Inspirations

There are moments in life that are hard, painful, scary and difficult to endure. There are times when we feel anger, anxiety, grief, embarrassment, stress, remorse or other negative emotions. In this post, Melli O’Brien from www.mrsmindfulness.com gives a 6-step process for using mindfulness to deal with negative emotions…

In these trying times we often want to escape the pain, drown it out or push it away somehow. We may begin a mental struggle with the pain trying to mentally talk our way out of it, or we distract ourselves with activities or drown it out with food or drink or something stronger.

All these ways of avoiding pain only perpetuate it in the long run. Avoidance creates suffering and keeps us from living fully this miraculous and precious life that we have.

Through mindfulness you can learn to turn your negative emotions into your greatest teachers and sources of strength.

How?

Instead of ‘turning away’ from pain in avoidance we can learn to gently ‘turn towards’ what...

We’re all dealing with stress. Day in, day out, things happen which put pressure on us. Our jobs, relationships, traffic, politics… the list goes on. These are incredibly stressful times; our lives are getting busier and busier, faster and faster.

The question is, how much is all this affecting you?

Because if you’re suffering from stress and you don’t do something about it, it is almost certainly going to impact on your health and happiness, (if it hasn’t already started to do so).

I’ve put up a quick test to find out how stressed you are on this page: https://www.surveymonkey.co.uk/r/Q8RB78L

If you’re happy to do so, please leave your score in the comments section below.

All the best,

Rob

The simple mindful breathing technique I’m going to share with you here is a natural tranquilizer for the nervous system. It can heighten performance and concentration while also being a powerful stress reliever. 

The effects are subtle when you first try the exercise but become more obvious with repetition and practice. Variations of this controlled breathing method are actually used by elite athletes to improve performance and by the military and US Navy Seals to help soldiers remain calm & focused in extremely traumatic conditions.

The technique is called Box Breathing and is best explained with the aid of the following diagram..

As you can see, the pattern is simply a box (hence the name), whereby you inhale to a count of 4, hold for a count of 4, exhale to the same count of 4 and hold again for 4. You can start at 3 if this is difficult, or take it up a notch if easy. You should be reasonably comfortable throughout the exercise – don’t stretch yourself so that breathing and/o...

Do you want to know how to make your life MUCH better and far more enjoyable in just 10 minutes per day?

By better I mean being FREE from all the nagging DOUBTS & FEARS that most of us carry to the grave. I’m talking about having utmost confidence in your capabilities and decisions so that you’ll no longer worry what people think of you, no longer think the worst about situations and no longer create make-believe catastrophes in your mind (which would probably never happen anyway).