What's This Mindfulness Stuff?

In today's episode, we explored the basics of mindfulness, highlighting its benefits and practical steps to integrate it into your daily life. We discussed why mindfulness has become so popular, shared a fun fact about its impact on the brain, and outlined five simple steps to help you become more mindful. Whether you're a beginner or looking to enhance your practice, remember that mindfulness is accessible to everyone and can significantly improve both mental and emotional well-being!

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Transcript

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few months ago I was at a conference speaking um on a key note panel as part of the intro they made mention that I'm a mindfulness coach and a young lady came up to me at the end and said what's all this mindfulness stuff that's exactly what we're gonna talk about today welcome to the show welcome to your Thought Life podcast I'm your host Michael Anderson on this podcast we help people overcome mindset challenges to trust on this podcast we help people overcome mindset challenges to fast track personal and professional success if you haven't already do consider subscribing and if you have a moment after you've completed this episode and you've enjoyed it head over to wherever you listen to us and please give us a rating in a review we appreciate each of you and your support of the podcast so I'm at that conference and the young lady comes in says to me what she says and I just smile because believe it or not it's a very common question that I get and folks want to really gain an appreciation for like puts what's with all of this mindset stuff I'm hearing these days and mindfulness and you know what what's the big idea how can it help me and my day to day life and as I thought through the merits of that specific question I immediately went into creator mode and said this would be a fantastic topic for one of our episodes and here we are mindfulness is the practice of being fully present family fully present engaged in the moment in such a way that we have awareness of our thoughts and our feelings without entering into patterns of behavior or entering into judgment about how we feel or what's going on on the inside and this is a beautiful place to be because it puts you in firm control of your future and of your destiny your journey becomes one now of personal discovery the more you're able to learn about you and what makes you you and all the dynamics that impress upon you something that you don't particularly care for or like or spur from the past memories um that make you uncomfortable in some fashion this mindfulness stuff really sets the stage to put you in the driver's seat of this entire awareness experience so that you can be more present so you can unfold and uncover all that the present moment has to offer moreover in the present moment this is where you have all of the energy to impact your future how many people do each of us know that have a very difficult time being present because they're stuck in the past or conversely we know people who are so forward thinking and so future focused that they're missing out on what's taking place right now I like to think that mindfulness involves a conscious direction of our awareness to the experiences that are unfolding right before us in such a way that we can pay attention to them whether they're internal like thoughts or emotions or external like sensory experiences that we have with other individuals the goal is not to block out thoughts or emotions that don't jive with us but rather to observe them without getting caught up in them and yesterday on a particular podcast there was a certain section where we talked about EQ and how when we have emotional intelligence we're able to tame those feelings and we're able to remain in complete control of the situation we attribute this to mindfulness so this mindfulness stuff can be really really powerful for each of us to create a life that we can be proud of everybody's going to have a reflection moment at that time where it looks like we're gonna you know move on to the next world and to the extent that you get this down family and you're in firm control from this point forward um boy when you look back your doubts and regrets and the likes are gonna be way different you might not even have any because you've done so much deep work as a result of this mindfulness stuff you've enhanced your awareness to a level where you're always calm you're always cool you always got the proper focus and because all of these things are in the positive spectrum you've also got a fair amount of well being it's just a beautiful setup for reduced stress I love the fact that now I'm in control of my cortisol levels they don't dictate now when I'm going to raise up or not I let them know based on the circumstances um if I'm being chased by a Pitbull that's about 100 pounds and I don't see something for me to jump on court is always gonna go up I'm gonna permit it but but but if I'm at the office and there's some certain personalities that are let's say difficult and they decide that today they want to interact with me in a negative fashion so much so that you know my old buttons might get smashed or pressed well this is going to be one of those moments when I say the quarters all know we're not going to respond no we're not going to react and no we're not going to give any of those shenanigans the time of day firm control of our stress reducing capability but there's also some other added benefits like cognitive functions or enhance cognitive functions when you're practicing improving your attention and your awareness what you find is is easier for you to go into concentration why because you don't have the same level of distractions that are moving you about and keeping your mind all over the place unstructured if you will and not only do you have enhanced concentration but you have better decision making because you're not making a decision now from a place that's questionable where you're in an emotional funk where you've gotten heightened sense of irritation you're in control now through this mindfulness stuff and you're able to go uh uh that's not us anymore we don't do that we remain calm cool and collected under pressure exercising EQ and when we find that we can't do that I'm going to now share with you in a few moments those things that you can do to regain control if we can't do it we've got tools to help us do it but I wanna share this with you I think this is super cool did did did you guys know that mindfulness can change the structure of your brain studies show that regular mindfulness meditation can increase the density of the hip campus a part of the brain that's essential for memory and learning now this whole concept around the idea of brain expansion mind expansion neuroplasticity is just fascinating and to know that we can play a part of it that we can play a part in it is to me just one of the coolest things the universe has made available to us for so many years I thought that you know this is what you got I had a fixed mindset I'll I'll just admit it this is what I got this is what I'm stuck with and and if it weren't for some very influential people um in the executive coaching space that took me under their wing I would have still probably been thinking that way and it is just not the truth we have the ability to learn new things and new skills and expand our brain and mind to um heights that were probably in older versions of ourselves unknown unbeknownst to us so I thought that was cool I wanna share that with you now let's say for instance you're one of those folks that have not mastered this mindfulness stuff and you still do pop off flare up and getting your feelings and emotions sometime number one we wanna introduce breathing exercise so you're gonna be quiet you're not gonna say anything if you're in the moment under your breath so that it's not obvious you're just going to begin to take in some very deep breaths and you're going to blow them out very slowly and very slowly out very slowly and that's going to settle you down it's going to bring you down to a level where you can begin to think about being more intentional you can begin to think through what are the skills that I have for managing these types of situations what have I been taught oh yeah now I remember stay calm stay cool stay collected do not give off any bodily energy um that says you just press my button you just made me feel something um deny release from all of those things right and then with that intentional pause you're gonna check in with yourself check in with yourself and go what was it there that made me want to lash out made me want to go on the defensive made me want to say something ugly what was it and then you gotta just be real non judgmental about the situation and just think through it and and be honest and be forthcoming with yourself it's okay if it's an area that you need to Mark off in your journal as an opportunistic area it's totally fine it would be far better for you to do that then to keep doing what you had been doing that you don't even like to do so we're breathing we're taking some intentional pauses to really understand why we're feeling why we got agitated why we got moved and then we're going to observe the surroundings gonna pay attention to our sights our sounds our smells cause sometimes given the situation these may be enhancers many of the things that we feel um will stem back to our childhood certain smells again certain sounds right certain things that we see in the form of behavior in the form of gestures in the form of body language right we need to take in all of this data and that's going to help us get anchored into the present and if you see that over a period of two or three of these you know introspective scenarios that I'm telling you that we need to be able to think through so we can really master this mindfulness stuff you wanna put that in your journal and Mark that down as again an opportunistic area we need to go back and do some heavy lifting we need to see in your childhood where was that thing prevalent where did it first happen was it processed or not did did is this get sort of swept under the rug and now it's coming back in your adult years um as an issue we need to deal with those things but the first we got to get that heightened sense or settle down so that we can get that journal entry prepared one of the key components of being a good communicator is to first become a very good listener I'm gonna call it a mindful listener when we're in communication when we're in conversation when we're in relationship we have to get to a point family where we can listen to everything that's being said without planning at the same time what we're gonna say next when I talk to people about networking they frequently cite this situation different context I understand but I wanted you to see um this in a relationship they're having a hard time networking because they're so busy trying to craft what they're going to say next that they missed salient points why they weren't in the moment taking all of the information do some analysis on you don't have to be quick to speak do some analysis on it think about what you wanna say and before you say it think through how it's going to be received is it going to be received in such a way that you maintain respect and authenticity in that relationship in that conversation in that interaction or does it come down to a situation where you say something and it adds fuel to this fire it creates more sparks instead of calming things down when we're able to become good listeners we're able to then improve communication in such a way that we can foster deeper connections or to some extents be a part of a very challenging argumentative even scenario and settle that thing down right because of our temperament because of our internal discipline in this mindfulness stuff it really helps us to get to that point does it come automatically does it come after one or two events no just like everything else we've repetitioned into our brains certain beliefs biases and behaviors and it's through repetition that we move out those that we don't want or those that do not serve us and replace them with good techniques and tactics like the ones we're talking today and finally um I want you to reflect daily on what this means to you this mindfulness stuff talked earlier a little bit about getting to know yourself knowing your triggers knowing your buttons knowing what your strengths are what your weaknesses are the areas that you have carved out in your in your journal for improvements or opportunity enhancements all of these things in reflecting with on on what your composition truly is without judgment are necessary on a daily basis this is not like a fat diet where you can do it for a little while and then go back to normal no it simply won't work that way what what does work and what science um is able to showcase um through better than 60 years of observations is that when people take the time each morning to develop a morning routine they set the tone for the day and if they are so brave and courageous to state how their day is going to be and will close their eyes and visualize it they have an 80% likelihood of experiencing that day and as things pop up and as challenges pop in they're going to be far less likely to respond to those in a way that depletes their precious energy and and and and emotional reserves because they're going to be practicing mindfulness throughout the entire course of the day plus they've set for themselves a tremendous base during that morning routine so be reflective develop this mindfulness as a practice that you do every single day what can you expect by incorporating these simple steps family um your daily routine or developing a daily routine you can start to experience benefits as a part of a mindfulness journey in as little as a few days all you have to do is remain faithful to the process don't skip a day and remember like any skill is gonna be practice practice practice so be face so be patient with yourself and let's embark on this journey immediately so that this mindfulness stuff can have the same benefit for you that is had for others that have gone before you okay and thanks for tuning in and that concludes this episode I appreciate your time and your attention you can reach me on IG at your thought life y 0 r thought life no spaces I wanna remind you that you are enough you can do it and you are uniquely equipped to realize your goals until next time take care and be safe