Peggy Steffens's Library tagged Mindfulness →  View Popular

Notice also when you have a judgmental thought about yourself. Negative
measures invoke The Zeno Effect, which sloooooooows things down.

When we're 100 percent present with colleagues and clients, there's a
measurable difference in the level of communication. For one thing, it relaxes
us. There's a sense of time being suspended in the "eternal now." For another
thing, more clarity emerges. We hear with more certainty what the other is
saying. And if the speaking or listening is imperfect, through connection we are
provided an opportunity to hone the thought or reframe it. It improves our
decision-making. Finally, presence is more creative and fun. It's a pleasant
experience, because we're neither regretting the past nor defending against the
future. We are living the truth of our imagination and sharing.

• Be Objective: Separate rewards and punishments from your
  measurement system. You don't want to beat yourself up after all. The reward of
  being fulfilled by reaching your goals and living out your passion is so much
  more gratifying than any temporary little bonbon or satisfaction.

• Stop Multi-tasking: Do one thing at a time and do it well.
  Splitting your attention doesn't save time because you end up having to correct
  mistakes and fill in gaps. Better to give your energy in one place.

If you have psychological pain, it's a clue to look for an addiction. You
feel down, so what's going on? Perhaps you wanted a compliment or praise and
didn't get it. You could have an addiction to perfection, looking good, or
something else that gives you "elective" suffering when you don't get it. The
key thought patterns that cause suffering are "I must have…" and it's
mirror-image twin "I must not have…"

• Reframe Unwanted Thoughts: for instance, rather than: "I hate this
  slow drive" you could reframe your response to be: "This slow drive gives me a
  chance to daydream and imagine." You can shift whole mental patterns by being
  stubbornly committed to your reframes for only a few days.

Feelings are created when our needs are met. Joy, pleasure, satisfaction, and
excitement come from fulfillment of needs.

Feelings are created when our needs are not met. Anger, sadness, frustration,
and hopelessness come from lack of fulfillment.

1. Stop. Get connected with what's going on in your body.
   
2. Feel. Ask: What did I just hear or think about that stimulated me?
   
3. Discover. Ask: What are those feelings? What do I need in this
   moment?
   
4. Request. Evaluate if there's a request you could make of yourself
   or another person that would help you meet the need. There may or may not be.
   

• Identify a situation you've been complaining about.
  
• Rate how you feel about it on a scale of 1 to 10, with 10 being very
  satisfied and 1 being the least satisfied. (Most people won't give themselves a
  1. They want to say, "Wow I'm a 4!")
  
• Ask yourself to recall what you did to become a 4 rather than a 1. Or what
  you did to become a 6 not a 3. Write down things you do that enable you to rate
  your satisfaction at the level you're at.
  
• Over the next few days, find small ways to more of those things you
  recorded. Accentuate what's working in your life.

Breathing is an amazing way to establish rapport with other people. People in
love or in deep conversation often fall into synchronization with their breath.
It also can create space when we're going into reactivity. A few deep breaths
can take us from outside to within. It may not be appropriate to go from anger,
fear, or crisis straight into happiness, but there is a way to neutralize the
anger, fear, and sense of crisis. Using self-knowledge and presence, at a
certain point you can begin shifting your breath to participate in the creation
of emotional states.

Breath is life. With every in breath, you increase your physical life force.
Your body undergoes a tiny rebirth as your cells are flushed with an oxygen-rich
blend of air. With every out breath, you release what your body no longer needs,
including stale gases, tension, and contracted emotions.

Your scan should move from your toes to your feet, up your ankles and legs.
When you come to your butt, feel yourself surrender to gravity. Notice how
supported you are. Relax the area around the genitals and anus (yes, there's
often a lot of tension there, although we don't usually talk about it in
public). Scan up through your belly and lower back. Let your muscles hang from
your skeleton without your mental or muscular assistance. Feel into the area of
your solar plexus and chest. As you breathe, what does the expansion and
contraction feel like in your rib cage? Again, just breathe normally and
observe.

Continue moving your attention through your shoulders, down your arms, and
into your wrists and hands. Is there tension in your fingers? What do your palms
feel like? Scan back up to your shoulders and neck. Scan into your jaw area and
throat. Breathe and let tension melt away. Be aware of your facial mask and the
muscles around the eyes. What about your scalp? What's going on there? And what
about inside your ears, sinuses, and mouth? Cast your attention to the area
around your teeth and gums. Relax your tongue, as best you can.

When you have finished scanning, sit quietly and breathe for a few minutes.
Enjoy the presence you have created. Relax. Instruct yourself, "I am safe. All
is well. Everything is going to be okay. Let go." Imagine any residual tension
you feel draining out of you, like water, through the soles of your feet. When
you're ready wiggle your toes and fingers, and open your eyes.

So in this moment sit with a companion knee-to-knee. Sit in silence and look
into each other's eyes. Breathe and connect, and allow your discomfort to drop
away. Imagine that your heart energy is reaching halfway to the heart of your
friend. Let them meet in the middle without pushing or pulling. Send loving
intentions to your partner. Allow yourself to receive your partner's loving
intentions for you. Relax and just be present together. There's nothing to do
and nowhere to go.

Instructions: Sit cross-legged on a cushion with your spine erect, chin
tipped slightly forward to lengthen spine, and your eyes closed. Breathe through
your nose. For a few minutes, trace the path of your single breaths to still
your mind. Then after settling down, on your inhalations think, "So." On your
exhalations, think, "Ham." (It's got a kind of hah sound in it.)

So Ham in Sanskrit, I was told, means, "I am that. Thou art the
highest." Until you have absorbed the essence of the mantra So Ham, pause
between breaths and in English (or your other native language) think, "I am
that."

Thus the meditation goes: So (in breath)--Ham (out breath)--I am that
(pause)--So (in)--Ham (out)--I am that So--Ham--I am that-So-Ham-So--Ham…. Go
slowly.

Commit to doing this for 15 minutes first thing in the morning and for 15
minutes as the last thing before bed, and watch changes unfold in your life.

Sit quietly in a place with no distractions. Dim the lights and place a
candle in front of you. Lower yours eyes so they are softly focused on the
candle. Imagine that you can open a hole in the top of your head. As you breathe
in, bring down through this opening a long, slow, gentle breath that you feel
travel down your spine, to the base of your body, and then feel travel up and
out through your mouth on the exhalation. Feel this breath as a gentle,
nurturing, soothing breath.

If you would like to anchor your mind with a mantra, on the in-breath say to
yourself, "Clear mind." And on the out-breath say, "Don't know." These are
simple words, but powerful in their ability to help you release.

Feel your body releasing more deeply with each out breath. If any thoughts or
worries come in, gently return your attention to the mantra.

Stop thinking right now!

Sit in a comfortable, upright position with your feet on the floor. Close
your eyes. Breathe naturally and relax for a few moments. Then begin
concentrating on the sensations in your heart area. You may be able to sense
your heart beating. Of all the organs in your body, the heart radiates the most
energy more even than the brain. Imagine that your heart is a ball of luminous
energy, in any color you choose. With every inhalation its light is growing more
intense and brilliant.

When the energy feels strong, begin sending out shoots of energy to connect
with the hearts of individual people you know. Send a shoot to Washington to
your cousin, to Los Angeles to your college roommate, to Ohio to a former
colleague, to Calcutta to an author whose book you read, to Amman to someone you
met on vacation. Send a shoot everywhere you can think of. At the same time,
keep on breathing deeply and deliberately intensifying these lines of
connection, which are as thin as a filament of a spider web and lit up.

Consciously send love and energy through the strands of light. Experience the
intention of giving of your good intention. When you perceive you've reached a
threshold, then see the light strands explode outwards by another degree, from
the hearts you've touched to the hearts they touched of actual individual people
they know. These are open connections. It only takes a split nanosecond to send
positive energy through to them via the hearts of your network.

Now open your heart also to receive light beams. Your heart energy is your
creation. But you are only one among billions of creators alive on earth. Those
billions of people are sending good intentions your way from their hearts, too.
Let it fill you up and magnify your own radiance. Your consciousness is as
expansive as this network of light beams of which you are a part. It has no
center. It has no end. It is pure vibratory awareness.

Relish the feeling of connection and presence. There's no need to hurry. Rest
in it and allow it to illuminate and nourish you at the core.

When you are ready, bring awareness back to your body and open your eyes.

As you project yourself imaginatively into the day ahead, decide what color
of energy you want to be. That's a clairvoyant approach. There's no "bad" color.
There's just the color you are right now. You can play with this idea by asking
your intuition, "What color am I now?" and "guessing" the answer. Just play with
being a color you happen to like at the moment, such as gold, blue, lavender, or
green. The more you play and amuse yourself, the easier it becomes to experience
colors of energy. By setting your energy, when you walk into your office, a
restaurant, or the campus center you'll notice what energy you meet that is
not-yours. Thus, you won't pick it up… unless you so choose.

There is you and there is the next version of you. On some days you are
moving towards the next version of you, on other days not as much. This
technique serves you by helping you stay open to becoming the next version of
you.