Our global community is under so much stress right now. Many of us can barely remember a time when we felt light and easy and weren’t suffering from uncertainty and fear. As stress increases, we need to develop new self-care tools to stay healthy.
Mental and physical health needs to be prioritized like never before. As the pressure mounts and every news story is worse than we could have imagined a year ago, we need to increase self-care and rest to give ourselves the best chance to stay balanced in the chaos.
Be Present, Practice Mindfulness
Eckhart Tolle, a renowned spiritual teacher, says, “there is no suffering in the present moment.”
I’m interested to hear your thoughts on that statement.
When I first heard it, not long after my husband died by suicide, my reaction was, “Are you kidding me? I’m suffering terribly!”
Several years later, although it is challenging most of the time, I at least understand what he means.
Try this presence practice and let me know how it goes for you.
Take a deep breath and focus on things that are around you currently.
Use your senses to connect you to the present moment.
Focus on five things you can see.
Four things you can hear.
Three things you can feel (this can be internal too like I’m hungry or sore).
Two things you can smell
One thing you can taste.
During that practice, while you were fully present, were you feeling less stressed about the pandemic or other global uncertainty.
That’s what Eckhart Tolle means when he says there is no suffering in the present moment.
If we can be fully present, even for a brief time, it gives us relief from our suffering.
Other mindful practices include:
Breathing practices or pranayama
Yoga
Meditation
You can bring mindfulness into any moment by being fully there. Doing the dishes can be a mindful practice if you bring your mind and body to the task. Keep your thoughts only on what you are doing. Notice how the water feels, the soap smells, the sight of the dirt washing away and the clean plate showing up.
Yoga is a mindful practice, try out one of my yoga offerings. I teach Monday, Thursday, and Saturday at 11:00 am Pacific and Sunday at 10 am.
If you want help bringing mindfulness into your life, I’m available for coaching.
We are going to get through this time! Keep breathing.
Blessings,
Michelle