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Stickiness

6/28/2016

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Don't you wonder sometimes how some people are able to navigate challenges and adversity in life while maintaining a positive mental attitude and holding space open for growth without getting stuck in the "O, woe is me", mentality, or overdramatizing the situation, or just plain getting stuck in the muck?

This week I had the pleasure of personally meeting and listening to a presentation by Dr. Richard Davidson, a neuroscientist, a professor of psychology and psychiatry at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, as well as founder and chair of the Center for Healthy Minds. His work on cultivating well-being (partially defined as happiness) is highly regarded throughout the world. 

It's fascinating to hear about the research that is being done on how to cultivate well-being and healthy minds. Dr. Davidson is adamant that well-being is a skill that we can all learn and I definitely agree! He details four constituents of well-being that have been extensively investigated neuroscientifically (see my post from March 15, 2016), one of which is resilience. He defines resilience as how quickly we recover from adversity.
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He describes resiliency in regard to stickiness...which is h
ow much we let a negative emotion bleed over into other events, experiences and areas of our life. He referred to it as getting stuck in the muck. He shared that adversity happens, that life happens, and your stickiness is what either causes you to be resilient, to bounce back and recover, or to get stuck in the negative emotion of the experience. 

Gabrielle Bernstein puts it this way, "You can't control all of your experiences in life, but you can control how you experience them." 
What matters is whether we let the adversity become traumatizing. The good news is that we can learn how to be more resilient. We can learn to deal with adversity more effectively by how we frame it. 

George Bonanno is a clinical psychologist at Columbia University’s Teachers College, he has been studying resilience for nearly twenty-five years. One of the central elements of resilience, Bonanno has found, is perception...Do you see an event as traumatic, or as an opportunity to learn and grow? “Events are not traumatic until we experience them as traumatic. We can make ourselves more or less vulnerable by how we think about things,” Bonanno said.

In research at Columbia, neuroscientist Kevin Ochsner has shown that teaching people to think of adversity in a different way...to reframe it in positive terms when the initial response is negative, or in a less emotional way when the initial response is emotionally charged...changes how we experience and react to the adversity. We can train ourselves to better regulate our emotions.


The opposite can also be true. “We can become less resilient, or less likely to be resilient,” Bonanno says. “We can create or exaggerate stressors very easily in our own minds. That’s the danger of the human condition.” Human beings tend to worry, we can take a minor thing, blow it up in our heads, run through it over and over, driving ourselves crazy until we feel like that minor thing is the biggest thing that ever happened. I know that I have done this, have you? Sometimes we nurse it, curse it, and rehearse it over and over again. We allow ourselves to get caught up in the drama and overdramatize the situation.

If we frame adversity as a challenge, we become more flexible and able to deal with it, move on, learn from it, and grow. If we focus on it, frame it as a threat, then a potentially traumatic event becomes a lasting problem. We become more inflexible, and more likely to be negatively affected, to get stuck in the muck. Being resilient is an intentional practice. A practice that, like a muscle, becomes stronger the more we practice it. 

A key strategy for strengthening your resilience is to have a meditation or mindfulness practice. Being aware of your emotions and being present through a meditation practice allows us to better regulate our emotions. We can then reframe adversity causing us to have less stickiness and more resilience. Other keys to being resilient include forgiveness, empathy, compassion and gratitude.

What do you think? Do you have problems getting stuck in the muck? Do you nurse it, curse it and rehearse it? Do you agree that it's possible to reframe how we experience adversity? I would love to hear your feedback, please drop me a comment or send me an email. 
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Good Morning Soul...Who Am I?

6/21/2016

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This post is a repeat from March of 2015. It's one of my favorites not only because it's how I start off my day, but because it carries deep meaning for me. I wanted to share it again for those who maybe didn't see it when it was originally posted. Here it is :)

I'm not much for rituals, especially when it comes to prayer. In fact, my entire life I have personally balked at ritualistic prayer. I found it to feel meaningless, like I was going through the motions without much intention, thought, or meaning behind it. 

I balked at routine period, routines and rituals bored me. I found them mundane. Sure, some routines and rituals were necessary. Most days you have to get up at a certain time, you brush your teeth before bed, blah, blah, blah. I dreaded the "getting ready in the morning" routine, or the "getting ready for bed" routine. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Yep, that's how I feel about it!

So, given that I do not appreciate routine and rituals, much to my amazement I have started some routines and rituals. And at first I didn't even realize it! The difference being that I am finding real meaning and value in some of the routines I have established. I've also realized that as I've found a deeper understanding of other rituals from my past, I have come to enjoy them as well. Imagine that!

One of my rituals is a prayer that I recite every morning. It starts like this.

Good morning Soul, who am I? Good morning God. What would you have me do? Where would you have me go? What would you have me say and to whom? 

My morning prayer continues with expressions of gratitude and of a willingness to serve, and includes other personal items that I may have on my mind that day. I've mentioned in previous blog posts how very important I believe gratitude to be. I start and end my day with gratitude and spend time several moments throughout my day offering up expressions of gratitude. 

This prayer ritual helps to center my day. It draws my attention not only to God, but to my higher self. Who am I? What do I want to accomplish today or in this lifetime? What do I need to learn? It seeks out guidance...what would you have me do? Where would you have me go? Guidance and service...What would you have me say and to whom? It brings to my attention to look for the messages and the lessons. To pay attention to my life and what I am doing, to be conscious and aware of my intentions. It opens up the lines of communication between me and Spirit. It brings my awareness to the fact that I'm a vessel, a conduit for Spirit to communicate through.

I learned the first part of this morning prayer in a spirituality class that I took. Pamela Ashlay-McPherson explains it this way, "Stay in touch with your 'inside self'; the true essence of who you are by addressing your soul each day and asking it to acknowledge its presence in your life. This exercise will instantly bring you back to the center of yourself and bring the recognition of your connection to your source into your consciousness." She goes on to say, "You are Spirit first encased in a body… - We must always keep in mind that our Spirit is our true self and we must allow that part of our self to lead the way in our life; our thoughts, emotions, and physical body are all a part of the earth and are programmed by the earth; only our Spirit belongs to life; is life; that is the part that should lead."

The second half of the prayer I learned from spiritual teacher, Gabrielle Bernstein. If you haven't checked out her work yet, I highly recommend her. Gabby states that, "The secret to prayer is to forget what you think you need, say show me the way. Don't pray for an outcome, pray for the highest good for all. I turn this over and pray for the highest and best good. I release this, I surrender this. This is setting your intentions. Bring your awareness to the situation and pray for surrender." I love how she says to pray for the highest and best good for everyone. I use that often now...for my highest and best good and for the highest and best good of all. 

Do you address your soul each day? What is your soul telling you? Do you know who you are, who you really are? These are questions that I ponder a lot lately. I believe that I have a higher self, a soul, a spirit. I believe that my soul came into this lifetime with a purpose. I aspire to know that purpose and to live it out as best as I can. Good morning Soul, who am I?


Do you have a morning prayer ritual? If you do, I would love to hear about it in the comments below or in an email. 
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Hope

6/14/2016

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In light of what occurred in Orlando a few days ago, I feel compelled to share a few thoughts, a few reminders, and to make a request for each of us to consider.

Let's remember that there is a lot more light in this world than there is darkness. When bad things happen, it can be easy to fall into the trap of believing that there is a lot of darkness, a lot of things going wrong and it can feel overwhelming. Always remember that the goodness in the world by far out weighs the bad. 

Let's remember that we are all one. Let's all quit pretending that we are somehow separate. Sometimes I need to remind myself that we are all one. We are no greater than the sum of all of our parts. There is no place where I stop and you begin. 

Let's remember that what we do, what we say, what we think, and what we don't do matters. It not only impacts you, but it collectively impacts all of us. And what you heal within you, helps to heal it in all of us.

Let's remember that every moment of every day we get to choose again. You get to choose what you say, what you think, what you do, and what you don't do. This is your world, this is our world. Let's create a world that is full of love and gratitude, full of empathy and understanding, full of forgiveness and compassion.

Let's remember that we are all light workers. There is a quote by Martin Luther King Jr. that says, “Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that.” Love gives us hope. Remember to shine your light bright, don't let your light be dimmed by others. 

Let's remember that we all have the power to be the example. Be the example of what you wish to see in the world. If you want to see more love, spread more love. If you want to see more empathy, share more empathy. If you want to see more gratitude, be grateful. If you want to see more forgiveness, be more forgiving. If you want to see more inclusion, be more inclusive. Be the change that you wish to see in the world. When you change, the world changes. Change your mind, change the world.

This week, this month, this year, this lifetime, I invite you to commit to doing something in honor of love. In honor of us all being one. In honor of yourself and of your neighbor, and the person across town, down in Orlando, or across the world.

It can be a random act of kindness, a loving kindness meditation, taking a meal to someone in need, expressing gratitude for someone. This week let's all very intentionally be the example. Bringing more love, empathy and forgiveness into our world. This is my challenge to you this week, you have it within you...you are a light worker. Love gives us hope. 
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As the Dalai Lama said when I saw him a few months ago, praying is great but we need more action. He said that praying by itself is not okay, that we need prayer and effort. He said that we can bring our prayers to Jesus, or to Buddha, or to whomever, asking them to solve the world's problems. He believes that they would say...you created them, you fix them. He feels that yes we should pray, but that prayer without action is not okay. We also need to make the effort ourselves to do what it takes to fix the problems that humankind has made.


Don't wait, don't wish that there was something that you could do. Don't feel overwhelmed and helpless. Be the example, shine your light and love. If you want to hear more about how to bring these things into your world, we invite you to join us for Happiness Workshop. It begins June 15th and continues on June 22nd and 29th from 6-8 pm. What better time to learn more about all of these topics? Registration information is under the "Tracy's Upcoming Events" tab. 

As always, I would love to hear your feedback! Drop me a comment or send me an email.
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Stop, Take A Breath, Observe, Practice Gratitude

6/7/2016

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Are you feeling a little overwhelmed and stressed? Summer has arrived and with it brings the end of school, graduation parties, weddings, dance recitals, tournaments, the end of the second quarter of the year...what half the year is gone already?! Whew, life is full! What can we do to help keep our sanity, our well-being, our happiness during the this full time of year?

One of the 10 key habits for leading a happy life is the practice of meditation or mindfulness. I would actually place it in the top 3 critical habits for sustaining a happy life. Research shows that even 2 minutes of meditation can make a huge positive impact on your overall stress, well-being and ultimately happiness. Wait, what just 2 minutes? You've got just 2 minutes, right? 

A lot of people are 
intimidated by the idea of having a meditation or mindfulness practice, I know that I was. I thought it was something that required a large commitment of time, a lot of sitting still, an elimination of thoughts, and there seemed to be a vague and yet complex sequence of instruction. Blaahhh to be honest it kind of sounded awful and boring! I kept envisioning Elizabeth Gilbert in the book Eat, Pray, Love sitting for days forcing herself to meditate.

​I want to demystify the concept of mindfulness by giving you an easy and simple way to incorporate this practice into your everyday life. A practice that is so easy you can even teach it to kids, or to other adults should you desire. A practice that will help you to easily know what to do, how to do it, and that will work into your already full life. 

Sound good? It's called the S.T.O.P. technique. Using the acronym S.T.O.P. like this:

S: Stop whatever you are doing.

T: Take 3 deep, belly breaths in and fully exhale them out. The easiest way for me to know that I am getting in a deep belly breath (versus just inhaling into my chest cavity) is to place my hand on my belly, so I can feel it push out with the inhale and pull in with the exhale. When we are under stress it's common for us to shallow breathe or to hold our breath. 

O: Observe your thoughts, your emotions, your surroundings, and any physical sensations. What do you hear, see, feel and taste? Label your emotions...just the act of labeling them helps with diffusing them if they are negative. 

P: Practice gratitude. Identify at least one thing that you are grateful for at that moment and describe it in as much detail as you can. 

It's as simple as that! Two quick minutes of mindfulness. Something you can do on your way to work, at your desk before starting the day, before each meal, before a big meeting or project, when the kids get home from school, while stopped at a stoplight, before getting out of bed or when you go to bed. Whenever you are feeling a bit overwhelmed, stressed, frustrated, tired, sad, happy or nervous just S.T.O.P. That sounds doable right? Before you know it you'll have it built into your routine and it'll be your "go to" practice. 


Per brain scientist Kristen Race, "A formal mindfulness practice involves taking time, each day, to intentionally bring our awareness to the present moment in systematic ways." 
Through this process we increase our ability to:
  •     Think clearly
  •     Problem-solve effectively
  •     Manage difficult emotions
  •     Think optimistically
  •     Bring emotional intelligence into our interactions with others

In essence, to lead a life with less stress and more happiness. Mindfulness is happiness. When we aren't attentive to what we are currently doing, we are often times drudging up negative things from the past or worrying about the future. It's often said that a wandering mind is an unhappy mind. 

I would love to hear your feedback on this post. Does it work for you to incorporate 2 minutes of mindfulness into your day? Do you have a mindfulness practice you would like to share with us? Drop me a comment or send me an email!
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