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

Sometimes, we can feel so overwhelmed by the general pace of life, trying to keep up, our work/life/family balance and all we can hear is that little voice inside our mind telling us how exhausted we are, how we will never catch up, that our situation and related experience will never change, that we are not good enough, that we will never be good enough, what’s the point in even trying?

But when we learn to be more kind and compassionate towards ourselves, towards these thoughts, emotions and feelings, we start to realise that maybe we are entitled to feel this way, maybe it is ok to feel and experience these things but we then also realise that maybe there is a better, more productive, more caring approach to dealing with and experiencing these thoughts, emotions and feelings, while getting through our day and feeling calm and happy in our mind and body.

So now, when I am feeling tired, sickly, overwhelmed, annoyed, confused, like there is no breathing space, I ask myself ‘what does my body NEED right now’? I ask my mind to move over and to let my body truly tell me what it needs in order to process how it is feeling and to start to feel more comfortable, balanced and stable.

Most of time my body will scream to me, “you need to go to bed early tonight, you need to get out for a walk and breathe in the fresh air, you need to ground yourself outside with Mother Earth, you need to do your yoga, you need to take an Epson salt bath with relaxing essential oils, you need to inhale a nice essential oil diffuser blend to clear away that sinus pressure, you need some quiet time in your mind so you can clear the internal storm, you need to take 5/10/15/20 mins out to listen to a relaxing meditation or to just sit in your own presence and use your breath as your anchor point to your present moment, you need to drink more water to re-hydrate, you need a nice hot cup of tea and maybe a little square or two of chocolate, you need apply your essential oils to your temples and the back of your neck for that headache or to your lower back for that constant back ache or have a relaxing massage, you need to get a hug from someone, you need to give a hug to someone, you need to play and get silly with your children until you can’t breathe from laughing, you need to hold your cat on your knee and feel the gentle rhythm of her breath and listen to the hum of her purring, you need to brush your dog, you need a call a friend, you need to turn off your phone, you need to disconnect from social media for a bit, you need to clean out some of the clutter that’s been driving you crazy in your home/office”!!! So many things our body may need to help us to feel better but most of the time, we can’t connect or hear these signals or clues from our bodies as our minds are in full swing, in over drive, telling us that nothing will help us feel better or demotivating us.

The interesting thing about this is that most of us already know the things we ‘want’ or ‘need’ to do to help us to feel energised, happy, motivated, to enjoy life, but when we listen more to the constant chatter, downgrading, anxiety, second guessing that our minds love to invade us with, this is when we can fail to see just exactly what it is that our bodies need in any particular moment.

This is how Mindfulness, Meditation and a general overall Wellness approach to your daily living can help to calm the constant storm of thoughts, emotions and subsequent feelings that you experience. Mindfulness and Meditation can help you to live in an increased state of pleasant awareness to your present moment and it gives you the coping tools and techniques to deal with whatever challenges or difficulties your present moment may give rise to.

Please have a look at my website www.leonamcdonnell.com for further information and guidance on how you can adopt a more mindful approach to your everyday living! For information on courses, classes, workshops etc, please give me a call on 087-4161842 or email me leona@leonamcdonnell.com

Leona McDonnell

Leona McDonnell Mindfulness and Wellness

We have all heard the term a ‘cup of sunshine’ before or maybe we have even been asked ‘how do you fill your cup of sunshine?’ In my past, I always felt the concept was a bit cliché and didn’t really give it much thought. I kind of just had the outlook, you get up, get through another day, maybe not even laughing or smiling, just trying to keep up, you eat, you go to bed and then start the same saga again the very next day. What limiting and crippling thoughts these were of mine. How can anyone settle for just getting through another day, for just showing up, perhaps distracted, unresponsive, consumed by another world of heavy thoughts, experiences and a general lack of lustre for life?

As I started and adopted a Mindful approach to my everyday living over the last number of years, this concept of the ‘cup of sunshine’ became and now sits as a paramount ingredient to my every day, my every thought, my every action, to my overall life. I never really bothered to think about the concept ‘how can you pour from an empty cup?’ This is a slightly different scenario to the ‘is your glass half full or half empty’ concept as this scenario suggests that there is as much positivity and energy in the glass as there is negativity and exhaustion.

When we talk about pouring from your ‘cup of sunshine’, we talk about choosing the things that we want to fill our own individual cup up with so that we have not just enough, but an abundance of positivity, hope, love, care, energy, fun, laughter, support and ‘whole hearted life’ to pour to ourselves and to those who we wish to share our ‘cup of sunshine’ with. This is a critical key element of this concept. We learn to establish who deserves a share form our ‘cup of sunshine’, who we really want to give some of it to. We learn to stop letting others undeservedly and without permission drain our ‘cup of sunshine’ and perhaps steal something from us that was never meant for them.

So how do you fill your ‘cup of sunshine’? This is a question I am asked regularly. So many people feel so consumed by the general pace of living, by work/life balance or lack of, by the invasion of technology and social media into our lives. They can’t see how they could top up or restore their ‘cup of sunshine’. The question I always reply with is “but how do you expect to keep pouring from your cup if it’s depleted, if it’s just surviving from day to day, if it’s exhausted, overwhelmed, anxious, unable to find the space to take a break and just breathe”?

A lot of the time, people respond to this question by describing how they can’t find the time in their day to do something that ignites their passion and their soul, something that allows them to laugh until tears are strolling down their cheeks or until they can barely catch their breath in between hearty giggles, something that fills their mind, their body and emotions with a drive and gratitude for life. This sounds incredibly unbelievable? That in the 24 hours of life that we are gifted with each day we wake up from our sleep, that there is not even 5 minutes, 10 minutes or even 1 hour to embrace self-care, self-love and passion? Perhaps living with the opinion that ‘I don’t deserve the time for self-care, for exercise, for meditation, for laughing, for having fun, for living’.

I always ask “but why don’t you deserve this time, this space to refuel, to grow, to fill your ‘cup of sunshine’ full of the special and precious things to you in your life”? I explain that in order for us to be able to be our own best friend, to be loving, caring, compassionate and fun filled towards ourselves and others, it is critical to take the time for self-care. It is not selfish to take some time to meet friends, to go to the cinema, to go out for a nice meal, to visit family, to take a day or two off work, to buy those new runners or jeans, to join an exercise class, to swim, to walk, to run, to sleep, to listen to a meditation, to do yoga, to tend to your garden, to tell those in close quarters to you that you ‘need’ time for your repair, your recovery and your personal growth and expansion.

I can promise you from first-hand experience, when you learn to create this time for self-care, you will never go back!! You can work with those in your household to agree a plan so that each household or family member gets their down-time, their time to refill their ‘cup of sunshine’. You should always leave room in the plan for when someone in the household may be feeling sickly and need extra rest and recovery time or maybe is experiencing a challenging personal time and needs extra space and time for solitude and for self-care. It all works in swings and roundabouts!! It is also a fantastic way of being able to recognise when someone in your household is struggling a little and needs extra help and support. Therefore, it is so important that everyone works daily at keeping their ‘cup of sunshine’ topped up so that there is always an available source of love, protection and guidance on tap. How can you expect to support and give love and encouragement to anyone else if you don’t work daily at keeping your own ‘cup of sunshine’ topped up?

Realising the true value and utmost importance of this concept really was a game changer in my own life. I always say that when I’m energised, full of positivity, capable of letting go and laughing, being silly and having good old fun, my household is in pure bliss!! My husband, children and animals are all in great spirits and embrace the light heartedness of life. However, when my ‘cup of sunshine’ is depleted and I am tired, overwhelmed, in-patient, contrary and give out about little things, like the mess of the house, my household erupts!! My husband and children feel the negative energy and start to behave similarly to me, which creates so much unnecessary stress, tension and upset in the house. I even find that the animals become more needy, following me around and constantly looking for food!!

Topping up your ‘cup of sunshine’ really does work. We are all only human, we are not robots, we need to be able to have fun, do things that make us feel really alive but we also need time to rest, restore and renew. Taking time out for ourselves is not selfish, is not ridiculous, is not a waste of time. Creating a precious space and time in our own daily lives for self-care and for doing whatever it is that’s helps to top up our ‘cup of sunshine’ is one of the most responsible and rewarding things you can do for yourself and for those close to you. You will create a deeper awareness and connection to your soul and what it desires to feel truly alive.

So, the question remains, ‘how do you fill up your cup of sunshine?’

Leona McDonnell

By Leona McDonnell Mindfulness and Wellness_28-6-2020

(As Published in The Westmeath Examiner newspaper on 7-7-2020 and in the The Anglo Celt and The Meath Chronicle newspapers on 8-7-2020)

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)