Feeling uncertain? Not sure what to do about it? Remember that in times like these we have to live our way into a new way of thinking and being. We don’t think our way into a new way of living. Uncertainty is the only certainty guaranteed in our lives! "Making friends with uncertainty," is allowing one's self to feel the discomfort of not knowing, while getting active in our own recovery. In this episode I share a few thoughts on the current pandemic and 7 ideas on how to manage your stress.
During times like these we need to slow down and check in with what matters. In this podcast I share five thoughts on how to cope with emotional contagion from a mindfulness perspective:
1. Welcome everything, reject nothing.
2. There is always more than one way to see a situation.
3. Everything and every person are connected in some way.
4. Change is the only constant. In each new moment, reality itself changes. Eventually we will recover.
5. Remain flexible and adaptable to change.
Your Mind is Not Your Friend! Think of it as a constant companion. It's something you live with. There are plenty of benefits of having a mind. It problem solves, makes plans, and uses logic and judgment to help you navigate your world. But the mind also judges us harshly too!
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Often, we make no distinction between ourselves and what we’re thinking. From that viewpoint, our minds aren’t exactly to be trusted, or taken literally at every step of the way. Learn about a helpful acronym (F.E.A.R.) and the ways our minds get caught up in fusion, evaluation, avoidance, and reason-giving. Tune in to learn more about how to relate to your mind in a healthier way.
Values are extremely important. They help us make choices among many alternatives. When we feel lost, disconnected, or confused, values can reorient us back to what matters. By clarifying our core values, we have a clearer sense of who we truly want to be, and what we want to stand for. Values are the selection criteria for action.
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In this episode I walk us through a values clarification exercise by sharing an example of someone I admire, Pat Tillman. By identifying the personal qualities of people we admire, we can get clear about our own values. Tune in as I walk you through this powerful exercise to help you get clarity on your own values.
For many of us, managing our emotions (anxiety, depression, fear, doubt, shame, anger) is rarely viewed as a choice; we jump right into giving reasons to justify why we need to avoid them without realizing we have other options.
For many of us, the choice to change our lives for the better is never easy. When we fuse with the thoughts happening within our mind and the reasons we give for our mindless behavior, it’s almost as if we’re reading from a script.
Tune in to this weeks episode to find out whether you’re fusing with reason-giving and making excuses, or whether the thing you’re avoiding doing is truly impossible for you to do!
Automatic Pilot Mode is the human experience of being lost in thought, and not realizing that you're in the process of thinking about thoughts. While on Automatic Pilot Mode, our lives become narrow and cage-like, and inflexible patterns of behavior are the unavoidable result.
