Tag: intention

10 Reasons Why You Feel Disconnected to Life.

Do you feel out of sync, not in tune in some way to your life, your career, your relationships?

Do you feel like you are constantly thriving and never arriving at a destination or achievement that will bring ultimate joy and happiness?

Or do you feel like you have lost your energy, identity, spark and that each day you are just going through the motions?

I get it, I felt like that for a long time and living this way created a lot of stress and fear in my life. I was overwhelmed with all of the things in my life and it took me a long time to understand what was amiss.

Through a LOT of inner work, reading, learning and listening I realised that I was out of tune with myself. I was disconnected from me, the real me. I had lost sight of my unique essence and soul purpose.

I was so busy doing and following the expectations of all the people in my external world that I had lost sight of what I wanted to do or achieve in my life. I was living a life of pleasing others and forgot about pleasing myself.

When we live our life with our focus on our external world (jobs, TV, parents, teachers, partners, family, friends, money, religions etc) we detach from the inner signs and signals that our mind, body, heart and spirit is constantly communicating with us. Our external world becomes so loud that we spend our life reacting to the things around us instead of responding with intention or compassion.

Here are 10 reasons why you may be feeling disconnected in your life.

  1. You are living a very stressful life. Stress is the predominant theme in your day and from the commute to work to the deadlines and personal commitments it is all very overwhelming.
  2. Your life is on fast forward, filled to the brim with ALL the things to do. You are so busy trying to fit everything in. Your days and weeks are so jam-packed that they distract you from and limit the time you spend checking in with yourself.
  3. There is less movement throughout your day or week, probably because of 1 and 2 above.
  4. You don’t spend time in nature that often or at all. Your days are spent indoors with no fresh air or connection to the world that you live in.
  5. You have little or no time for fun and play. Maybe you can’t remember the last time you laughed or played around with something new. The seriousness of adult living has taken over and fun and play has been shunned to the side.
  6. You haven’t allowed yourself to be creative and create something new. Busy lives and jobs take up all of your time and you have put your love for drawing, music, painting, singing, crafting etc into a box under the bed.
  7. You are over-consuming information and media around you. You spend hours in front of the TV or on social media, disconnecting you further from your true self and your needs.
  8. You are living your life based on past experiences or future worries and concerns. This makes it impossible to enjoy the ride and appreciate all the wonderful people and things of the present.
  9. You’re goals are not really aligned with you, they belong to society, your parents, your boss. Have you felt yourself ticking boxes of adult life rather than living the life you want? This is because you have been working towards someone else’s goals or dreams.
  10. You don’t make time inward reflection and connection. You don’t know what lights you up or gets you down. You haven’t asked yourself what it is you want in life, work, relationships and because of this you spend your life reacting impulsively instead of responding with intention and insight.

If you want to reconnect and realign with your true self explore one or all of these 10 points. Ask yourself is this true in my life? If it is ask yourself how can you make small changes to realign with your true self.

Ultimately we do things in life to make us feel better, when we are aligned with our true self we feel better. When we are spending more of our time doing things that make us feel better then our lives look very different.

In tuning into our true self we take back our power, we feel free, joyous, peaceful and content – who doesn’t want more of that? When we are in alignment with our heart and soul we can navigate our life with intention and meaning.

Mel x

Check out more blog post like this one to take a deeper dive into realigning and remembering the real you – blog

Living with Intention

Have you ever had the intention of starting something new or doing something differently to make your life more harmonious or balanced? Perhaps your intention for the week was to be less agitated, more active, more mindful, healthier, fitter, grateful or more fulfilled. But when you arrived at the end of your week you feel anything but because life got in the way?

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3 Steps to start a Daily Mindful Practice

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Mindfulness is defined as paying attention, on purpose in the present moment, in a non-judgemental way. Mindfulness or meditation doesn’t mean sit there and think of nothing. It is simply a practice of awareness. In the practice you bring your awareness to your breath, to your body to whatever thoughts or emotions are floating around and instead of being consumed or overwhelmed by them you just observe as they pass by like clouds.

snowglobe-nail-artThink of a snow globe, when you shake it the snow goes everywhere, and it is hard to see anything except the snow. When the snow globe is placed back down, eventually the snow settles and it is easy to see again. When we are stressed, anxious, overwhelmed it is hard to have clarity about the situation or life in general. However, when we slow down, breath and allow all the thoughts or emotions to settle we can see clearly again. Our mindfulness practice allows us to do this.

There are so many benefits of practising mindfulness, here are few;

  • Less stress and anxiety. Felt not only on a mental and emotional level but felt on a physiological level from the nervous system first and then the other organs.
  • Improved focus and concentration
  • Makes us feel better, happier
  • Increased patience and compassion
  • Lowers blood pressure and regulates our heart rate
  • It calms and balances us in mind, heart and body
  • Increases our energy levels
  • Increases the strength of our immune systems

Apart from the health benefits on a physiological, emotional and mental level mindfulness practice can realign us with who we really are. Most people are running and racing from one activity to the next, never slowing down or pausing to check in with themselves. They become accustomed to stress, anxiety, ‘busyness’ or switching off in front of the TV for hours as a part of modern day living. They see and believe that they will feel better when they get over what happened in the past or reach the point in the future that will make them feel better.

sailboat

This way of thinking however is not very helpful or beneficial to us. When we think like this we are like a boat floating without a rudder in the middle of nowhere. Sure, we may be staying afloat and moving but we have no real direction or destination in mind.  Mindfulness helps us to stay in the present moment, to respond instead of reacting unnecessarily to things that bump off the side of our boat. It helps us to settle the boat when the water is rough. It fine tunes our awareness so that we can see the big waves coming towards us and instead of trying to fight the wave (that is coming either way) we let it pass and say, ‘surf’s up’ or get ready for a ‘wipe out’. It also allows us to take control of the oars or the wheel again and move toward the destination we want.

Mindfulness-Definition

3 Steps to getting started

  1. Commit

The first step in starting any new skill or habit is to commit. Commit to yourself first. Maybe even sit with your thoughts on this for a few minutes. Why do you feel drawn to this? What is your intention for this practice, what do you want to get out of it? Less stress or anxiety, more peace? Then tell a friend or a loved one about the challenge you have set yourself so that they can support and hold you accountable (in a non-judgemental way – if you feel you have no such person then you can share with me in the daily posts)

  1. Prepare

You don’t need any special equipment to start your mindful practice. You just need somewhere to sit comfortably with a straight spine (on a chair, in lotus position, on a cushion or bolster) where you won’t be distracted or interrupted. You can set the timer on your phone (then turn it on aeroplane mode) and bring your attention to your breath. If you want to light a candle or play some relaxing music this can help to get you into a relaxed state.

  1. Pick a time that will best suit your lifestyle and routines and try to stick that time as best as possible. Of course, things will get in the way but if you pick a time that is least likely to be interrupted it will be easier to establish and maintain the practice for the month and hopefully after.

Remember as with everything in life the practice is an informance not a performance, informing us of where we are at that particular day on that particular time.

Join me on my instagram page for the Mindful March  challenge and take 5-10 minutes each day for yourself to establish a mindfulness practice and reap the benefits in mind, body and soul!!! I will be sharing lots of tools and techniques each day to help you to create a practice that suits you best!

Love and Light,

Mel