Currently reading an excellent book in order to prepare for a ‘mindfulness in the workplace’ training I am going to attend, it struck me how easy it can be to bring calm and quietness into our daily lives. If you ever had anything to do with psychology, yoga, coaching, stress-reduction techniques or mediation you will certainly know this but bringing it all together to the point is what really makes a difference.

Did you for example know that:

• What happens in your mind changes your brain and vice versa? You can actually train your mind to change your brain in lasting ways.
• Small positive actions every day will add up to large changes over time? You will gradually build up new neural structures.
• Human beings evolved to pay great attention to unpleasant experiences? This negativity bias highlights bad news and creates anxiety and pessimism. It takes about five positive interactions to overcome the effects of a single negative one.
• Psychological pain draws on many of the same networks as physical pain and can thus trigger the same negative experience and suffering?

Little steps you can do on your path to change:

• Turn positive facts into positive experiences. Bring your mindful attention to these facts, be open and allow them in. Let them affect you!
• Hold these moments/experiences in awareness, being fully with them, savoring every moment. Focusing on your body sensations and emotions, let the experience fill your body and be as intense as possible so that both your body and mind can absorb it. Every time you do this, you build a little bit of neural structure. This will gradually and over time change how you feel and act.
• Relax your body whenever you can by taking a deep breath for example or by focusing systematically on different parts of your body. There are many ways to train this from simple methods to yoga, meditation etc. Practicing ‘offline’ will allow you to foster and build strategies for your body which will then also be available to you when a stressful situation arises.

Let me finish for today with a quote:

“We are what we think. All that we are arises with our thoughts. With our thoughts, we make the world.” – Buddha Quotes (Sources of Insight)

Have an excellent day/evening/morning! Jenny