stress management – Leona McDonnell Mindfulness and Wellness https://leonamcdonnell.com Wed, 19 Jan 2022 13:19:34 +0000 en-GB hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=7.0.3 https://i0.wp.com/leonamcdonnell.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/cropped-faviconLEONA.jpg?fit=32%2C32&ssl=1 stress management – Leona McDonnell Mindfulness and Wellness https://leonamcdonnell.com 32 32 152530394 A ‘hybrid model’ of self motivation and fulfilment https://leonamcdonnell.com/a-hybrid-model-of-self-motivation-and-fulfilment/ Wed, 19 Jan 2022 12:46:11 +0000 https://leonamcdonnell.com/?p=10565

In recent years and in today’s constant, busy, erratic world, everything seems to be getting faster, fitter, more efficient, more effective, more robotic, more automated. It really does seem that there is a new era of this ‘hybrid’ mode of living dawning upon us all. Everything has to perform at the optimum level possible!!!

But is this really the way we want to live our lives? What ever happened to gently working towards our life purpose, our family, our homes, our jobs, our future hopes and aspirations while living wholly and presently in our daily lives? How did the simple mode of working hard and honestly but at a healthy, sustainable pace, allowing room and time for rest, repair and recovery get so lost along the way? How did we enter an ‘all or nothing’ way of living?

That used to be me. I used to push myself to the highest of levels in everything that I did. I had to be the best. I had to get the best exam results, study the hardest, work the longest hours, push my exercise and fitness to limits of exhaustion, sleep little, move fast, while competing against ‘nobody other than myself’. Needless to say, this erratic way of living and behaviour towards myself resulted in mental, emotional and physical illness that railroaded me for over 3 years.

So what was the lesson  to learn? It was simple! In order to work hard, to become more efficient and effective, to push myself out of my comfort zone, to achieve my hopes and dreams, I had to ‘take my foot off the pedal’, ‘to slow down’ and ‘retract inwards’, towards my heart and soul. I had to become ‘my own inner coach’, I had to unfriend my inner critic who bullied me for so long and who was constantly pushing me to levels unsustainable to my mental, emotional and physical health.

Once I started ‘my new hybrid way of living’, of understanding, listening to, empowering and motivating myself, I started to feel more fulfilled in every ounce of my mind, body and heart than I did in my whole life! I became alive and present. I learned to accept and love myself from the inside out.  I had to do as Brené Brown describes as:

“Let go of who you think you’re supposed to be; embrace who you are”

By be-friending, loving and caring for ourselves like we would for someone that we love, we are gifting ourselves the key to set free our true selves, our souls. We are rejoicing to ourselves that ‘we are enough’ and that we deserve to be treated with kindness and affection just as much as anybody else.  I really feel that is the secret and most precious ingredient needed to live a happy, healthy, peaceful and fulfilled life.

A life where we can easily motivate and empower ourselves through love and kindness instead of aggression and critical thoughts and words. I believe that way of caring for and nurturing ourselves is a new type of ‘hybrid model’ in the world of positive mental and emotional health and is the one model that has the potential for ‘endless opportunities’ and ‘creating a new era of positivity, love and kindness’. As beautifully described by Shauna Shapiro:

“The key to change is recognising that shame, judgement, and perfection don’t work. When we self-judge, when we put pressure on ourselves, and when we get lost in self-criticism it actually inhibits the brain from learning”

HOW TO ACCEPT, EMBRACE AND SELF-MOTIVATE YOURSELF TO FULFILMENT

  1. Every morning, upon waking, gently place a hand on your heart and say to yourself, “Good morning, I love you”.
  2. While getting ready for your day ahead, take 1 minute to make direct eye contact with yourself in the mirror and say out loud, “I respect you, I am proud of you, today you will do your best and your best is enough”.
  3. During your day, consciously remind yourself to ‘check-in’ with your mind, body and heart. Keep asking yourself, “what can I do in this moment to help myself to feel better?”
  4. Gift yourself with small mindful moments, time to pause, notice and breathe during your day and time to connect with nature.
  5. Every night before going to sleep, gently place a hand on your heart and say to yourself “thank you for everything that you have done for me today. Thank you for helping me to nurture and care for myself, for gifting myself with time to rest, repair and recover, for gently encouraging and motivating myself to fulfil my hopes and dreams in a beautiful kind, caring, loving and friendly manner towards myself. Thank you for being enough”.
Swan Image_John McManus
Authentic beauty from the inside out
(Images by John McManus, Hounslow House Farmhouse B&B, Fore, Castlepollard, Co Westmeath)

Thank you as always to Brian O’Loughlin at The Westmeath Examiner 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 15/01/2022

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© Leona McDonnell Mindfulness and Wellness 2022

]]> 10565 This is YOUR story and YOU are in charge of each chapter! https://leonamcdonnell.com/this-is-your-story-and-you-are-in-charge-of-each-chapter/ Wed, 05 Jan 2022 11:40:26 +0000 https://leonamcdonnell.com/?p=10393

Another year has past and we now find ourselves at the beginning of a new year, a blank slate, endless opportunities, hopes, dreams, personal and/or career aspirations or maybe nothing at all. Maybe, it’s just another day and you are happy to be alive and to have made it through another year. There are no rules, we are all uniquely individual!

As we close off 2021, it’s so easy to get caught in the trap of demeaning and degrading ourselves, of feeling a sense of failure or disappointment, as perhaps we didn’t quite achieve or carry out some of the things that we would have liked to during the year. This sense of failure and inadequacy can set a really challenging tone and presence as we try to move forward and in being able to feel motivated, empowered and excited to be starting into a fresh new year ahead.

But one of things I love and we can forget is that ‘we are all in charge of our own story, the content of its chapters and the ending’. No matter what has happened to us in the past, or whatever might happen to us in the future, we ultimately have the power to choose how we want to live our lives and how we want to respond to any life stressors. We have so much more influence and insight into our own life stories and of how we want them to play out than we may realise. In the words of quotesgram.com:

“At any moment, you have the POWER to say this is NOT how the story is going to END”

I feel that by allowing ourselves to carry our hurts, pains or grievances forward, we are allowing ourselves to dampen the creativity, light and love in our hearts and souls. If you stop and think about it, when we breathe, it is not possible to take another breath in before letting the last breath go! It is physically impossible!

So in terms of our thinking, why do we find it so hard to ‘LET GO’? One reason may be that we don’t know how to actually allow or help our mind and body to do this. We may not know how to give ourselves permission to set ourselves free of our burdens and to allow ourselves to live more happily, safely and peaceful in the present moment.

So why not make a commitment to yourself TODAY that you will ‘let go’ of anything that is not serving you well, anything that is not aligned with ‘your story’?  Why not embrace your individuality, your uniqueness, everything that makes you the person that you are today?

Not the person that you were yesterday and not the person that you want to be tomorrow, just the person you are NOW in this very moment. Why not take ownership of how you want your story to be written this new year ahead? Don’t let anyone else hold the pen, be in charge of what you want to put into your life story and what you would like to take out of it!

Make a commitment to yourself to surround yourself with only people who will help you to raise your vibrational level, that will help to lift you higher than you could lift yourself and that will not pull you down!!

HOW TO TAKE OWNERSHIP OF YOUR OWN STORY

Here are some tips on how you can take ownership of your ‘own story’ and how you can ‘let go’ of anything that you do not want to see in its chapters:

  1. Every morning, upon wakening, express thankfulness for being alive and for everything that you DO have in your life. Focus on your blessings rather than on the things that you don’t have.
  2. As thoughts, worries or negativities arise in your day, ask yourself, “is this thought, worry or negativity helpful in this exact moment?” 99% of the time, the answer will be NO! Then affirm to yourself, “I give myself permission to disconnect from this thought, worry or negativity NOW and I WILL NOT ALLOW myself to become consumed by it”.
  3. Bring your attention to your breath and consciously take three nourishing self-care breaths, in and out. If you find it difficult to focus on your breath, bring your attention to your feet and where they connect to the earth beneath you. Feel yourself becoming anchored and increasingly present in your moment.
  4. Take a few moments after doing this practice and notice how the intensity of the original stressor has subsided and how you chose not to let it catapult itself into the writing of your story!
Rose Image_LmcD

We are all beautifully unique and individual

Thank you as always to Brian O’Loughlin at The Westmeath Examiner 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 w/c 01/01/2022

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© Leona McDonnell Mindfulness and Wellness 2022

]]> 10393 What does my body ‘NEED’ right now? https://leonamcdonnell.com/what-does-my-body-need-right-now-2/ Fri, 31 Dec 2021 11:40:19 +0000 https://leonamcdonnell.com/?p=10255 “To listen to your body and respect how it feels is a powerful act of self-love”
(Sonia Choquette)

This is a very powerful question, “what does my body NEED right now?” But it’s also a very difficult question to answer as it requires being able to quiet the chatter of your mind and to learn how to deeply listen to the whispers of your soul. I ask myself this question most days, particularly on the tougher days and really listen for the answers, as I have learned the hard way that the body is a temple, what we put in, we get out and it deserves to be treated with tenderness, care, kindness, understanding and love.

It seems that over the last few decades, we are being conditioned to just keep going, to keep pushing on with life, with work, with family, without taking much time to consider the effect of this erratic and demanding way of living on our bodies. I personally have never been taught (before introducing Mindfulness, Kindness and Compassion into my life) to praise my body, to listen to my body and to its subtle or not so subtle signs and messages that it continuously sends to my heart and soul. Before this, I would have found it absurd to actually ask my body what it ‘NEEDS’ in any moment and even more absurd to listen and hear the responses to this question, until I learned the importance and power of doing just this!

So why do we find self-love, self-care, self-compassion and self-kindness for our bodies or indeed our minds so difficult? I guess it’s because, it can be a daunting and unfamiliar experience to turn ‘WITHIN’ ourselves, to tune into the fine frequencies deep within our hearts and souls. It can be uncomfortable for many of us to get to know our ‘true selves’, our ‘true souls’ as we are so used to just making and pushing our bodies to perform, to operate, to live. It takes courage to confront, to calm, quieten and disconnect from the stories and uncertainties that our minds will always try to convince us of. A quote I love to illustrate this is:

“Go inside and listen to your body, because your body will never lie to you. Your mind will play tricks, but the way you feel in your heart, in your guts, is the truth”

(Miguel Ruiz)

So what can we expect to hear back from our body when we ask it ‘what it NEEDS right now?’ The most common replies will most likely be sleep, better rest times, balanced nutrition, water, exercise, quiet time to rest your mind, time to spend with family and friends, time to spend in nature, time to connect with and care for ourselves and others. I feel that by continuously checking in with and tuning into our body and granting it whatever it is that it truly needs in any moment, we can live a more balanced life in the mind, body and soul. We can learn how to delicately protect our body by honouring it through active listening and therefore, we can prevent it from getting to a stage where we crack, we break, we fall apart as we are burned out. A quote to illustrate this is:

“If you listen to your body when it whispers, you won’t have to hear it scream”

(Project Happiness)

Once you learn the art of connecting with and listening deeply to your body and its messages and signals, the next part of the process is to learn to honour your body by letting go of all the pressures we regularly put on ourselves, the demands, the expectations and just ‘grant’ your body whatever it is that it needs. This is by far the hardest part because it requires making space and time in your day, in your life, for self-care and respect, in what ever shape or form that works for you. But this is the most magical part of the equation! As you listen more to what your body is telling you and as you actively implement its suggestions, you are honouring and taking care of yourself on a deep, personal, intimate level and your body will respond by helping you to feel empowered, energised, compassionate and deeply connected to your soul and you will be able to live more peacefully, with inner calmness and an enriched and nourished respect for your amazing body!

A thought to leave you with:

“Take Care
Rest your mind to stay healthy
Rest your brain to think positive
Rest your soul to keep your body alive”

(Diya)

How to ASK, LISTEN TO and RESPECT ‘what your body NEEDS right now’:

The following is a guide on how to ASK, LISTEN TO and RESPECT ‘what your body NEEDS right now’:

  • During the normal moments of your day, form the habit of asking yourself ‘what does my body NEED right now?‘
  • Listen intently and notice any guidance or signs that your body may send you in response. If you feel that something is not working for you at the moment, this is your ‘gut instinct’, your ‘soul’ communicating with you. You just need to really tune in and listen.
  • Be courageous and respectful in granting your body whatever it is that it needs in any moment. If it is sleep, then make time to take an extra rest in your day or to go to bed earlier. If it is better food choices, tune into how the foods you eat make you feel. If it is fresh air, make time to spend some time outdoors.
  • Notice any signs or signals from your body that you may be overloaded, you may be under too much stress and pressure. Your body may need you to do absolutely nothing, to just let yourself be as you are in your moment. If this is the case, trust that you are enough and grant your body what it needs.
  • Express appreciation to your body for the incredible work it does to keep you alive every day. Develop a deep and nurtured connection with your body so that you can hear the whispers of your soul.

Noticing and tuning into the beauty in nature

Noticing and tuning into the beauty in nature

Thank you as always to Brian O’Loughlin at The Westmeath Examiner 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 w/c 22/2/2021

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