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

(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

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

(Brené Brown)

What a beautiful quote by Brené Brown in relation to our personal boundaries. Setting boundaries is something that can be so important for us all in many respects. It can be important for us to seal or fence off our homes, so that our external boundaries are set and laid out for everyone to see where our personal space starts and where the line occurs for someone to enter into that space.

Boundaries can be just as important in terms of our own mental, emotional and physical space. I feel that it is essential that we all individually establish our own personal boundaries so that we and others know what is acceptable or unacceptable in our personal lives.

This is something I struggled with for a long time. As an empath and an energy worker, it is in my nature to always want to help, fix and heal everybody and everything! I struggled so much in being able to say ‘no’ to people who may have been asking something of me even if I wasn’t in full health myself and in turn I would have been left feeling depleted or energetically drained as a result of ‘not listening’ to my own inner warning alarms.

It is a difficult task to start to respectfully listen to and hear your own inner voice and its guidance and wisdom. It takes a lot of courage to start to clearly define your own personal internal and external boundaries in order to protect and nurture your own health and wellbeing. I slowly learned that ‘saying an outer ‘NO’ is saying and inner ‘YES’ and that it is ok to do this, without feeling selfish or uncaring. A quote I love to illustrate this is:

“Boundaries are not meant to control others, they are meant to be used as guidelines for you to know what is acceptable and what is not in your life”

(sherylgriffin.com)

When we talk about boundaries in the context of mental health and well-being, it can be things like your personal lifestyle choices, your circle of family and friends, your beliefs and values and how much of yourself that you define as acceptable to invest into any of these areas on a daily basis.

It is about being able to identity and outline where your own cut off points are once your own defined boundary line is reached. When I started to establish my personal boundaries in every aspect of my life, I did feel selfish and uncaring, particularly when it came to downsizing my close/support circle of family and friends, but as time went on, I learned and felt that defining these boundaries was the best gift I could ever have given myself. It was a way of protecting myself, my energy, my beliefs and values and it enabled me to live alongside likeminded people. As so beautifully put by Mandy Hale:

“It is necessary, and even vital, to set standards for your life and the people you allow in it”

Let’s look at what a boundary is: “a definite place where your responsibility ends and another person’s begins. It stops you from doing things for others that they should do for themselves” (trans4mind.com).

It is easy to see the importance of setting up physical boundaries in our external lives, such as fencing, hedging, gates, separate entrances and so on. It is more difficult to see the importance of setting up our internal or non-tangible boundaries so that we protect our inner selves, so that we don’t let others deplete and drain us by crossing over our boundary points.

Now let’s look at what a boundary does: “a boundary also prevents you from rescuing someone from the consequences of their destructive behaviour that they need to experience in order to grow” (trans4mind.com).

So in effect, setting up your own internal and external boundaries is imperative for everyone involved. It helps to set clearly defined guidelines of what’s acceptable or unacceptable behaviour in your life. It helps to protect all parties involved from each other and helps to alleviate any confusion about your expectations.

An empowering thought to leave you with:

“Boundaries
I allow myself to set healthy boundaries
To say no to what does not align with my values
To say yes to what does
Boundaries assist me to remain healthy, honest and living a life that is true to me”

(simpleeserene.com)

HOW TO IDENTIFY AND ESTABLISH YOUR PERSONAL INTERNAL BOUNDARIES:

1. Create a space in your day where you can quietly connect with your mind and body so that you can hear what your soul wants you to know.

2. Close your eyes if you wish. Sit quietly and take 5 regulating breaths, in through your nose and out through your mouth (if possible, if not just breathe in your own regular rhythm while focusing your attention on your feet resting on the floor).

3. As you continue to relax into the moment, place one hand over your heart chakra (your centre of compassion, empathy, love and forgiveness) and the other hand over your solar plexus chakra (which regulates personality, ego, identity, personal freedom, choice and authenticity, located in the upper tummy above the belly button and below the diaphragm).

4. Now ask your soul, what do you want me to know in this moment? How can I protect my personal internal space? How can I establish my personal internal boundaries?

5. Carefully listen to any thoughts, visions or feelings that you may experience in this moment. This is your soul communicating to you what you need to know. This is your gut instinct and it will never let you down.

6. Continue to breathe in your own natural rhythm while purposely letting go and releasing into the moment. Continue to ask for guidance on any area of your life that needs structure and boundaries. Carefully listen to and tune into your body so that you can hear the guidance from your inner self.

7. When you are ready, open your eyes if you had them closed and let go of this practice. Feel the flow of courage, self-love and self-respect flow through you as you start to establish and define your internal boundaries and respect your inner soul.

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 5/4/2021

(Jon Kabat-Zinn)

‘Beginners Mind’, is a concept derived by Jon Kabat-Zinn and it is one of the essential attitudes or elements to Mindfulness. By far, I feel that it is one of the trickiest attitudes of Mindfulness to integrate into your daily living but it is definitely one of the most life changing and liberating attitudes when you do!

Living with a ‘Beginners Mind’ approach to everything you do means that you allow yourself to live each moment of your life as if it is the first time you are seeing, hearing, feeling, moving, working in the very moment that you are in. In theory, this is very true, as each moment and experience we have lived are now in our past, they are now gone, we can’t touch them anymore and each moment we have yet to live or experience are in our future, they have not yet happened nor are they guaranteed to happen.

This is a very liberating way of living your life, as you purposely choose to detach yourself from any of your mental, emotional or physical experiences and responses from your past and also from any preconceived or expected outcomes that you may have generated about your future. This in turn helps to switch off the activation of the stored memories and experiences in the hippocampus part of our brain and helps to engage the pre-frontal cortex in our brain, which helps us to make better, more informed, regulated responses and choices in any moment.

Thus, the sky’s the limit, possibilities are endless! You are setting yourself free from any fears, worries, anxieties or traumas that you may have experienced in your past and you are giving yourself liberated space and freedom to just live in the moment. You can then experience whatever it is you are doing, without all the negative and fearful chatter and critic in your mind and live as if it is the first time you are doing it, because it actually is the first time you are doing it in this moment!

This way of living does require awareness and commitment from you, so that you can catch the activation of your past experiences and intercept them before they determine how you ‘think’ your day or experience is going to turn out, based on your stored memories and sensations from your past experiences. A quote I love to illustrate this is:

“Be willing to be a beginner every single morning”.

(Meister Eckhart)

For example, I am not a keen flyer so when a family wedding arose abroad a few years back, the first thing that happened me when I heard about it was my fears and anxieties from previous flying experiences, deeply stored in the hippocampus part of my brain, activated and paralysed me with similar fear I felt in the past. I didn’t feel I could take the flight because of my past worries and experiences. But when I started to prime and condition my brain with a ‘Beginners Mind’ attitude, that being that I had never taken ‘this flight, on this day, to this place’ before and that I had no way of scripting or predicting how this flight would turn out as it hadn’t yet happened, I found the mental, emotional and physical strength to take this flight and to remain very calm, while engaging my regulating breathing practice. This was a changing point in my life, as I freed myself from my own mind and what it ‘wanted’ me to believe. I just lived in the very moment, second by second and it was all ok!

Another quote I absolutely love in relation to ‘Beginners Mind’ and find very empowering is:

“For things to reveal themselves to us, we need to be ready to abandon our views about them”.

(Thich Nhat Hanh)

I always say that I learn some of the most important life lessons from watching and listening to my own children and the children that I work with. All children have the most incredible ability to be present in their moment, to see the natural beauty and awe of each moment they experience. As quoted by ‘Katrina Mayer’, “there’s joy and wonder everywhere when you see the world through the eyes of a child”. They allow themselves the freedom to laugh, play, notice, be curious and just experience their moment to the full. This is what ‘Beginners Mind’ is all about!!! Allow these precious little humans to teach you this amazing and fulfilling way of living your life every day!

A thought to leave you with:

“Children naturally live in the moment and they allow that moment to be what it is; magical and beautiful in every way”.

(April Peerless)

HOW TO ADOPT AN ATTITUDE OF ‘BEGINNERS MIND’ INTO YOUR DAILY LIVING

The following is a guide on how to adopt an attitude of ‘Beginners Mind’ into your daily living:

1. Upon awakening every morning, affirm to yourself that ‘this’ day is a ‘new day’ and that you have not yet lived or experienced it.

2. Commit and allow yourself the mental, emotional and physical space and freedom to live and experience each moment of your day through the ‘eyes of a child’, full of wonder, awe, natural beauty an excitement. See the lighter side of life!

3. When past experiences and memories start to activate and hi-jack you, take 3 regulating breaths, in through the nose and out through the mouth (if possible) to anchor yourself back to your present moment experience.

4. While anchored back to your present moment experience, affirm to yourself that this is the ‘first time’ you are in this moment, in this exact moment of time, and continue to use your breath or your senses to help you to live liberally in your moment.

5. Notice the beauty and simplicity of nature – flowers, plants, shrubs and trees start to bud in Spring bringing a beautiful, simple but yet powerful and innocent hope of new life dawning in each new day, just being present and fully embracing the present moment experience!

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 15/02/2021

Needless to say, it is very annoying and a continuous focus point as the pebble moves around in my boot and as I feel it under my foot. I can hear you scream, ‘just take your boot off and shake it out’ or ‘get a new pair of boots’! But I usually walk on with the ‘uncomfortable’ stone in my shoe and let me tell you why.

I use the sensation of this pebble in my shoe as a continuous anchor to the moment that I am in, as I walk along. I bring my awareness to the pebble as I stop and bang my foot on the ground to try and move the pebble to a more comfortable position under my foot. This sensation always creates a recognition and consciousness in me, that sometimes, this uncomfortable physical sensation, can be similar to how it feels to ‘walk’ or ‘move’ through daily life while perhaps living with anxieties, fears, traumas, grief, regrets, hopes, dreams, aspirations. These common elements of life can be so disruptive as we experience them and they can have the potential to railroad us, to create an unbearable or incomprehensible mountain for us to climb in our daily living. The ‘stone in the shoe’ can be more difficult to live with than overcoming or living alongside anxieties, fears, trauma, grief and even conquering your life’s goals and ambitions.

As quoted by ‘Muhammad Ali’:

“It isn’t the mountains ahead to climb that wear you down. It’s the pebble in your shoe.”

Sometimes, we can feel that it is not ‘normal’ or ‘ok’ to feel or live alongside our anxieties, fears, traumas etc. I always ask the question, ‘what is normal anyway, who sets the prerequisites or parameters when it comes to being normal?’ I always encourage myself and others to:

“Today …. Just let yourself be …. Whatever you need to be.”

(Leona McDonnell)

I really find that by allowing ourselves the mental, emotional and physical space, we can accept any ‘pebbles we have in our own shoes’. We can realise that it is possible to live alongside these discomforts daily and that it is also possible to adopt life practices to help to cope with and manage the impacts of these discomforts. Mindfulness, meditation and self-compassion have helped me to accept my own anxieties, fears, traumas, which in turn better equips me with the ability to continue to walk or live alongside my own demons, my own mental clutter, the internal noise and disruption of my own inner critic, negative thoughts and emotions. I have learned coping mechanisms which empower me with the tools and breathing techniques to quieten and tame these disruptive elements in my life, to accept that they are a part of me, a part of my life experience and that it is ‘ok’ that they are present with me.

I can now comfortably live alongside these discomforts with the skills I have learned and that I teach. I love the words of ‘Cynthia Go’ in relation to self-compassion and self-care:

“Let your mind and heart rest for a while. You will catch up, the world will not stop spinning for you, but you will catch up. Take a rest.”

It takes time and patience to learn to walk with ‘the uncomfortable stone in your shoe’. Sometimes, all that we can see, hear and feel is the discomfort of the mental, emotional and physical sensations that arises with life’s pains and anxieties. So much so, that we can start to feel that we are out of balance or out of control and that we can’t keep up. This in turn increases the stresses, anxieties and unhappiness that we experience. We can prevent this from happening by learning how to live along the up’s and down’s that we experience as part of our human existence.

The best way that we can do this to learn to use our breath as our dominant regulator, as our anchor to slowing down the pace of our breathing, our heartbeat, to release more oxygen into our bloodstream. If it is difficult to use your breath, you can use any of your five senses instead. This practice helps us to feel calmer, more balanced and in control of our response to whatever stressor we are experiencing. As so beautifully put by ‘Amit Ray’, one of the ways that you can learn to live with ‘the uncomfortable stone in your shoe’ is:

“If you want to conquer the anxiety of life, live in the moment, live in the breath.”

How to learn to live with ‘the uncomfortable stone in your shoe’:

The following is a guide on how to learn to live with ‘the uncomfortable stone in your shoe’:

1. Each morning, affirm to yourself that ‘Today … Just let yourself be … Whatever you need to be’. Gift yourself the respect to allow yourself to ‘feel’ and to ‘be’ however you are in each moment of your day.

2. When you feel the uncomfortable sensations of your anxieties, fears, traumas, grief etc arising in or outside your body, affirm to yourself that ‘this is ok’, ‘these feelings are a part of my experience, they are a part of me’.

3. Use your breath as a regulation tool to create calm, balance and acceptance in your mind and body. Take as many regulating breaths as you need to, in through your nose and out through your mouth, or whatever breathing pattern feels right for you.

4. If you find it difficult to use your breath as your anchor, bring your awareness to your feet. Visualise them being deeply pulled into the earth underneath you or you can use your smell to smell something that will help you to feel more relaxed.

5. Remind yourself that while the ‘stone in your shoe’ may be uncomfortable and the sensations that arise from it may be distressing, ‘everything is temporary, nothing is permanent’. The stone WILL come out of your shoe, the sensations WILL pass.

Treat yourself with kindness, compassion and beauty.

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 08/02/2021

Whether you live alone or you have others living in the same house as you, when fear, worry, anxiety, panic and perhaps sleep disruption sets in, you can feel like you are the only person in the world experiencing these sensations and that you are the only person in the world awake through no choice of your own at that particular time.

With the normal pace of life, let alone being in a Pandemic, many of us are finding it increasingly difficult to switch off our minds, to detach from our phones, social media, the news and so much more. We may be feeling somewhat threatened, tired, frustrated and a longing for the Pandemic to be over and for life to return to ‘pre-Covid normal’.

It is not surprising that our sleep, rest and repair time can be comprised as with such constant supply of data, information, reports, it is getting much harder for us to switch off at bedtime. It is getting more difficult to let go and detach from case numbers, outbreaks, general sickness at this time of year, worry, fear, anxiety and frustration.

This is where ‘Mindfulness’ and ‘training your brain’ to cope with your current experience in the present moment can really help if you are experiencing a very busy and invasive mind, particularly at night time and resulting in disturbed sleep patterns.

Using one or any of your 5 senses to bring awareness to your current experience, for example sleep disruption, but without the mental DJ playing tracks, of fear, anxiety, frustration, the day just passed, the day yet to come, helps us to just deal with and cope with ‘only’ the fact you are finding it difficult to sleep in that moment. You can detach from all the background noise by using your ‘touch’ sense to place your hands on your tummy, maybe even one hand on your heart and one hand on your tummy and then engage your ‘breathing’ to help anchor you into the moment as you are experiencing it.

I personally find that looking at the clock to see how long you have been awake does not help!! Concentrating and focusing on how uncomfortable and disrupted you feel does not help either!! I really find engaging my breath and using a ‘counting technique’ while breathing works well. I love to breathe in through my nose for a count of 7 and then blow the breath out through my mouth for a count of 11. This is called ‘7/11 Breathing’. Some people like to breathe in for a count of 4 and then breathe out for a count of 4, perhaps even holding your breath for a count of 4 before releasing it.
Listening to some gentle music or a guided meditation also really helps me to detach from all the clutter and noise inside of my head and just focus on the melody or words as I use my breath as my anchor to peace, tranquillity and rest in the experience itself.

By using these tips and Mindfulness exercises, you can ‘train your brain’ to experience just the experience itself, like not being able to switch off your mind and sleep, without engaging with all the associated thoughts, fear, drama’s, emotions that our minds like to convince us is real and happening.

A quote I love to use in my teachings is that by Mark Twain, who was a famous American Humourist, Novelist and Travel Writer. It goes:

“I’ve had a lot of worries in my life, most of which never happened”.

Source: https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/201777-i-ve-had-a-lot-of-worries-in-my-life-most

So HOW do I use Mindfulness and ‘Brain Training’ to help with Sleep Disruption?

The following is a step by step guide on how to use Mindfulness and ‘brain training’ to help with sleep disruption:

1. Commit to yourself to detach from any news reports, social media, scrolling on your phone, replying to text messages or emails for at least 2 hours before you plan to go to bed.
2. Before you are ready to get into your bed, in a seated position either propped up in bed or in a chair outside of your bed, gently connect with your breath and to your present moment by taking a breath in through your nose and slowly blowing it out through your mouth.
3. Continue this pattern until you can feel your neck, shoulders, back and legs starting to loosen up and to let go of the day’s stresses and strains. Feel your body becoming more weighted.
4. Now place one hand on your heart and one hand on your tummy and on your next in-breath, count to 7 in your mind and on corresponding out-breath, count to 11 in your mind. Continue in this easy, relaxed and soft rhythm for as long as you wish.
5. If your mind wanders at any stage during your count and breathing, which it will, as our minds do not naturally stay still, start your count again from 1 as you breathe in for a count of 7 and then blow the breath out for a count of 11. This is how you ‘train your brain’. Every time you notice that your mind has wandered, gently bring it back and start your breath count again without any judgement. You are not failing when this happens. You are actually more present in the moment as you have noticed that your mind has wandered and you then gently bring it back to the present moment by using your breath.
6. Continue this practice for as long as feels comfortable to you. You may start with just 2-4 minutes of practice, but you can slowly build this practice up to even 20-30 minutes. Just like training your body in the gym, you are training your mind to focus in present moment awareness by using an anchor like your breath and sense of touch.
7. If you awake in the night and are experiencing difficulty in returning to sleep, you can follow the steps above, perhaps while lying down in your bed this time, again for as long as it takes to quieten the noisy and disruptive DJ playing in your head and to allow your body to relax in the present moment.

By Leona McDonnell Mindfulness and Wellness. Thanks to Deirdre in Deirdre Rusk Photography for her amazing images!!

(As published in The Anglo Celt, Connaught Telegraph, Meath Chronicle, Offaly Independent, Westmeath Examiner and Westmeath Independent newspapers w/c 21/09/2020)

Please also see the link below to the published article on the Westmeath Examiners website on 28/10/2020:

Moving the mind over to just let the body be ….

#mindfulness #thoughts #busy mind #monkey #mind #dj #fear #anxiety #worry #sickness #pandemic

When you think about it, we are all born with a heart which starts to beat very early on in our mother’s womb. From this second onwards, we have the ability to live, to love, to feel empathy and to give and receive kindness and compassion. Our beating hearts keep us alive every single second of every day of life that we are gifted with. They act like the engine room on a ship, a very large, complicated and intricate ship. Just like this engine room on the ship, our heart controls every element of our existence.

We are all gifted with lungs to breathe. Some of us are blessed with two lungs, some with one lung, some with perfectly healthy lungs, some with compromised lungs. Our lungs provide us with essential air and life force every second of every day. Without our lungs, we cannot breathe the oxygen that our body needs to survive. How many of us actually stop and think about what our heart and lungs do for us minute by minute? Some of us do, some of us don’t. We don’t need to as they beat and breathe independently every day. Thankfully, this is the case! If we had to remember to breathe every second to stay alive, we would all be in trouble! Our minds continuously wander and get distracted by life in general, so it would be a difficult task to remember to breathe in order to stay alive. Another question; how many of us express gratitude for these special gifts of life? How many of us view ourselves as being blessed with life every day that we experience our hearts beating and lungs breathing independently?

So essentially, with just these two functioning elements, we already have everything we need within us to stay alive. We can apply the same concept to our thoughts, emotions and feelings. With the fast paced era we are used to living in, so many of us have forgotten, or maybe never realised in the first place, that we can pause, we can connect with ourselves and that we all have control and choices over how we want to live our lives.

This is the fundamental aspect that I lost control over when I was in the depth of my own anxiety and at the mercy of my increasingly destructive thoughts and mind. I felt like I was being continually chased by a dark shadow whom I feared desperately. I didn’t quite know why this shadow was chasing me, but I never wanted to hang around to find out. I was
continually searching and seeking for that ‘professional person’ or ‘practice’ that would ‘fix me’ and help me to feel less invaded by my own thoughts and mind. I never thought for one second that I could in fact be that ‘professional person’ and that I could go on to carve, shape and implement my journey of healing and recovery.

It wasn’t until I started to practice Mindfulness, Meditation and Yoga that I learnt to rest in the uncomfortable space my mind and body was in. I learnt how to be patient with every feeling of panic, with every debilitating fearful thought, with the numerous tears of anxiety, depression and sadness that I shed. I learnt how to treat my mind, my emotions and my physical body like I would treat my very best friend. I also learnt how to soothe and comfort myself instead of ripping myself apart.

The more I developed my own Mindfulness and Meditation practice, the more freedom and space came into my mind and body. I felt calmer, more able to cope with life’s daily demands, less panicky about the normal ups and downs of health, family, work and life in general. I felt I developed more control over my reactions to life’s stimuli. This just happened the more I adopted a mindful approach to living.

As time went on, I realised that I had so many of the resources I needed for my own recovery and daily life inside of my body. I developed a strength in knowing and in using my breath as my anchor to relieve stress, anxiety, fear and panic. I used simple breathing techniques to slow down my heart rate and to slow down and relax my breathing rhythm. Daily Meditation, even for just 10 minutes, helped to create a calm space in my mind and body. Mostly, I would just sit in a quiet room, in my own presence, listening to and connecting with my own breath.

I found that using these internal resources helped me to increase the volume of tools in my mindful toolbox. I discovered that engaging my breathing effectively during each day, particularly at times of heightened stress and anxiety, created a feeling as if someone had opened the valve of a balloon and let some much-needed air release outwards. It took so much pressure out of that balloon. Using daily Meditation became my new ‘rest and restore’. Before this, at some of my lowest points, I found it hard to get through the day without having to sleep for at least an hour. I was exhausted and felt I needed this rest time for recovery. But the more I meditated in the quietness and stillness of my own breath and heartbeat, the more rested I felt and as if I had slept for hours. It gave me a new sense and feeling of empowered energy and zest for life.

The most powerful point in my life was the realisation that ‘EVERYTHING I need is already WITHIN me’. This realisation came only when I stripped back my whole life, when I assessed every element and part of my life. This included determining which parts of my life were working for me and which parts were slowly destroying me. I became personally empowered with the ability to have so much control and choice over my health and well-being and of how I wanted to pursue forward in my life.

I soon realised that all I need in my life is for my heart to beat and my lungs to breathe. Every day that this happens independently is a joyous day and a reason to celebrate and express immense gratitude. Anything else in my life after these gifts are a bonus to be blessed with. I
became confident in the practice of using my breath as the gateway to the life of calm, peace, serenity, fun and laughter that I was continuously chasing for the previous 10-15 years.

Once we have the foundations and core of our existence functioning, these being our beating heart and our breathing lungs, which in turn operate the other systems in our bodies, everything else can be determined by our own choices, by our own power, by our own internal strength and abilities. This realisation is truly life transforming. Having a set of coping techniques in our mindful toolbox is incredible. You can constantly add to your existing internal resources by building up your mindful tools, which you always have access to . You don’t even have to remember to bring them with you! You have your coping techniques internally to use at any given moment and particularly during stressful and anxious times.

The feeling of no longer needing to find somebody else to ‘fix you’ is incredible. The safety in the knowledge that you don’t need to ‘fix yourself’ is truly empowering. You can adopt a mindful approach to living that will help you to live alongside whatever shadows are chasing you. The shadows will become less frightening and more manageable. Developing and nurturing a deep sense of internal resilience and stable strength will empower and encourage you beyond your expectations.

Once you start to believe, practice and instil the belief that ‘EVERYTHING you need is already WITHIN you’, you will experience immense internal and external courage, strength and gratitude that can help you to become the very best version of yourself!

Leona McDonnell

(Published in the Westmeath Examiner on 12/5/2020 and The Meath Chronicle and The Anglo Celt on 13/5/2020)

Weeding and pruning our mind? Strange concept? Think about what makes a really ‘good gardener’ for a physical outdoor garden. Someone who can plan, can prepare an area, can visualise, who is skilled at what they do and who is knowledgeable about what foliage will be compatible and flourish in a shared space? Now let’s apply that concept to our mind.

But how can we compare our mind to that of a physical garden? Can we apply the same thinking, the same principals of having a ‘good gardener’ for our mind? Absolutely! A ‘good gardener’ will analyse and assess the physical space that they must work with. They will then carefully choose what flowers, plants, seeds, shrubs and trees they wish to grow in this space. They will carefully care for and nurture these planted seeds to blossom. They will continually prune and weed this garden space to ensure that it has the best possible environment for these seeds to grow in. We can do the same and become very ‘good gardener’s’ of our own mind.

Think of yourself as that competent and knowledgeable gardener of your mind. You have the choice to decide what kind of seeds or thoughts you wish to plant in your mind garden. You have the preference of where you wish to plant these thought seeds so that they will work in unison with any additional thought seeds that you want to sow in your mind garden or any that may be deeply rooted in your mind garden already. You can choose how much time you wish to invest into the design and planning stage of your mind garden, how much time you want to spend nurturing and caring for it and how favourable you want the environment to be for growth and bloom. You can decide when to start preparing your mind garden for the seeding and planting stage. You as the gardener of your mind have full capacity to make all these decisions. You can become skilled at looking deeply below and far beyond the surface of your mind garden. You can develop the ability to see the beauty and the delicate way that your mind garden can be nourished to bloom, to blossom, to shedding and to restoration, just like the seasons of nature. Planting, seeding and growth in Spring, full bloom and blossom in Summer, harvest, shedding and letting go in Autumn and a recline back inward for rest and repair in Winter.

The most beautiful and empowering thing is that we can be the gardener of our own mind. We can choose to plant thought seeds that will ultimately empower, encourage and help us to grow personally and to achieve a mind garden that is calm, peaceful, serene and full of natural beauty. We may also now have additional time to invest into our mind gardens. How many of us have taken to planting, pruning, trimming and weeding in our own physical outdoor gardens in recent weeks? How many of us love to nourish, nurture and maintain our physical gardens because they uplift us and help us to feel more peaceful, relaxed and soothed when we look at them? How many of us also find ourselves comparing our own physical gardens to our neighbour’s gardens watching and wondering what they have decided to plant and seed in theirs?

Today, you can start or choose to design or re-design your own mind garden. You may ask “but how do I do this?” “Where do I start?” You may feel so overwhelmed trying to control or gaining control over your mind garden. So many of us feel that our mind gardens are completely overgrown and overrun with weeds over these last few weeks. We feel that it is getting harder to maintain control over our unruly mind gardens as each day goes on. The answer to these questions is simple, you start at the start and slowly take one stage at a time.

Firstly, you need to remove any thought weeds or overgrowth that is blocking your ability to see and think clearly. You need to remove any of these non-nourishing and wrecking thought weeds by pulling them out. As you pull each one out, feel the physical relief of being able to toss that thought weed to the side, declaring that you don’t need or want it anymore. Some of these thought weeds will come out or pop out quite easily but you may have to continue to encourage and slowly extract a few deeper-rooted weeds. You may even have to dig around or dig out some of these stubborn thought weeds. You might also choose to do a little each day, take a break and come back. The overall weeding stage may be too overwhelming to complete all together. You can ask yourself, is this thought weed serving me well? Do I want to hold onto this thought weed? If the answer is yes, ask yourself why you want to keep this thought weed in your mind garden, what purpose does it have? If the answer is no, then get rid of it, don’t give it any more energy or a favourable environment to grow in. Yes, the weeding stage can be quite uncomfortable. That feeling of unrest in the unknown of what lurks beneath each weed that you pull, of what will potentially surface as you extract the weed. You may get some bruises, cuts, stings maybe even thorns but these don’t last forever, they are only temporary. These will all heal as will the physical hole where the weed was rooted. Think of this phase as getting your Spring garden ready. You are cleaning, clearing and making room for your summer garden.

So, what would you like your summer garden to look and feel like? Full of colour, of beautiful scents, of bloom, of birds, bees and insects? Having carefully planned, assessed, visualised and implemented your Spring mind garden, your Summer mind garden is bound to be bursting with encouragement, empowerment, hope, life and positivity. Having had the belief of what your Spring garden would flourish into, the patience to watch as your planted seeds matured and grew, you now can reap the rewards of the time and effort that you invested into your Spring garden. Just like at harvest time in Autumn, gardeners and fruit farmers are literally rewarded for the fruits of their labour with beautiful crops of healthy fruits and vegetables. They can measure and quantify the success of their investment into their Spring and Summer gardens by their bountiful crops. They have reaped the benefits for what they have sown.

When we think of Autumn and our physical gardens, we see a letting go and shedding by flowers, plants and trees. After the long bright summer days and warmer temperatures, nature is more than ready to let go of what it doesn’t want to be carrying into its Winter garden.
We also have the ultimate power and decision as to what we want to let go from our Spring, Summer and Autumn mind gardens. What do we want to shed? What are we no longer willing to hold onto? People often ask me “but how do I let go?”. I tell them to ask themselves “is this thought helpful?” Most of the time the answer will be no. I then tell them to say to themselves “I give myself permission to let go” and then feel the mental, emotional and physical relief of letting go. Do you think a tree struggles with the decision of whether to let go of that one or any leaves during shedding? Why would the tree need to hold onto those leaves if they have already served their purpose? What’s the point in holding onto something that no longer has life, something that is now finished with? Our Autumn mind garden should be a place and time of complete shedding, for completely letting go, for baring ourselves and our thoughts. Knowing that it’s a natural part of the cycle of nature to release, to feel light and free but also to feel solid in our statue and presence as we do so.

When we think of our physical Winter gardens, not much happens above the surface. It’s a time of rest, repair, solitude, hibernation and internal recovery. Here is when we may see the skill of a good mind gardener. Not to physically push, not to emotionally demand, not to overstretch, not to ignore the natural beauty and rhythm of the earthly cycles. Being prepared and capable of fully embracing this period of stillness, of internal recovery, of inner repair and of personal growth. Resting in the stillness and quiet above the earth’s surface but safe and secure in the knowledge of growth and deep rooting below its surface. We too need periods of rest, repair, recovery and internal regeneration in our mind gardens.

The key to achieving a mind garden full of hope, light-heartedness, encouragement, empowerment and positivity is in the realisation that we do have ‘full’ control over the choices of our thought seeds, over how much time, energy and love we want to invest into our mind gardens. We also have ‘full’ control over how over-grown or out of control we are willing to let our mind gardens become, over how willing we are to give our mind gardens much needed rest and recovery time to repair and renew. Influencing our thought seeds like this means that we are sure to build a mind garden that will sway with the wind and rain but will also remain stable, deeply rooted and solid in stormy conditions.

The questions I would like to leave you with are “how do you want your mind garden to grow?” What better time than now to pause, review and ponder over whether you would like to create, re-design or re-plan your own mind garden? Perhaps using this time would be seen by a ‘good gardener’ as the ultimate opportunity to invest extra time, commitment and energy into developing a garden of your dreams.

(Published in the Westmeath Examiner on 21-4-2020 and in The Anglo Celt and Meath Chronicle on 22-4-2020)