Mindfully Ever After ep. 1: in today’s episode we are going to learn how to “Hold it Lightly”

1. Regular intro

1. Intro: I’ll be talking about what meditation is and how to use meditation as a way to break through the fearful stories of your past! Let’s dive in.

• What is meditation? Myth vs. fact
• • Think of it like…mindful observance (passing like clouds in the sky)
  • Intro to deep breathing and grounding
  • • Nervous systems, cavemen times à chronic activation à makes it real easy to keep replaying stories of your life
    • Grounding test – listen, feel
    • If you get really good, you can even do this standing up – you can always breathe, which means you can always be mindful
  • Hold it lightly (reference to Florence)
  • • Affinity article analyzing tracks Niahm Parr
    • • http://culture.affinitymagazine.us/florence-and-the-machines-high-as-hope-a-track-by-track-analysis/

• Then it's just too much, I cannot get you close enough
  A hundred arms, a hundred years, you can always find me here
  And lord, don't let me break this, let me hold you lightly
  Give me arms to pray with instead of ones that hold too tightly
• “The song sees Welch tired with how difficult her relationship is and that she has to “hold too tightly” and “pray” to keep it from breaking

• • • Remind to hold thoughts lightly, maybe we can hold life’s challenges more lightly – trust that you are enough
    • That’s the goal: to hold it lightly because “if you hold on too tightly you may miss the transformation waiting for you on the other side”
  • observer vs. active participant
  • • let thoughts flow, let experiences flow, look at your thoughts without becoming identified by them, without judgment
    • “every life challenge is a moment for you to be more mindful and transcend”
    • “instead of fear, choose transformation”
• Stories and neg. core beliefs
• • Think of stories as beliefs à thoughts we keep thinking à words are our thoughts in action (self-talk or to others)
  • Common stories: I’m not good enough, I’m unlovable, I can’t trust anyone but myself
  • Confirmation bias – fancy term in the biz that posits we look for what we pay attention to
  • • Now you can choose (and I emphasize choose) to be imprisoned by those stories or you can choose to reauthor, mindfully and openly
    • Younger – we don’t have the mental capacity to take charge of how we are authoring our lives (age 26)
    • Living mindfully, is practicing awareness and when you can observe without judgment, you now have the power to choose otherwise despite the fearful thoughts and difficult emotions that arise
    • I still do this now…it doesn’t matter how many years you’ve studied or practice mindfulness, old stories creep up, I just have the awareness to say “no this is a replay of a story I’m unwilling to live by anymore” “let me see if I can respond with more love and compassion here”
    • At some point, I chose to believe that I am worthy enough to stop abusing myself, I wanted to know love and I was and am still willing to meet my darkest thoughts with lots of love
  • link back to why we meditate —> live mindfully, it’s how we strengthen our mindfulness muscle
  • • challenge – give it a try, if you notice an old limiting story – see if you can respond differently – give yourself that chance – these little actions add up

III. CTA – Outro

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