5 ways to improve the quality of your mind today
source: theipsproject.com
YES, YOU CAN CHANGE YOUR MIND
Greetings, reader!
The gist of today’s post is this: YOU CAN CHANGE YOUR MIND.
The pathway/s you choose to take there are generous for the choosing. I would like to share 5 of the top methodologies I’ve benefited from and seen my clients benefit from, all of which have science-backed, spirituality-infused support for the prospect of changing your mind.
In this 5-Part Series, I will dish out and dive into a single methodology each post. Today, we are all Mindfulness Meditation.
Before I dive in, let me ask you to pause and reflect:
-What have the qualities of my thoughts been recently (last 2-4 weeks)?
-What have the qualities of my thoughts been generally (last 2-4 months)?
-What have the qualities of my thoughts been persistently (over your lifetime, thus far)?
As you sense the answer, it may appear in multivariate ways. Stay with what arises outside of the realm of words. Images, textures, sounds, colors, and mini-movies. Whatever arises, take that. And from that, without analyzing, just sense: good or bad.
I’m not one to promote this black and white thinking, and such rigid value judgment, but it serves a purpose for this priming exercise.
On a spectrum, that is, just get a gauge of the quality of your thoughts.
Whether they have felt perfect (doubt it) or worthless (also doubt it) or somewhere in between (most likely), I’m sure you feel some need for improving the quality of your thoughts.
If this resonates, please continue reading this sampler from the brain and body-based buffet of techniques to think better, and as a result, live better, too.
HOW TO CHANGE YOUR MIND: one way
Mindfulness Meditation
The specific mindfulness mediation I am referring to comes from the work and teachings of Dr. Rick Hanson, psychologist, author, and senior fellow of the Greater Good Science Center at UC Berkley. It begins with setting the intention of concentration wholly as you meditate, not just going with the whims of the wandering mind. The second phase is tuning into the body. Start with being with external sensations—such as the feeling of a chair under your sit bones, and move to being with internal sensations the floating and falling motions of your diaphragm as you breathe. Being with is different than noticing. As you shift to bodily sensations and experience of the present moment, you shift away from thinking.
Once you’ve settled into the body, it’s time to drop into the heart. Your loving energy emanates from here, in your heart. As you sit with what arises in your heart—again, images, textures, sounds, colors, and mini-movies, allow it to grow. The feeling, that is. Allow it’s goodness to spread through your entire body.
From the heart’s calming energy, you will enter phase four: generate a sense of quiet and tranquility within. This inner peace and ease is a gift that keeps on giving—to every cell of your body. Drink it up! Lastly, phase five is contentment. Just by shifting your attention to the senses of the body, you’ve located a source of energy that is so pleasant to be with, you have nothing to change. That was there all along, and just now, in the meditation, you connected with your own contentment.
In one breath, you will:
Set Your Intention
Tune Into Your Body
Be With Your Heart
Find Quiet and Tranquility Within
Stay With A Sense of Contentment
During mindfulness meditation, you literally begin to strengthen parts of your brain that contribute to a sense of quiet, calm, tranquility, and contentment that becomes a more familiar and friendly part of you. As the saying goes: “it’s what you practice in private that you will be rewarded for in public.”
source: yogatoeaseyouranxiety.com
Scientifically, what’s happening? You are mentally stepping out of the Default Mode Network (DMN)—the part of the brain we engage when we zone out, ruminate, go into our own little mini-movies, and essentially get caught in mental time travel…either in the future or in the past, not in the present. You are also turning down activity in the Anterior Cingulate Cortex (ACC) (near the center/corpus collosum), responsible constantly judging how well we are doing in relationship to our goals.
The resulting experience? You stop worrying and start living.
source: rhizomedc.org
This beautiful shift is in thanks to the Insula—a part of our brains located on the parietal lobes (sides) which is exercised when we tune into our internal sensations. The Insula is the circuit-breaker of the DMN, quieting the chatter in our minds and allowing the sensations of each moment to flood our experience of being alive.
Simply look at how much more activity (red) there is in the center and sides of the brain in the meditating individual’s brain pictured above.
BEGIN NOW, DESPITE YOUR QUALMS
Like all exercises—meditation or movement, you will need to experience it to know it. For example, it’s easy to scoff at the directive to “stay with a sense of contentment,” and think: “how dumb is that, I won’t be content…at least not for long.” Recognize when these judgments come up as you consume this list and consider where to start that those are your own thoughts and projections, having the cojones to believe you know exactly what the experience will be like and to decide ahead of trying that it will be worthless for you. That’s the easy thing to do. I encourage you to do the hard, mind-expanding, thought-changing thing: try one of these meditations.
You might wonder: for how long? where? when?
In reverse order:
do it when you are showing up most consistently to do it (even if that means different times each day, though I wouldn’t advise it)
do it in a quiet space where you can get comfortable in your own body and enter deep concentration without outside interruptions
start small and grow; start with 5 minutes, build to 10, 15, and then 20
Thank you for reading today. I am here as a guide for your meditation practice and self-expansion. If you feel called to take a step deeper into meditation and positively changing your mind, sign up for a free 1:1 discovery coaching call here. We will see if we are a good fit and if I can be of service; either way, helping you find a way forward.
You Got This.
Coach Joy 🙏🏻