In today’s fast-paced world, we have everything at our fingertips: we have instant messaging and direct messaging; we send someone an email to let them know that we called them; our schedules have schedules to stay organized. We glorify busy and wear busyness as a badge of honour. We are often planning for the future or ruminating over the past, but we’re not often present right here, right now.
We have anxiety and depression and obesity and self-esteem issues. We don’t know how to feel our emotions because we have instant gratification to numb any pain, whether it be through social media, food, shopping, gambling or other poisons. Not only that, but we let our thoughts get the best of us. We identify so strongly with our thoughts that we think we are our thoughts; we can get so caught up in the stories we tell ourselves that we have no concept of our actual reality. When we live our lives in such a scattered, unintentional way, our world unfolds through a skewed perception of self-limiting beliefs, fears and doubts. We lose touch with our intuition, accessing our higher wisdom and we do not have the ability to see our own true, pure potential.
While we might not identify with all of these things, we certainly should be able to identify with some of these things. If any of the above-examples ring true to you, it might be time to start thinking about grounding yourself in the present so you can actually connect to the world around you as it is unfolding, see your potential and thrive.
I think that our key to thriving is through being conscious. What that means is, when we wake up every morning, are we actually awake? We are not awake if we’re living in the past or some imagined future, if we’re consuming goods to help us feel good, if we’re numbing our emotions instead of feeling them, or if we’re so attached to our technology that our world doesn’t make sense without it. We consciously wake up through the power of presence. Being awake to our current reality, this moment, is all we have.
I would like to suggest a 3-part exercise we can practice on a regular basis to help us be more awake, and actually thrive. This practice includes mindfulness, compassion and gratitude. According to the Virtues Project’s Virtue Cards:
“Mindfulness is living reflectively, with conscious awareness of our actions, words and thoughts. Awake to the world around us, we fully experience our senses…Living mindfully lightens our minds by helping us to detach from our emotions.”
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“Compassion is a deep empathy for another who is suffering or living with misfortune. It is understanding and caring, and a strong desire to ease their distress. Compassion flows freely from our hearts when we let go of judgments and seek to understand.”
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“Gratitude is a constant attitude of thankfulness and appreciation for life as it unfolds. Living in the moment, we are open to abundance around us and within us. We express appreciation freely.”
The first step in a mindfulness practice is knowing whether or not you are actually being present. Usually by making that connection, you can bring yourself into the present moment. I suggest knowing in advance where your rumination room is: where is the place that you tend to ruminate, disconnect from the world or zone out completely? For most people it’s during a mindless activity like driving, walking, cleaning or using technology mindlessly. Knowing where your rumination room is can help you be prepared to stay present when you’re there.
This exercise is a form of mindfulness called grounding. It’s about feeling connected to the earth from where we sit or stand. Start by asking yourself Where are my feet? or Where is my seat? Then take a moment to fully feel every part of you that is connecting with the floor, the earth or your chair. Picture that part of you connecting into the ground. See yourself taking root down into the earth and all the way into the earth’s core. Feel how rooted and strong you are below, so that it supports and nourishes all of you above. Practice deep breathing and enjoy it.
Once we are mindfully grounded, we can send any energy, negativity or thoughts and emotions into the ground to help neutralize us. We can also pull from the earth’s core energy for nurturing. When we are feeling nurtured, we can connect to our higher self by opening the channel above to access our intuition, our wisdom and knowing. This is how we wake up!
Once grounded, we can practice a loving kindness meditation. This is like a well-wishing to ourselves and others that originates in Buddhism. The lines can be changed to fit your personal preferences but they generally look like this:
May I love and be loved,
May I be happy and healthy,
May I be safe and secure,
May I live with ease.
In my practice, I say this three times to myself first. Then I send it out to my husband or another family member, and then to all beings in the world, three times each.
Once we are grounded and sending loving wishes to ourselves and to others, it sets us up perfectly to be grateful for what we have. Cultivating a feeling of gratitude within our hearts can be difficult to do, but it is much more rewarding and beneficial than simply regurgitating things that we are grateful for. Once we cultivate that feeling of gratitude we can think about or write down specific things that make us grateful.
These actions set us up to be truly in touch with ourselves, and open to other realms of universal information. When we are grounded, offering loving kindness and feeling grateful, we create an opportunity to open the channel to higher sources of wisdom, which can help guide us in our lives from a more spiritually- and consciously aligned place.
And so it is.
If you are interested in any of the above practices and looking for some guidance, please contact me for your personalized coaching package.
Together, we rise.