Tag: Mindful Magazine – Feb’18

  • To Manifest What You Want, Passion Will Spark Your Intentions, Not Pressure

    To Manifest What You Want, Passion Will Spark Your Intentions, Not Pressure

    It’s draining to reach for what you want when you’re disconnected from passion. Here are 7 steps to investigate what drives you, so you can get clear on staying the course.

    What drives you? What gives you goosebumps? Makes you smile unexpectedly? What do you get lost in? Lose time in? Within the answers to those questions, you’ll find your passions. And when it comes to manifesting what you want out of life, a good place to start is gently investigating your passions.

    Here’s a simple, 7-step guide to help you bring life to new directions and to create a compelling sense of the why behind your intentions. I call it the RESOLVE practice.

    How to Manifest What You Want: RESOLVE

    R — Recognize a yearning for change

    So, you want to turn in a new direction? Then you’ve already got what you need to start making changes. Once you can see that you want more freshness in your life, you can kick your resolve into gear and make it happen.

    E — Engage all your resources

    As we learn to tune into the body, watch our thoughts, and become friendly with our emotions, we develop inner “resources” that we can call on to help us create a feeling of stability. Engaging your resources can include forming an allegiance with someone who is also seeking to strengthen their resolve. Anything that helps support you in your cause is a resource.

    Engaging your resources can include forming an allegiance with someone who is also seeking to strengthen their resolve. Anything that helps support you in your cause is a resource.

    S — Soften your need for speed

    Instead, make headway slowly. Impatience can be a tremendous drain on your motivation. You learn as you go, so adopt a more relaxed pace that allows you time to investigate and learn from what you are experiencing.

    O — Open up to why this matters to you

    Let yourself feel why this is worth the effort. Recall that you chose this route because you were determined to grow your resolve. Return to this initial inspiration whenever you need a boost of motivation.

    L — Learn to make allies of your obstacles

    If you take the time to stop, breathe, and examine your obstacles you might discover that some dissolve under inspection. We often fear taking a stand.  We may use catastrophic thinking or overly exaggerate a negative result. Sometimes the greatest obstacle is the fear of change itself. We can gently notice this too. Awareness will feed our resolve.

    V — Value your own efforts

    It takes determination, energy, and powerful intention to connect with our heart’s desires. No effort is wasted. All will serve to strengthen your ability to trust yourself and your ability to stand up for what you want.

    E — Enjoy the twists and turns

    Plans have a nasty habit of changing or veering off course. Learn to adapt your route as your resolve propels you forward. The curve balls and surprises are what make life such a titillating adventure.

    This article provides additional information related to a column that appeared in the February 2018 issue of Mindful magazine.

    How to Make a Mindful Resolution 

    Hard-knuckling it through our New Year’s goals can strain even the best intentions. Here’s a mindful strategy for less stress and more success in keeping your resolutions. Read More 

    • Elaine Smookler
    • June 5, 2018



    Source link

  • Will My Well-Being Increase If I Meditate?

    Will My Well-Being Increase If I Meditate?

    The question that nearly all prospective meditators have: Will you actually have greater health and well-being if you meditate? Mindfulness teacher Steven Hickman addresses the question from a scientific (and pragmatic) perspective.

    Q: I keep hearing that science has proven the benefits of mindfulness meditation. Is that a thoroughly accurate statement? Does research show, in a way that’s objectively measurable, that your well-being will increase if you meditate?

    A: Science can’t definitively show anything, especially when it comes to human experience. That’s not to impugn the value of science, but to note its limitations. Science does its best to predict outcomes in the future based on observations of the past. With meditation science, there is a large and growing body of research that suggests the odds are good that meditation practice will have a generally salutary and positive impact on someone who practices it regularly.

    But science works with statistics and probabilities, usually regarding groups, so that what happens for 80% of the population, for example, doesn’t translate into an 80% chance that you will experience it. Statistics can be misleading. If you roll a die five times and each time it comes up as a 5, when you roll that die again, what are the chances you will get another 5? The same as all the other times: 1 in 6.

    So, putting the statistics lesson aside, we all know that life is uncertain. The same is true with meditation, but research does suggest that certain practices and programs do seem to have a measurable, and in some cases, clearly observable positive effect on things like mood, well-being, and self-compassion, among others.

    My advice would be to let this science lead you to be a skeptic, which means to explore the practice with an open, curious mind that has let go of preconceived notions.

    Back to your question: Will your well-being increase if you meditate? My advice would be to let this science lead you to be a skeptic, which means to explore the practice with an open, curious mind that has let go of preconceived notions. As I like to tell my students: Don’t take my word for anything. Let your own experience be your guide.

    This article appeared in the February 2018 issue of Mindful magazine.



    Source link