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Mindfulness

Coaching InnerYoga Meditation

How to Relate to Yourself with Care Instead of Criticism.

Today-I-choose-to

You can be an active participant in your own healing and integration. One big part of that is your attitude towards yourself, it’s learning to drop the critical internal dialogue. When you get stuck in self criticism it’s just a default mode, a habit or programming that’s not actually very useful. No matter how useful you think being self-critical is, it’s REALLY NOT.

WHY you have this habit isn’t the question we need to answer.

See, you could be self critical because your parents were critical of your behavior or appearance, to themselves, to each other. You could be self critical because you think it makes you more productive or more likeable and you could think that you do it because you deserve it. You don’t deserve it!! That’s the belief we actually really need to address, the deserving piece… I invite you to feel deserving, especially when your knee jerk reaction is to criticize, nit-pick and judge yourself.

I invite you to do the opposite instead, to tell yourself ‘Today I Choose to Relate to Myself with Care instead of Criticism’. When you catch yourself being harsh, remind yourself that you deserve care, you might not believe it at first but don’t let that stop you from shifting away from the negative commentary in your head. Keep refocusing, keep telling yourself a different narrative. When we can see our own deservingness of care/kindness, amidst all our trip-up and screw-ups, we can see our fellow humans deservingness of that same quality of attention.

Basically if you beat yourself up, you are more likely to treat others poorly, you’re also more likely to have a hard time with healthy boundaries. You might either find yourself in the pushover/doormat bunch or in the overly angry/emotionally unhinged bunch. You deserve better.

Today I Choose to Relate to Myself with Care instead of Criticism.

-Love Heather

 

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Coaching InnerYoga Meditation

Meditation to Melt Away Stress

Dear InnerYogi’s,

We are mere days away from the end of the year and that means family, travel and perhaps more feelings of stress than usual.  Don’t worry though, I’ve got your back! I’ve recorded a lovely guided meditation to help you melt away holiday stress.

Whether you’re braving an airport or three, hosting out of town guests or staying home to recharge, I hope this meditation will help you melt away stress.

Quick Tip: Your mind will wander! Gently bring your attention back each time it does. Thoughts will arise and that’s really not a problem. Keep returning to my voice and my guidance, harnessing your intention when it does wander.

 

 

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Coaching InnerYoga

Let’s Face it, you’re Going to get Triggered

 

It’s a mad dash towards the winter holidays and the end of the year!

Are you spending time with family?  If so, read on. If not you can skip this one.

For most humans seeing family for any length of time means dealing with lots of difficult family dynamics.  Your buttons are probably going to get pushed. Ok they will definitely get pushed, let’s be honest.

 

Here’s the thing that aunt or parent that always drives you bananas is actually reflecting back to you how you feel about yourself.

If “they” are making you feel badly about still working for a company you dislike or “they” make you feel badly about your hoarding tendencies, your weight, your finances or your coffee/tv/wine habit etc.  The Question to ask, isn’t “Why are they always so judgmental and rude?”. But rather what part of me feels badly about my own hoarding tendencies, or badly about the state of my finances or my struggle with weight issues.

 

Shine the light of your awareness on the places that get triggered and bring the soothing salve of compassion to what you find. This is not an exercise in self judgment or self criticism but a good time to align with reality. Even if that reality is unpleasant.

Your triggers highlight the incongruencies in your actions in relationship to our best self. They are clues and should be seen as gifts on the path of awakening and accepting. Gifts that over time, allow us to pivot and choose a better option, choose again, again and again until over time it becomes our new pattern.

 

Resisting and suppressing the emotions that get triggered on the other hand is a lose-lose but unfortunately this is usually how most people handle family issues and the difficult emotions that come with them. If those emotions aren’t met in some way, than you can bet that they’re at work behind the scenes leaving us to do crazy stuff, like over-eat, fly off the handle and/or drink way too much, which again leaves us with feelings of guilt, shame and blame the next day.  Blah!

 

When your buttons get pushed here’s what to do instead:

  1. Feel the emotion, sit with it for 90 seconds without doing anything but feel it
  2. Notice where you feel it in your body
  3. Are you feeling reactive over the comment or contracted?
  4. Ask yourself “What inside me feels badly about this too?” or “What am I avoiding within here?”
  5. Hold what you find like a good friend, no judgment at all, consider shifting the pattern by working with a coach or get counsel around it from another trusted source.

 

Here is an InnerYoga mantra that I use when I’m about to spend long stretches of time with relatives, my hope is that you add the mantra below and these tips to your toolbelt and call upon them as needed.

“May I show up as my best self and my I respond from there, even if nobody else does.”

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