Just when I thought that I had the formula to increased self-awareness, a few exercises on mobility seemed to have shifted my ideas on automaticity and programming. It wasn't just about paying attention to the different muscle groups, but acknowledging my defects, that made me want to improve. Mobility, as it turns out, is meant to help you function better on a regular basis. Unlike passive stretching (widely used for flexibility), mobility looks at long-term changes in the viscoelastic properties of muscle (Stephens, et al. 2006) , and when practiced regularly, could increase muscle length.
Au·then·tic·i·ty - a word that has been making waves everywhere lately has millenials and spiritual movements alike placing value on increased self-awareness. The word itself refers to reliability, dependability, accuracy, fidelity, and credibility, suggesting that in order to be trusted, one would first need to be completely honest with themselves, look deep into both the good and the ugly. It is also a value that we can place on the way that we live life and treat other people.
Self-compassion, as it turns out, demands that we go beyond our comfort zones. While compassion may seem like the complete opposite of courage, I soon learned that courage and self-compassion actually came hand-in-hand. Research shows that self-awareness plays a huge part in developing health behavior change, but if the awareness of ourselves is generally unpleasant, then we may look to food or other concrete aspects (like cigarettes, alcohol, etc) of life instead of long-term health goals (Adams & Leary, 2007). Through better understanding of the self, however, my research has shown that self-compassion can help us acknowledge visible flaws that we might be willing to act upon.
Need help figuring out your long-term goals? Don't know where to start and feel like you need to review your purpose and direction? how exactly can we achieve flow when it comes to our long-term goals? What are some ways that we can reconnect with our overall purpose? Here are 3 exercises that I like to dive deep into each time I know I need to re-align with our goals
To be honest, I spent this last week reading up on so much of it, there was no way I couldn't write about it. Gratitude, according to researchers, has been called an “empathic emotion” (Lazarus & Lazarus, 1994) because it is predicated on the capacity for recognizing the beneficial actions of other people in one’s life. This is also known as Dispositional Gratitude - the ability or life orientation to notice and appreciate what is positive in the world around them. Research shows that people who possess dispositional gratitude tend to engage themselves more in healthy activities for the reasons below:
Alignment is defined as a state of proper positioning. When all elements are aligned, things flow easily and we remain in sync with our direction, pattern, and plan. As positive psychologist Mihalyi Czikzsentmihalyi would call it, it is a state of psychic negentropy - a sort of order in consciousness that allows us to achieve better flow in our lives. He says that in order to achieve this state, we need to have full focus. The way I see it, in order to achieve better flow and focus, we need to be able to toss the 5 things in our lives that tend to waste our time, money, and effort. They are:
It appears as if being busy hasn't just cut us from things, but has also made us seem a little more important. And the worst part is, we thrive on it like a drug that keeps us high on the thrill of keeping ourselves occupied, seemingly working hard, hustling, beating the buzzer, and earning what we deserve. It's almost as if worth and recognition are synonymous with the word busy / occupied / unavailable. Because when we are occupied, demand is high for our attention, so we can then project a false sense of increased value. And the false sense of importance is what tends to get us hooked.
How can we dig deep enough to find out, learn more, and empathize? What will it take to really connect and form relationships that are truly nourishing? Here are 3 ways that can improve your ability to connect to anybody:
In a world where everything seems to be so fast-paced, and online conversations tend to take up our time, it truly does beg the question - are we really truly listening to one another? Author Nick Morgan calls it "the epidemic of fake listening" - our tendency to nod, lean in, smile,etc. in order to appear like we are engaged, when in fact, we aren't.
Managing our emotional thunderstorms differ from situation to situation. When we deal with the natural current of things, we manage to anchor quite well. But how can we strengthen our anchor to prepare us for the bigger waves?
This week on Healing Minds' reading list are workbooks that will help see you through tough times. Whether you're deep into a situation or you just feel like there are old wounds you're ready to face, the following books will be able to guide you through the process. All you need to do, is stay open!
Loving Kindness was one of the very first meditations I ever learned. While I was actively doing the work to heal, I came across a loving kindness meditation through a course in positive psychology with one of my favorite authors, Barb Fredrickson. Today I share with you my favorite script. A script that we used to share regularly with call center employees who just needed to take a break and come back to themselves.
