Start within – the mindful roadmap to empowering mental health
This week is Mental Health Awareness Week and there’s never been a better time to begin a new wellbeing practice. Are you ready to create a self-caring and empowering relationship within you?
Last week, I wrote about the importance of creating powerful conversations within you, so today’s focus is practical and provides a how-to-do mindfulness roadmap, as well as an easy access heartfulness exercise to practice. (If you would like to know more about why it matters, you can catch up https://www.atribecalledwoman.com/category/blog/
Here’s my mini mindfulness roadmap on how to start a powerful inward conversation TODAY:
- Create a space to be with yourself and agree a time limit. Turn devices on silent and place the faces down – better still put them in another room.
- Check in with your perspective? How are you approaching this conversation and what needs to be in place for you to be fully present and mindful? (Top tip: adopt a beginner’s mind perspective and give yourself permission to explore).
- If stepping into your being feels strange, scary or you are in avoidance in any way, take a moment to loosen up. Play a song you love, close your eyes, breathe and feel the music in your body. Now you are ready to go deeper.
- Spend five minutes, simply breathing and listening to your own breath in silence. If unwelcome thoughts come along, simply breathe them out – breathe in peace, breathe out distractions. Remember you are not your thoughts, you are simply observing them.
- Choose one question you would like to focus on? (Who am I? What’s my dream? What is my purpose? What do I need to let go of in my life? What do I currently not have in my life that I would like more of?) Hold the question and allow your inner knowing to rise – work with the same question for one week and see what wants to be revealed. Some questions can be lifelong companions. Learn to love these enquiry questions and their meaning and you will discover many ways to rise.
- Remember, you are always at choice: What choices will you make today and from what place? Who will you be when you’re doing?
You don’t need to be a meditative monk to be mindful..
What I love about this work, is that it invites us to get creative and find new ways to work within. Some days there is a limit on time and focus, but that doesn’t mean you need to skip your inward conversation and journey.
Here is one of my quick heartfulness recovery go-to practices:
Remove screens, close your eyes, put your hand on your heart and say silently to yourself, I am here. Keep breathing and saying, I am here and observe, how you relax into this moment. Spend anything from one minute to twenty minutes doing this simple, yet powerful practice. This exercise really works, so do yourself a huge favour and engage…
This blog is part of a Powerful Conversations series written by Karen Heras-Kelly, which includes the following articles:
- Building bridges one conversation at a time
- Listen to reconnect
- Now is the time for leaders to recover to self
- When I say Powerful Conversation, you assume?
- Make your dreams bigger than your limiting beliefs
- Start by creating powerful conversations within you
You can catch up on the full series at https://www.atribecalledwoman.com/category/blog/ Karen is a Certified Professional Co-Active Coach, Leadership facilitator, meditation and creative visualisation expert. Karen is the founder of A Tribe Called Woman and the Breathe Time at work project.
Can we talk about the L(ove) word? Dare I even say it in the workplace? I feel that I must, I’ve coached hundreds of women and some men over the years who have reached the top of their game, and I realise that we all have the same road to trail.
