Doubting Mindfulness. Looking for the Holy Grail.
How I got stuck this week and a 5 minute recording you can use to transmute a bad mood into a diamond clear mind.
Skip to recording: Transmute a bad mood into a diamond clear mind.
SITUATION
So at the start of this week I was feeling lost, doubting myself, even doubting my beloved mindfulness. Worst of all I was feeling like I shouldn't feel like this. I'm supposed to be the mindfulness teacher that is Zen all the time.
So this doubtfulness sort of was expressing itself in me as this kind of scrambling, a looking for an answer, looking for a new project, looking for a new life. Looking for some plan, for a path to appear to save myself.
I was kind of looking and hoping that this solution will appear on the horizon and there would be trumpets playing and angels singing, just like in the movie Monty Python and the Holy Grail.
But it didn’t appear. I started to accept that I wasn’t going to be rescued by clever thinking. As I worked through it I worked out the mistakes I’d made.
HOW I FIGURED IT OUT
I went to the gym. Sometimes exercising can help you feel better. Sometimes it doesn’t work and you feel more annoyed and sorry for yourself. But it helped me see how sad and frustrated I was. I started to respect the mood, started to notice the strength of those emotions. Mistake 1. Not realising the mood I was in. Trying to exercise it away.
Sauna. The heat of the sauna helps intensify the frustration. I started to accept this sadness and frustration. Mistake 2. Not accepting the mood. Still trying to control it.
I sat outside in the cold in my swimming trunks. That helped a bit. Steam evaporating. More acceptance. Connected with the feelings. Mistake 3. Still not accepting the mood fully.
Then I remembered I can transmute with feelings and mood. transmutation (noun) -the act or process of changing something completely, especially into something different. Mistake 4. Forgetting that once you connect with an energy you can transmute it!
HOW TO TRANSMUTE A MOOD
The science in brief; using the breath and relaxing the muscles changes the nervous system, the heart rate variability, blood pressure, the hormones in the blood system.
The ‘bigger than science’ part: if you change the nervous system and use the imagination you can change the thoughts, the feelings, the mood so even your negative view on reality relaxes.
TRANSMUTATION PRACTICE
Take 5 mins to yourself. Close the eyes or let them be half open and relaxed.
Listen to this recording or follow the steps below.
1. Breath in through the nose, deeply into the abdomen. Slow and smooth. Breath out through the mouth. Slow and smooth.
2. As you exhale relax the muscles around the eyes.
3. As you exhale relax the jaw and the mouth.
4. Exhale and relax the shoulders. Let them drop.
5. Exhale relax the stomach. Completely.
6. Exhale relax a certain part of the mind, that is trying, that searching.
7. As you go inwards into the body, start connecting with any mood, emotion or energies.
8. Put your hands over your face. As you connect with the energies in the body pull a face that resonates with the energy and mood. It can be a face of unexpressed anger, sadness, joy, anxiety or excitement. Keep trying until it resonates.
9. As you exhale make a sound that resonates with the energy. Try different sounds, a sigh, a sound of frustration or worry, hiss through the teeth.
10. Keep going until you feel better. Then make a sigh sound with the exhale, ah ‘ahhhhhhhh’.
11. As you breath in do so more deeply. Breathing into the heart area and the filling the torso.
12. As you breath in deeper move the shoulders back and lift the head up as if you are standing tall. On the in breath say in your mind ‘I can’ and mean it.
13. As you breath in fill the body with a cool positive energy. Let it become like a clear diamond.
14. As you exhale let go of any tension in the muscles, let go of any tension in the mind.
Let the eyes open slowly, take that positive energy and move forwards with you day.