(Dalai Lama)

How incredibly empowering and true is this quote by Dalai Lama? This ‘present moment’ living and awareness took me years to learn and to live by and it is something that I constantly practise and work hard to maintain daily. It is a constant commitment and practice but I can guarantee you that if and when you pledge to yourself to learn how to live more mindfully and more consciously, you will never be able to live any other way again. You will feel truly alive, truly earthed, truly connected to yourself, to your life, to your soul, to your existence and to your purpose. You will wonder how you ever got ‘stuck’ living with yesterday’s experiences or values or tomorrows non-guaranteed expectations and assumptions.

One of the ways in which I trained my brain and continue to do so daily, in how to be more present, more aware and more grateful in my present moment is by affirming to myself daily, numerous times per day, that ‘today I GET to’ do whatever it is that I am doing. I remind myself that ‘today I don’t HAVE to’ do whatever it is that I am doing but that I am truly blessed to have the opportunity to actually do whatever it is that I want to do. I constantly remind myself that not everybody gets the gift and opportunity of a promised new day ahead. So many people would do anything for this opportunity and yet, there are so many of us that don’t fully realise and may even take for granted the capabilities that we are individually gifted with every day.

Another way that I increased my present moment awareness and living was by introducing daily ‘appreciation’ and ‘thankfulness’ into my life. Everyday, I start and end my day expressing my gratitude for my body and all its internal organs and functions, my overall health (even if it’s been a day where I felt a bit off or sickly, I am still alive!), my mind, emotions, family, friends, animals and everything that I have in my life. I more so express appreciation for the ‘little’ things in my life, which are funnily the ‘biggest and most important’ things in my life. A quote I love, which reflects this is:

“Don’t take your health for granted. Don’t take your body for granted. Do something today that communicates to your body that you desire to care for it. TOMORROW IS NOT PROMISED”

(Jada Pinkett Smith)

Sometimes, when I talk to people about ‘appreciation’ and ‘gratitude’, they express that they can’t seem to find things in their lives to be grateful about or that they are so consumed in their daily experiences or traumas, through no fault of their own, that they can’t see by them, they can’t see any of the good things they may possess. What I always explain is that sometimes, we can get ‘stuck’ living our ‘today’ with yesterdays ‘tried and tested’ methods, emotions, attitudes and so on. We can get so used to using the same tools and techniques that we always use to navigate through our lives that we can become clouded in our judgements and in our ability to see that ‘there may be another way’ or ‘there may be another attitude or viewpoint’ that could work. I always encourage myself and others to try and view any life obstacles or events as ‘challenges’ and to try to imagine how you would feel when you overcome or defeat these challenges in your life.

A quote to illustrate this is:

“Challenges are what make life interesting and overcoming them is what makes life meaningful”

(Joshua J.Marine)

So why not start today to introduce, adopt and implement a daily ‘appreciation’ or ‘gratitude’ practice? Either verbalising or writing down the good things, the ‘gifted opportunities’ that you have in your life, can really help to create a prime focus at the start and end of your day. It can help you to realise and establish what the ‘little’ things are that you have in your life and just how ‘important’ these little things can be!

Living your life with the mindset that ‘today, I GET to …..’ is so powerful and automatically makes you feel grateful and appreciative for even getting to open your eyes every new dawning day.

A thought to leave you with is:

“TODAY IS LIFE. The only life you are sure of. Make the most of today. Get interested in something. Shake yourself awake. Develop a hobby. Let the winds of enthusiasm sweep through you. Live today with gusto”

(Dale Carnegie)

How to implement the mindset that ‘today I GET to …..’ into your life:

The following is a guide on how to implement the mindset that ‘today I GET to …..’ into your life:

1. Each morning, as you awake and get out of bed, pause for a moment to express appreciation that you can open your eyes, that your heart is beating, that your lungs are breathing.

2. As you start your day, express appreciation that ‘today I GET to ….’go to work, look after my family, get some fresh air, do the grocery shopping, clean my house…..

3. If you can, try and create a space of even 5-10mins daily (preferably in the morning and the evening) to either write or verbally express all of the elements you have in your life that make you who you are and that you are grateful for.

4. Throughout your day, implement ‘pause moments’, where you pause what you are doing, take a few moments to take some deep breaths, really bringing your awareness to your chest and lungs as they fill with fresh air and life force energy.

5. Before you go to sleep each night, either write down or verbally express your gratitude and appreciation for the day of your life just lived. Whether it was a good or bad day, your heart was still beating and your lungs were still breathing, you were gifted with another day of precious life.

Thank you as always to Brian O’Loughlin and his team at Celtic Media Group (https://www.anglocelt.ie/, https://www.con-telegraph.ie/, https://www.meathchronicle.ie/, https://www.offalyindependent.ie/, https://www.westmeathexaminer.ie/ and https://www.westmeathindependent.ie/ for all their wonderful help!

As published by The Celtic Media Group in The Anglo Celt, Connaught Telegraph, Meath Chronicle, Offaly Independent, Westmeath Examiner and Westmeath Independent newspapers w/c 25/01/2021

(Buddha)

Growing up, I never really grasped the concept or power of ‘positive thinking’ and conditioning myself to have a ‘positive mindset’. So many times, as I was faced with the normal daily ups and downs of life, others would encourage me to ‘look on the bright side’, ‘think positive’, ‘don’t think about the negative’ and sometimes, this was frustrating to hear. When you are struggling with your thoughts or a difficult experience or situation, it is very difficult to be able to ‘find’ or ‘see’ the positives and not to get caught up in the negatives.

It was only when I adopted a mindful and present approach to my daily living that it became abundantly clear that what you put into your mind, you get out, what you sow, you reap, what you think, you become. This mindset took some time to cultivate, as we are not naturally programmed to just wake up one day and be completely positive about everything in our lives. Re-programming your mind and body to notice the positive and negative in your present moment living, to pay attention to whatever your experience is and by ‘purposely’ choosing to find the positives in any situation or experience and not get pulled down into the negatives takes time, commitment and practise.

But we can do this and I personally feel that it is worth making this investment into yourself and in becoming more positive in your general, daily mindset, as when you achieve this, the sky’s the limit! But the magical thing is, when you do achieve this, you will feel so content, so present, so aware of all of the natural beauty internally and externally in your own life, you won’t feel like you need to soar through the clouds. You will feel more competent and comfortable to have the skills and mindset to live through the clouds of your everyday life.

An empowering quote I absolutely love is one by Pema Chödrön, who is a Buddhist teacher, author, nun and mother. She has inspired millions of people around the world to practice peace in turbulent times. The quote goes:

“You are the sky. Everything else is just the weather”.

(Pema Chödrön)

I find this concept so empowering and use it often in my daily living and my teachings. We can condition ourselves to imagine that our minds are like the ‘bright blue sky’ and that our thoughts are just like ‘clouds’ passing by in the sky. When you think about a bright blue sky, you may automatically think of clearness, calmness, vast space, never ending. We can learn to think of our minds as being like this, even on the dullest, hardest, overwhelming and overpowering days that we all experience. We can learn to see our thoughts as ‘thought clouds’, that will come into our ‘bright blue sky’, our minds, and that will pass over if we allow them to. If we choose to or find ourselves getting caught up in whatever ‘thought cloud’ is passing over in our ‘bright blue sky’, we can get stuck in the thought cloud. When this happens, we start to feel the emotional and physical sensations that accompany this ‘thought cloud’ in our body. So, if we get stuck in an ‘anxious or fearful’ thought cloud, we may start to experience panic and worry in our body. We may feel an increased heartrate, quickened breathing, dizziness, sweating and perhaps more.

When we adopt this viewpoint and understanding in our lives that ‘we are so much more than our thoughts, we are so much bigger than them, we don’t have to believe them,’ just like the bright blue sky is so much bigger than any clouds can ever be, we then learn to become observers of our thoughts and minds and we learn the skill of just letting each ‘thought cloud’ pass over, without experiencing the physical sensations of it in our body. When we implement this approach and concept into our own daily living, it really does help us to see the calmness and serenity that we can experience, even when our own internal weather is a bit turbulent. It can help us to see that:

“… what you think, you become, what you feel, you attract, what you imagine, you create”.

(Buddha)

This mindset can help us to identify the most important priorities for us individually in our own lives. It can enable us to focus on the qualities and experiences that we wish to manifest in our lives. Another quote to leave you with, from Jack Kornfield, Buddhist practitioner and bestselling American author is:

“In the end, just three things matter: How well you lived. How well we have loved. How well we have learned to let go”.

(Jack Kornfield)

HOW to help your ‘Thoughts’ pass over like ‘Clouds’:

The following is a step by step guide on how to help ‘Thoughts’ pass over like ‘Clouds’:

1. Each morning, picture and affirm to yourself that your mind is just like a ‘bright blue sky’. Notice how much space is in this blue sky and how calm, peaceful and tranquil your ‘bright blue sky’ is.

2. When you feel your mind becoming distracted and starting to wander and get caught in thinking, affirm to yourself that ‘thought clouds’ are now entering your ‘bright blue sky’ and that this is ok, they will pass over.

3. Try to just notice and watch each ‘thought cloud’ as it enters and leaves your ‘bright blue sky’ space. Acknowledge to yourself that you can see each thought cloud and that you are ready to just let it pass over.

4. If you feel yourself starting to experience any physical sensations of the ‘thought clouds’ in your body, gently assure yourself that you are now caught up in the ‘thought cloud’ and that you need to come back to being able to just see the ‘thought cloud’ passing by in your ‘bright blue sky’.

5. Take 3 slow, deep, regulating breaths to help you to emerge from the ‘thought cloud’ you are stuck in and to come back to just feeling the vastness and serenity of your ‘bright blue sky’ and to observing your ‘thought clouds’ as they pass over.

6. Affirm to yourself that you are like the ‘bright blue sky’ and that you are bigger than any of your ‘thought clouds’ can ever be.

Thank you so much to Deirdre Rusk for her amazing images! Check out more amazing images from Deirdre Rusk Photography at https://www.deirdrerusk.com/

Thank you as always to Brian O’Loughlin and his team at Celtic Media Group (https://www.anglocelt.ie/, https://www.con-telegraph.ie/, https://www.meathchronicle.ie/, https://www.offalyindependent.ie/, https://www.westmeathexaminer.ie/ and https://www.westmeathindependent.ie/ for all their wonderful help!

As published by The Celtic Media Group in The Anglo Celt, Connaught Telegraph, Meath Chronicle, Offaly Independent, Westmeath Examiner and Westmeath Independent newspapers w/c 14/12/2020)