by Lisa
They say we should do things mindfully. Whether that be meditation, eating, yoga, parenting…
But is being mindful really the answer?
Still using our mind to meditate, eat, practice yoga and parent can feel a bit heady and may very well lead to overthinking.
What if we were to approach those things mindlessly instead?
What if we were to empty the mind and follow our instincts to a more mindless existence?
by Lisa
Oftentimes, we know what we need to do to reach our goals. But we can see ourselves taking all the steps not to achieve them.
Self sabotage is real!
And self sabotage is made up of safety reflexes – actions we unconsciously take so that we remain safe.
Our brains have an extraordinary way of protecting us from what feels dangerous. Danger can come in the form of a lot of money, visibility/attention, appearing attractive, being loud, and so on.
We all have our unique flavor of safety, and when we can see our self sabotage as safety reflexes, it can illuminate the answers that we seek.
by Lisa
My kiddo loves a book called The Little Snowplow where a snowplow is underestimated by the big trucks around him because of his size. So the little snowplow does “plow lifts” and pulls cement blocks to get stronger so he can prove all the big trucks wrong.
Every time I get to that part of the story, I think about how inaccurate it is! Machines can’t get physically stronger by stretching themselves pass their limits. They are built to spec, and while they may be able to do something outside of their weight or capacity limit, they don’t expand beyond their capacity, at least not for the long term. Getting stronger by going beyond limits is very much a human thing, not a machine thing.
Humans are meant to stretch a bit beyond comfort to get stronger, faster, better, more resilient, etc. Now, we don’t want to be put or put ourselves in situations that overwhelm us to the point of traumatizing us (that is a less than ideal way of building capacity). I’m talking about voluntarily exposing ourselves to situations that are a little outside of our comfort or self-determined “limits” to level up and then keep going and growing.
I believe one of the gifts of the human experience is that we get to grow and be stronger, faster, better, more resilient, etc. While some parts of our being may offer limitations, humans have proved time and again that we can achieve so much because there is no “spec” that we are build from.
by Lisa
The late Thich Nhat Hanh wrote, “Every person is a world to explore.”
If we could all see ourselves and one another as infinitely interesting and full of eternal wisdom, what a more peaceful, compassionate and loving world we would be living in.
by Lisa
Who do you want to become?
Who are you now?
Who were you?
Who were you before you were who you were?
And before that?
And before that?
Is it possible that you want to become who you have been all along?