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Blog! Seize the day, then let it go 

BLOG INDEX

How to find true love using meditation

28/9/2021

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I believe we can generate unconditional love through a practice of loving connection, which helps us feel more love towards everything and everyone. How? Well just did a lovely practice with the Monday group, that I really enjoy. I call it the ‘I love you’ Meditation. It does what it says on the tin. Many meditations use visual imagery to create a loving feeling, but this one is even easier. It uses the power of repetition. Just repeat the thought “I love you” over and over, silently, on the outbreath. Here’s more detail:

  1. We begin with ourselves (Eg. I love you, Neil), 
  2. Then any distractions (Eg. I love you thinking mind, I love you dog barking next door)
  3. It often brings up resistance, pain, tension, numbness - we send love to that too, naming it, if possible, 
  4. Around halfway through I begin a body scan:
    1. I love you heart (I like to start here)
    2. I love you feet...
    3. I love you lower legs…
    4. ...continue to work up the body, spending three repetitions on each area).
  5. Pause and take longer on areas of pain or discomfort. Regular meditation practice can help us to accept discomfort as just another sensation, without adding the story of ‘that is bad’ to it.
    We can even learn to send love to pain and it allows it to flow away easily.
  6. After we complete the body scan we move to the skin and beyond. Sending love to the beings around us, the world and beyond. I often find this makes me feel like a love radiator - calm and loving.
  7. Sending love to someone specific can be a beautiful or challenging experience. It often brings me to tears to pick someone I cherish. 
  8. Finally we return to ourselves, to finish with gratitude and a nice long stretch - an act of love! 
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"Practicing love turns you into a love unicorn"

I have also found self love helps create ease in giving love to others - we exude love and it becomes easy and familiar to love. What’s your experience? Try this guided meditation now and find out. Also available on YouTube.

I am changing my practice to make love the centre of everything I do. This is as part of a more trauma informed practice that I am bringing into my work, after fascination with the work of Gabor Mate, Peter Levine and Nicole Lepera. If you would like to do some coaching work and get more love in your life contact me, or come along to the Monday group sessions. 

With Love
Neil Morbey
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7 Steps To Establish a New Habit

20/9/2021

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Habit Stacking
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Make it easy and tasty!
In this short BLOG I'm sharing a slide from session 2 of my course 'Mindfulness and Emotional Resilience', where we focus on habits. I'm doing this because  I am currently using this process to begin a habit of more frequent online sharing and blog writing. this is week 1 for me and I hope it inspires you to begin a new habit today.  

1. STOP judging yourself with ‘shoulds and needs’ (use the STOP technique) and develop a loving attitude to your new habit

I believe that self judgement is our worst enemy in the creation of a habit. If we use excessive 'shoulds and needs' then we are using fear to motivate.  This is a primitive and short lived motivator that will only make the bait feel heavy and stressful. Your willpower will give way. Instead try and address those 'shoulds and needs' using a tool, like the STOP technique (which we teach on the course) and develop a positive and purposeful attitude towards your actions. As Tony Robbins says:  "use inspiration not desperation!"

2. Take time to consider why first, then what, when, where. Write it down
The book 'Start with Why' by Simon Sinek details how developing a clear WHY allows you to be selective of the advice you take on board. You need to make sure that WHAT and HOW you do things is consistent with your WHY. A WHY provides a filter for decision making which differentiates his quote:  “Achievements comes when you pursue and attain WHAT you want. Success comes when you are clear in pursuit of WHY you want it.

3. Reduce the amount to its minimal - start with tiny steps. One habit at a time. You can increase and habit stack later
I learned a lot from Seth Godin , author of 'The One Thing'  who reminds me "The hardest move in Yoga is rolling out the mat'. In other words the starting energy is the difficult bit. So make it small, REALLY small. You can gradually improve and the early habit can act as a sequence starter that you can stack more habits onto. 

4. Share publicly and/or with an accountability buddy / contract
We have a brain that is constantly worrying about what others think of us, and is trying to be efficient with resources. Use it to your advantage - include others to check on you and include a contract to make it have consequences, if you like that  My contract uses Stikk to add a financial consequence if I don't stick to the habit! 

5. Place positive triggers (notifications, posters, images, props) at home/on phone. Remove negative ones. 
I find it so helpful to have my trainers out ready if I'm intending on going for a run and I also like to record a positive association reminder on my phone and/or YouTube (and recite it daily ) to keep my intention in mind. I have removed distractions from my phone and environment and I continue to do this as an ongoing process. For me my calendar provides the most useful prompts. 

6. At the end of the day review how your commitment went well
Make the pattern pleasurable and purposeful by adding rewards and self celebration. I find the end of the day a great time to do this as it puts my mind into a positive place before bed time. We humans are great at denying our achievements. Stop it! Celebrate yourself! 

7. If you don’t manage it one day activate your inner curious compassion. Journal about what stopped you, how you feel and what you imagine. Begin this list again...
We are imperfect - you will fail. That is good. It shows you are trying and discovering the blocks. This is a time to really become fascinated with the blocks and use the techniques I teach to help you. These seven steps are an iterative process - I repeat them to refine my habits.

Can I help you to start a new habit? I currently have a group beginning a habit of meditation and journaling. I can work with you one-to-one or in a group (new ones coming soon). Please get in touch to find out more. 
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    Authors

    Neil Morbey is a meditation teacher, group facilitator and inspiration guide for Positively-Mindful.com

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    Blog Index
    1. How To Do A Daily Check-In And Intention Setting 27/11/23
    2. Fuel inspiration by pondering the beginning of all life 23/7/23
    3. The Gentle Village - A place to talk about relationships ​3/3/23
    4. Imagine if... you loved healthy habits ​24/12/22
    5. Philosophy is BS 7/11/22
    6. 3 Powerful Journalling Tools To Process Troubling Thoughts 27/9/22
    7. SAFER communication to help in emotional conversations 2/9/22
    8. Re-Schooling Ourselves: Refreshing Our Narratives 25/8/22
    9. Grounding: Stabilize your Wobbles 22/7/22
    10. How to appreciate your struggle 10/3/2022
    11. Allowing Ourselves To Rest 2/2/2022
    12. Committing To Your Deep Truth: Your Mission 19/1/2022
    13. The Attention Wars - Know Your Enemies! 24/11/2021
    14. Practices To Improve Polyvagal Tone 12/11/2021
    15. Being good enough - letting go of 'exceptional'. 8/11/2021
    16. Reschooling and Reparenting - Heal and Train Yourself (Like a Kitten) 26/10/2021
    17. Compare and Despair? Remember Now is Wow! 12/10/2021
    18. Using Self Awareness to Overcome Negative Emotions and Heal Your Trauma Patterns 5/10/2021
    19. How to find true love using meditation 28/9/2021
    20. 7 Steps To Establish a New Habit 20/9/2021
    21. Understanding the Main Styles of Counseling 21/5/2021
    22. When to listen to your gut: The power of intuition and instinct 1/3/2021
    23. Breaking the Lockdown Blues 4/2/2021
    24. Trying to Change a Habit? Forget Dopamine Fasting, Take a Holiday! 20/11/2020
    25. How To Liberate Yourself From Wounded Patterns 3/11/2020
    26. Overstimulation - The reason you struggle to focus 16/9/2020
    27. Reminding myself everyday: The MORNING routine 12/9/2020
    28. How to STOP reacting to anxiety 11/5/2020
    29. Creating a Meditation Space for Your Home - Top Ten Tips 5/3/2020
    30. Top 5 things the children loved about Mindfulness classes 9/12/2019
    31. What I learned from my week of being perfectly imperfect, ME 27/11/2019
    32. 5 things I learned from a retreat for fools 5/11/2019
    33. How To Meditate - An Example Practice (Body Scan) 25/9/2019
    34. How mindfulness can help you to enjoy the journey. 31/7/2019
    35. Has Mindfulness sold out and become McMindfulness? 24/6/2019
    36. How Nature Can Enrich Your Mindfulness Practice 19/6/2019
    37. Radical Coaching: Shadowing 25/4/2019
    38. Timed Talk & Listen - a tool to practice in relationship. 22/3/2019
    39. 5 Things SOME People Regret On Their Deathbed 6/3/2019
    40. Mindfulness at work: more ways to create balance, focus and clarity. 25/1/2019
    41. Everything you need to know about meditation posture and structure. 19/12/2018
    42. Mindfulness Coaching - is it for you? 23/10/2018
    43. Happiness: How Do We Find The Balance? 19/9/2018
    44. The Work of Ghostbusting: Meet the mind with kind inquiry 25/1/2018
    45. Youth Mindfulness: Why is teaching mindfulness in schools so helpful? 12/11/2017
    46. Youth Mindfulness: Why is teaching mindfulness in schools so helpful? 12/11/2017
    47. Removing Drama Is As Easy As A-B-C! (Part 2 - Spot the signals, name the role.)  24/10/2017
    48. Using Mindfulness to Sleep Better 7/9/2017
    49. 3 Ways you can help your workplace become more mindful. 16/8/2017
    50. Top 5 things the children loved about Mindfulness classes 9/12/2019
    51. What I learned from my week of being perfectly imperfect, ME 27/11/2019
    52. 5 things I learned from a retreat for fools 5/11/2019
    53. How To Meditate - An Example Practice (Body Scan) 25/9/2019
    54. How mindfulness can help you to enjoy the journey. 31/7/2019
    55. Has Mindfulness sold out and become McMindfulness? 24/6/2019
    56. How Nature Can Enrich Your Mindfulness Practice 19/6/2019
    57. Radical Coaching: Shadowing 25/4/2019
    58. Timed Talk & Listen - a tool to practice in relationship. 22/3/2019
    59. 5 Things SOME People Regret On Their Deathbed 6/3/2019
    60. Mindfulness at work: more ways to create balance, focus and clarity. 25/1/2019
    61. Everything you need to know about meditation posture and structure. 19/12/2018
    62. Mindfulness Coaching - is it for you? 23/10/2018
    63. Happiness: How Do We Find The Balance? 19/9/2018
    64. The Work of Ghostbusting: Meet the mind with kind inquiry 25/1/2018
    65. Youth Mindfulness: Why is teaching mindfulness in schools so helpful? 12/11/2017
    66. Youth Mindfulness: Why is teaching mindfulness in schools so helpful? 12/11/2017
    67. Removing Drama Is As Easy As A-B-C! (Part 2 - Spot the signals, name the role.)  24/10/2017
    68. Using Mindfulness to Sleep Better 7/9/2017
    69. 3 Ways you can help your workplace become more mindful. 16/8/2017
    70. How to overcome psychological abuse, mindfully 21/7/2017
    71. Stay Hungry, Stay Foolish 23/6/2017
    72. 3 Steps to returning to your nature 10/6/2017
    73. The words you speak become the house you live in 29/5/2017
    74. Low Energy? Listen to your needs. 12/5/2017
    75. How to stay inspired (not impotent by importance). 29/4/2017
    76. What is Spirituality? (And how does it relate to thinking?) 14/4/2017
    77. Breath Works: practices to program BOLD focus. 23/3/2017
    78. Procrastination part 3: TURNING THE SHIP AROUND 10/2/2017
    79. Loosen your TIES to suffering 20/1/2017
    80. Understanding Procrastination Part 2: Just do it now. 15/12/2016
    81. What happens in a 1 hour mindfulness class? 23/11/2016
    82. Transforming Hatred with Kindness - Storytime! 1/11/2016
    83. When Feedback hurts - Own your Shit - Take a SEAT 4/10/2016
    84. No pain, no gain? 22/7/2016
    85. Life is like an echo... echooo... echooooo.... 8/6/2016
    86. Etymology and Mindfulness of Language 13/5/2016
    87. An Awesome or Choresome Life? 24/4/2016
    88. Mindfulness for Young People? 8/4/2016
    89. Explore the depths of your ocean. 29/3/2016
    90. Let Go and Be - escape the Drama triangle! 22/3/2016
    91. THE IMPORTANCE OF FEEDBACK 2/3/2016
    92. Don't Mindfill 22/2/2016
    93. Love is messy, scary, risky... Love and need? 9/2/2016
    94. Awareness of the road! 30/1/2016
    95. Dealing with the emotional drop 12/1/2016
    96. Tools for patience in meditation and in life. 6/1/2016
    97. Useful language and tools for creating healthy discussion 12/12/2015
    98. Craving the crux: 10 lessons learned from my rock climbing addiction 9/12/2015
    99. PLAYFULNESS AND PRESENCE: TEDX BELFAST 2015  30/11/2015
    100. Orestes, The Furies and The Eumenides (Kindly ones). A story of vengeance, guilt and forgiveness 5/11/2015
    101. Learning barefoot: feeling more 26/10/2015
    102. Musings on Choice and Obligation 20/10/2015
    103. What is enlightenment and what's the process of getting there? 10/9/2015
    104. What is Mindfulness and Why Practice? 3/9/2015
    105. ​​My Vipassana Retreat Experience 9/7/2015

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