Turbo Mindfulness
Throughout the day, we have to make some very high-power decisions. There are many things that we have to deduce, look through, overview, and decide on. Some of these decisions involve great stakes, a lot of people, and a lot of responsibilities. There's this very intense pressure that we're carrying around in ourselves at all times. Even when we try to de-stress and let go, and come back into our homes or relaxing environments, there's this residue of tension within ourself. It manifests into four levels of reality: physical, physiological, mental, and emotional.
Most of the time, when we're making decisions, inside of our consciousness, we're looking at all the scenarios of, “What could go wrong?” This mechanism is happening because we are wired to protect ourselves.
The challenges and difficulties of making decisions cause our mammalian self to create subtle contractions and strains in our body.
You've heard the saying, “This person's got a tight ass.” Well, of course they've got a tight ass, because their anus is contracted, and it's contracted because that area of the body is a survival centre, housing our primal fear.
When we're making decisions, and we're going, “Is this safe for me or is this not?” “Will this bring greater return based on the risk involved?” That survival instinct and sense of potential danger is manifesting on multiple levels.
At a physiological level, it's happening with our breath. When there are high intensity, high-stakes decisions, our breath gets tighter; it contracts, we speed up more. There’s much information out there regarding the scientific physiological effects of this state – hormones, brainwave rhythms – but boiling it right down, the breath lets you know how present you are.
If you're oscillating at a very fast frequency, breathing with intensity or unconsciousness; if your heartbeat’s up, and there's tension in your body, you’re probably going to be making a lot of decisions that you shouldn't be making. Because of the frequency of living in that space, it’s more challenging to access greater wisdom. The depth of your knowingness is shrouded, and filled with interference patterns. Your power, presence, and confidence become muted.
This energy could be evoked from people around you, from the news, from the environment, from the stats and numbers you've looked at today; for many, many reasons.
It's our responsibility as awake entrepreneurs, as leaders, to be able to notice, slow down, and have self-awareness.
It's not just about mindfulness, it's about full body-mind-soul awareness, my friend.
If you would like to give yourself this gift of awareness, take a moment now and scan your physical body, from the bottom of your feet to the top of your head. Imagine a laser scanner or a photocopier machine, with a bright light that goes back and forth. Imagine that it's going all the way up and down your body. Inevitably, you'll find places that you're physically holding tension.
Found a spot? Slow down and start breathing deeper, noticing that area. Bring your attention fully into where you're tight within your musculature. This is a very simple, timeless practice, always worth doing in this moment.
This scanning and awareness will automatically slow down the breath and give us deeper access to wisdom; a cleaner awareness of reality, without the overlay of reactivity and interference patterns.
Now, we can go deeper into the mental level. Our mind is always looking for some way to gain more freedom, to gain more advantage. It's constantly worked up trying to achieve these goals.
The way to start to relax the mind is to go peripheral with your vision.
Take a moment and allow your vision to go peripheral, meaning, expand your point of view. You could do this with your eyes open or closed. If your eyes are closed, it's called meditation. But don't just sink and fall inward, continue to expand outward, until you are aware that there is no edge; you’re edgeless.
When you're relaxed in this place, when you allow your peripheral vision inwardly or outwardly, eyes open or closed, to become spacious, the mind naturally slows down.
Then, we can see the mind as it appears, rather than being caught up and drawn into the drama of the mind, as the actors that we are playing out in everyday reality. We all play character roles, but this is a time to leave the character alone. Let your mind rest and relax into the who and what you are – prior to any labels, conditioning, frames, or viewpoints. Without all that, you're still there.
Who you are is the consciousness, who is aware of thinking. Put your attention on that one, and expand open as that.
You've become present in this moment, using a couple of techniques to relax, scan, and feel.
The way our body, breath, and mind express tension is all connected to the emotional level of reality. We must look at our emotions in order to bring about a greater depth of presence, awareness, and clarity. Powerful decision-making comes from your depth of emotional centeredness. It's essential.
What are your emotions right now, what are you feeling within yourself?
Is there any discord, tension, anger, resentment, frustration, animosity, worked-up-ness, anything you're holding in, that stewing underneath your skin?
Are there any types of feelings of loss, betrayal, guilt, unworthiness, happening in you? Do you feel any of these things at all, even subtly?
This level of tension is all connected to your emotional body. The way to start relaxing its grip on you is to realize that wherever you're worked up in your emotions, is because you have attributed units of importance to that experience.
Whatever feeling you’re holding may seem very important to you. But trust me, five, ten years from now, you're going to look at whatever challenge you might be having as a learning experience. I guarantee that you have already experienced this; where there was an intense challenge in the past, now there is great wisdom.
You can start unraveling this tension right now, by looking at your emotions and feeling for them, and asking, “Where am I adding way too much importance?”
Where are you attached to emotions that are just characters and identities?
You can give yourself the gift of saying, I don't need to get embroiled in this. I don't need to get stirred up by this individual, what they've said, or what they've done. I can start letting go of the things that draw me and pull me in.
The prices of this, the politics of over there – everyone has a way to get snagged emotionally. It's time to master ourselves, and not allow anyone, or anything, from outside or inside, to snare us up into any type of volatility.
We can choose to be buoyant in our emotions, allowing ourselves to feel everything, whatever is there fully, without any resistance, knowing it carries great wisdom for us if we allow ourselves to face it. Face any images that are there with your emotions, any thoughts that are there, and any body sensations.
When we go deep into this realm of self-awareness, addressing our tension on all four levels of our reality, we open. Something emerges from within us; the presence that is who we truly are.
You are not your tension, your thoughts, your experiences or your emotions. You are the one that has the capacity to experience and feel all of this. And from this place of centredness, from this source of infinite awareness, you can make decisions with clarity, with ease, and with precision.