in your life! HERE!
Have a great day!
How do you feel when you get stuck?
Do you feel overwhelmed, burned out, or just lose your motivation and inspiration?
I'm here to tell you don't beat yourself up because everyone at some point in their journey gets stuck.
There are ways to get unstuck and out of overwhelm and they're not as difficult as you might think.
These past couple of months have been a little tough in my household. When you have a large family something is always going on, and when it's two or more then it can get a little hairy. By that I mean, challenging!
So, how do I cope? I'm going to give you some very easy things that I do that can get you back on track with your goals, dreams, relationships, and your life!
1. The first thing is don't beat yourself up. It's OK to pause! By pause I mean take a breath. Get off social media, or get on and have fun whichever one is less stressful. SM can get overwhelming if you are using it for your biz, and not seeing the results you want. Then again, it can be fun to do some silly reels and also watch some!
2. Don't hustle all the time. Consistency is what pays off. That's in all areas of your life. After cooking meals for my family for decades, I have to remind myself it's ok to let them cook. They are all adults and CAN fend for themselves. If you are cooking, enjoy it! Take the time to enjoy making that new recipe and take in all the wonderful smells of the seasonings and veggies you are chopping and dicing.
3. Do take time to meditate and/or pray. I get stuck mainly because my mind gets cluttered and I don't have clarity. When I recognize that, I immediately get out my Young Living Essential Oils and grab one that appeals to me as well as one I know will help clear my thoughts. Using Essential Oils will help you get unstuck much faster than if you don't use them.
Remember feeling stuck or overwhelmed comes from your thoughts. Changing your thoughts and clearing your mind will immediately get you going in the direction you want to again.
One thing to remember here is our thoughts attract similar thoughts. So, if I am having low vibrating thoughts then that's where my mind is going to continue going unless I stop it.
Have an awesome week!
So, what is SANE???????
Well, I always say "insanity" is heredity, you get it from your kids, although I think these last couple of years have taken a toll on most Mamas.
Whether you've been homeschooling and working, or homeschooling and never getting a break, not being able to be as social as "normal," or feeling locked in, you've probably felt the shift in how feelings are flowing.
And, now things are starting to get going again, it's hard to find the new normal, the new sane, and get out of the sweatpants, and find out if you have been using food as a comfort just a tad too much!
With all of this craziness of the seemingly endless mask-wearing, non-socializing lifestyle comes fear. Fear of being ill, fear of not being enough for everyone, fear surrounding teaching your kids, fear of your marriage coming to a place of disarray because of close quarters and short tempers. Fear of the news, the numbers, what's coming next, and keeps you from being yourself, or what you once knew as yourself.
Fear comes in all forms and generally ends up with you feeding it unintentionally. Food, wine, binge-watching Netflix because of the lack of social interaction with your peers. It can make you overprotective of your kids, eat way more take-out than you should, and be frustrated as well as short-tempered.
So, what can you do as things begin to get back to what will become the "new normal?" Here are a few tips:
1. Let go of perfection.
Let's face it, this is not the time to even try to be the "perfect Mama!" If, and I do mean IF, there is such a thing. Perfection is FEAR! Yup, fear of failing, fear of not being enough, fear of not getting your home is house and garden LOL! Let perfection go, and the stress will ease up.
2. Having a schedule to manage the "unknown."
As a Mama of a very large family, routines and schedules are a must. In the last couple of years, all of that had to be flexible and schedules had to be reworked to fit what was happening, both known, and unknown. Kids feel way more secure with a routine, and when you have one in place, their behavior improves, and life gets to have more sanity and insanity!
3. Calming the storms.
As much as you can feel overwhelmed and frustrated, so can kids. In fact, your energy of anxiety, overwhelm, or frustration, will attract the same from your kids, and vice versa. When they are acting out if you can take a breath and stay calm, your energy will cause them to be calm as well. Sounds crazy? No. Two opposite energies cannot exist in the same space. So keep your sanity by breathing your way and theirs to calmness.
4. Emotions are waves.
All feelings are waves, felt internal, and cannot last forever. They will pass through and diminish if you are present, aware, and let them. Emotions are waves until there is an action that then escalates the feeling into an emotion. Emotions are feelings with actions. It's not great to hide your feelings as they tend to build up and then explode as an action-packed emotion. Let your kids know when you need a hug as well as comfort them when they need one.
5. Embrace every opportunity.
Kids are resilient, but they have feelings and emotions. They have personalities, and if yours are anything like mine, they are all different. Take every opportunity to make each child know they are understood, loved, and wanted. Just like you can have thoughts of rejection, unworthiness, and loneliness, your kids can have those too.
Let them know you're their cheerleader as well as their Mama.
Here's my signature program if you'd like to check that out. It's all about being Sane and Healthy! CLICK HERE
If you'd like to chat over coffee (virtually) on the house, book a time HERE! (That's 15 minutes' worth of gold!)
That's it for now! Give yourself some love today!
