Enjoy a healthier mind by developing your awareness of stress and learning how to reframe negative emotions.
Awareness of Stress.
We get stressed when things don't go our way. It is useful to understand that we probably can’t change the stressful situation, but we can change the way we relate to it.
We sense and experience stresses in many ways for example physical tension like the butterflies in the belly or a tight chest; emotions like frustration, anxiety or sadness and/or a busy or a dull mind.
We are able to change our relationship with stress with regular meditation. If we follow and calm the body, the mind can gradually calm down and the body relaxes even more. With practice, we can be at peace.
Useful tip:
It is helpful to remember that no matter how stressful the situation, calmness and clarity are the natural states of your mind. Working from this perspective will give you confidence and add to the success of the exercise.
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Practise focusing on a visualisation like sunlight pouring down into your body from above your head. You want to feel it filling your body from the toes upwards as if it was a container. As the “liquid sunlight fills you up” you sense all tension melting away in your body and mind.
Become aware of habits in your mind. Pay attention to what you do in a stressful situation. Do you ignore it or run away (resisting the emotion) or chase after the emotion. These strategies all fuel the emotion. (Or we are not aware of stress until it is bit overwhelming)?
A common pattern is to chase and fuel the emotion with thoughts, for example when you are angry, you chatter away about the situation or person and it makes you more furious. Or you might be thinking worrying thoughts when you are feeling worried. This adds stress and creates a stress response loop between sensations, thoughts and emotions. You don’t have to continue with this; instead, you can break the loop.
You can step back and be with the initial sensation or emotion. Instead of avoidance or thinking more worried thoughts and judging those thoughts like: “I shouldn’t be doing this pattern (chasing the emotion)”, you could just be smiling. You just notice, “Ah, there is that thought or feeling”, return to the visualisation OR sense your breathing.
Another useful tip:
It is helpful to see how many times you notice the “I”, “me” or “mine” in your thoughts or emotions during the day. A big part of stress is when we identify with the thought or feeling as our self. For example:
Having a thought and experience a feeling of frustration -> Thought:“I feel angry”
Instead: Having frustration -> Thought: “There is anger” ... and get back to what you were doing.
You become wrapped up in the emotion when you express it as ‘mine’ for example when you think: “I like...”, “I don’t like...”, “I feel anxious” etc.
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By skilfully placing your attention on either the visualisation or physical sensation of your breath (whatever works best for you!), you don’t give the emotion the importance of adding extra layers of complexities and it results in a lighter mind, more ease or even contentment with the stressful situation. Allowing thoughts to come and go and realising that things are always changing and underneath the turmoil is an inherent place of quiet confidence, calm and clarity.
Why does such a relaxation visualisation work in the real stressful situation?
a. The visualisation focuses your mind and changes inner turmoil. You might have to do it a hundred times, but that is the process. (You still allow thoughts and feelings to arise but come back to the visualisation.)
b. The brain cannot tell the difference between a real experience and an imagined experience. The body responds to the warmth, lightness and brightness. Scientifically, this is the holographic nature of our brains at work (We know this thanks to Prof Karl Pribram, a neuroscientist at Stanford University).
What also might be useful is realising that what you sense in your body or your emotion is experienced by million others at THIS moment (Our circumstances are different, but what we feel, is the same – the fact that you are NOT alone makes it softer and more bearable, doesn’t it?).
By focusing on others, you can forget yourself – in a healthy way J - with everybody happier and less stressed!
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Also have a look at your perspective on stress and its effects.
The Course is meant to give you or your children practical insight on how to learn more effectively and with less frustration. The lessons in this course can help in learning many different subjects and skills. Whether you love language or math, music or physics or history, you will have a lot of fun, and learn a LOT about how to study!
It is provided to students at school or university level.
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