Mindfulness is not hard to understand.
Understanding mindfulness is not mindfulness.
Practicing mindfulness in your daily life is a process, a habit, that once you embrace and understand can make significant improvements in your quality of life and even your health.
Up and Out
Interrupting sadness and loneliness with a random question or tangent.
There is an amazing global community based on compassionate listening and co-counseling.
Re-evaluation Counseling is a technique for listening in an active and participatory way. I recommend you look for an RC group in your local area. As part of the coaching process (which can tend to sink people into their emotions and release of those emotions) we used something called an “up and out.” This idea works even when you are alone. Here’s an example.
“What are your four favorite flavors of ice cream?”
What we are asking of our brains is to think about something completely unrelated to what’s upsetting you, and give a list or some ideas. This is a form of distraction. Not all distraction is bad. What we’re doing here is interrupting the spiraling thoughts with a task that the mind can accomplish effortlessly. Thus, our minds want to solve the question and complete the challenge.
Coffee Toffee Crunch
Mint Chocolate Chip
Pistachio Almond
Natural Vanilla
And with a simple minor redirect we derail the monkey mind. It helps if the prompt is random. Just reset your thoughts in a different direction.
Here are a few other examples.
What were your first three cars?
What are you going to do right after we’re done?
Do you know the brand and size of the tires on your car?
The more nonsensical the better. Give your brain or your friend’s brain a simple request to help lift your thoughts out of their loop of distress.
Finding new ways of upping and outing myself.
Namasté,
John McElhenney – life coach austin texas
Facebook | Instagram | @wholeparent
Table of Contents
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- observer – pause (ghost on the ceiling + next right action)
- affirmations – changing your thoughts by prayer and repetition
- energy = mood – lessons in self-awareness and consumption
- defining your scale – 1 (depression) to 10 (manic)
- self-compassion – go easy on yourself during the hard times
- self-soothing – how you nurture and lift yourself back up
- listening with intention – give your attention to someone else’s pain
up and out – interrupting sadness and loneliness- defining a path – where do you want to go in your life
- refining your goals – along the journey it is important to reset
- full-stop reset – when everything feels out of balance
- resting in hope – hope is the key to unlocking energy and recovery
How I Can Help
I am a relationship coach and a dating coach. I coach women in small groups as well as individual 1 x 1 zoom calls. If you have questions about life coaching I am happy to talk to you. Please schedule a phone call HERE.
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related posts:
- mindfulness < a new index of happiness and hope
- MNDFL + MFKR (You can be either, better to be both)
- “You Look Tired” Let’s Talk About Living Your Best Life
- Here and Now: Returning To Peace, Learning Patience
Here are my books on Amazon:
- Single Dad Seeks: Dating Again After Divorce: Advice and Strategies on Learning How to be Loved Again
- Fall of the House of Dad: My journey through divorce, from loss to joy, again and again
- A Good Dad’s Guide to Divorce: One father’s quest to stay connected with his children
- The Sex Index: Getting Our Love Languages Right in the Bedroom
- Here Comes the Darkness: Surviving and Thriving After a Mental Illness Diagnosis
- The Third Glass: When Drinking Becomes an Issue
- The Storm Before the Divorce: When One Parent Wants Out, That’s the End
Now Available from Amazon