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INTENTION

November 25, 2013 by LiskaStampCollective

Last week I wrote about the ‘compound interest’ effect of taking 10 or 20 seconds, each time you get in and out of bed, to place your feet on the floor and breathe. A simple practice to ground yourself.

I know what grounding means to me but thought I would do a quick whizz around The Google to see what else was out there and found these two short sentences which pretty much sum it up for me.

Being grounded means you are present in your life, not obsessed with the past or future.  It means you are checked in instead of checked out. 

(For the full post read on here http://www.erinpavlina.com/blog/2009/07/5-good-ways-to-ground-yourself/)

This week I want you to add ‘intention’ to the mix and see what happens.

When you place your feet on the floor hold an intention in you mind as you breathe in and out.

Set an intention for change.

  • To see joy instead of defiance in your child.
  • Abundance instead of scarcity.
  • Receiving instead of giving.
  • A pause before angry words.

This intention allows us to become conscious of our actions so that we can move towards our heart’s desires. In being aware of our actions we can choose how we respond. We start to become “checked in instead of checked out”.

In the definition that I have included below it is the last two points that are of interest to me because I believe that when we direct our minds we have the opportunity to heal our hearts.

IntentionWhat is your intention this week?

If this post resonated with you please share it with your friends or subscribe here for a weekly update.

Liska x

Filed Under: Finding Time Tagged With: change, healing hearts, Intention

FINDING TIME

November 18, 2013 by LiskaStampCollective

Finding TimeTime is an elusive ephemeral mistress. We are beholden to her charms in a way that we would be to no other. From the moment our feet touch the floor in the morning our minds are off and racing. Thinking about all the things we have to do that day and it doesn’t stop until we get back into the same bed that night.

How many of us take the time to consciously be aware of our feet touching the floor and stopping, just for a moment, to ground ourselves into the day and connect with the energy around us.

I know I don’t.

The irony is that if I did get up just that little bit earlier and start my day with a small punctuation mark of silence then I would have more time in my day. Not time calculated in minutes rather a calm space in my mind that would allow me to move through my day with a bit more ease and grace than usual.

Meditators of all the different practices …… Christian Meditation, Centering Prayer, Buddhism, Transcendental Meditation, Sufism to name just a few have in common two periods of silence a day usually around sunrise and sunset.

For a number of years I attended a Sufi Khanaqah (prayer house) every Sunday night and in more recent times a Christian Meditation group on a Tuesday night. As central as Tuesday nights are are to my week I have really struggled to establish a daily meditation practice.

Even once a day would be good.

I seem to however always have a laundry list of important things that need to be done before I can stop and be still. My head knows that meditation has been scientifically proven to be beneficial yet my heart still turns away from daily meditation practice.

I want this to change.

Over the last ten years there has been a lot of research in to neuroplasticity and our ability to rewire our brain. Like all things this takes time, conscious commitment and dedication. As I read what I have just written it already feels too hard.

There is hope (for me) however.

In this week’s Sunday Life magazine I read an article on ‘Hardwiring Happiness’ a book by American neuropsychologist, Dr Rick Hanson.  In the article he says “the brain has a negativity bias that makes like Velcro for bad experiences and (non-stick) Teflon for positive experiences” and he advocates that when we have a positive experience we take 10 or 20 seconds to stay with the positive experience to let it fill your mind and let the experience really ‘land’ in your mind so it soothes you. The premise being that if we do this half a dozen times a day we gradually train the brain to turn transient positive moments into something more long lasting and sensitize the brain to positive experiences.

Please click on this link http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/10/17/how-tiny-joyful-moments-c_n_4108363.html for a far more informed review than I have given here.

It was the idea that small amounts of time could be so beneficial that really struck me. Compound interest of a different kind.  So instead of being overwhelmed by finding two half hour periods to meditate each day I am going to start small.

Now when I wake up in the morning and turn in for the night I will sit on the side of the bed with my feet flat on the floor for a moment and breathe in and out focusing on my breath and feeling the floorboards beneath my feet.

And slowly, slowly my heart will turn towards me and welcome the journey.

How do you stop and breathe in your day?

If this post resonated with you please share it with your friends or subscribe here for a weekly update.

Liska x

 

 

 

 

 

Filed Under: Finding Time Tagged With: Dr Rick Hanson, Hardwiring Happiness, meditation, neuroplasticity

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