September Change

A friend of mine told me she cried for a whole day when her son was offered his college course of choice. She didn’t cry happy tears but cried because her baby is moving to Dublin and life, as she knows it, will be forever changed.

At this time of year, young adults move away from home to take up third level courses or full-time jobs; children start primary and secondary schools. We may notice that it is dark earlier in the evenings or that foliage is changing to more autumnal tones. September is indeed a time of change.

This month, I am encouraging you to undergo great change – that is to challenge the unhelpful habit of trying to figure out what others think of you.

Worrying and thinking about what others think of you can be a huge drain emotionally and a waste of our precious time. We never get back any of the time that we waste worrying.

I often hear sweeping statements like “everyone thinks that I’m …” or “I know what they’re thinking about me”. These statements are simply not true. Not everyone is thinking about us and we never know what is going on in someone else’s mind.

Stop paying attention to what other people think of you and, instead, pay attention to what you think of you.

I understand the concern. We want people to like us. we want to fit in. We don’t want to appear stupid or weird or different. Who wants to be the outlier?

Sad but true – other people don’t think about you all that often. People are just like you in that they are thinking about themselves and about what is going on in their own lives. Even when someone looks at you funny (according to you!) perhaps they are trying to remember whether they locked the back door or paid a utility bill or they might be trying to figure out whether the car insurance is due for renewal!

We go about our daily lives with oodles of thoughts racing through our minds. Life is busy. Not everyone is thinking about you even when you think they are.

Shift your focus. We cannot stop worries from popping into our minds, but we can decide to focus our attention elsewhere and not give those worries so much airtime. Change your attention to something more helpful and positive.

Remind yourself that we all make mistakes. It is part of being human. Some mistakes are way bigger than others with life-altering repercussions. It does not matter what you have done, you are never the first to do it! You won’t be the last person to make a mistake or to say the wrong thing.

Try to pay attention to what you think about you rather than trying to figure out what others think of you. Get worries off your chest by telling someone trustworthy. A problem shared is a problem over which you gain perspective.

Pay attention to the things that you get right and to how you treat others. Being kind and compassionate are more relevant than the human mistakes that you make.

www.carolinecrotty.ie

Breathing Meditation

Information Overload isn’t new. It has more recently changed so that now, rather than have too many books to read, we have technology demanding our attention. We too are demanding of attention or potentially vying for the attention of others on social media. We are slowly learning that too much screen time may affect our attention span. Learning To Pay Attention to ourselves is beneficial and using a breathing meditation is time spent caring for you i.e. self-care.

Self-care is not self-indulgent, it is vital. Depending on our age, we may not have been taught about self-care in school but as adults, we independently learn that in order to give our best we must care and look after our bodies and minds.

A short breathing meditation can help us relax, gain focus and manage our worries or stressful thoughts.

I am not a mindfulness teacher neither am I am meditation master. My training is in counselling and psychotherapy. However, in my experience, when we learn how to focus our minds on something other than worry or bothersome thoughts, our attention can be a remarkably useful tool.

We can’t stop thoughts or worries from popping into our minds but what do we do with them once there? We can allow any thoughts to be present, while we learn how to bring our attention to our breath.

Using a meditation exercise can help us to be present in the here and now and not back in the past or flying off into the future, not caught up in our imagination. This is not about controling our thoughts or getting rid of them.

Mindfulness involves practicing bringing our attention back to the present, to the here and now – whenever it wanders off.

As an analogy, attention is like a muscle. If we don’t regularly use the muscle, it can become weaker. However, with regular exercise we can strengthen and build it.

Meditation exercises, like learning any new skill, require practice. Here’s one that takes only three minutes initially which, in time, can be increased to ten mins twice per day. In my experience, allowing ourselves even a couple of minutes every day to mindfully breathe is beneficial and relaxing.

Sit in a chair and get yourself comfy. Pay attention to your body and ask yourself, “what do I feel right now? What are my feelings? And what are my thoughts?” Pay attention to your thoughts and feelings and to all the sensations in your body. Describe these experiences to yourself. Don’t judge or alter anything. Accept. Spend up to one minute doing this.

Bring your focus of awareness to your breath. Focus on the sensations of your breath as it enters and leaves your tummy. Bring your awareness to the sensations of movement in your tummy and allow your thoughts to go, to leave you as you breathe. Breathe in as you say ‘relax’ and on each exhalation say “calm”. If your mind wanders, do not try to change the thoughts or make them leave. Acknowledge their presence, allow them to be there, then allow them to go, returning your attention and focus to your breath and breathing. Spend up to two minutes doing this.

Extend your awareness to sensing your whole body breathing. Become aware of sensations throughout your body. If your mind wanders to various thoughts or feelings, acknowledge them and let them go and return your focus to sen1sing your whole body breathing. Spend about two mins doing this.

As you become more familiar with this skill of “letting go”, wherein you choose to notice but let go of thoughts, emotions or sensations, this is the ideal time to increase the time. Acknowledge and appreciate what you are doing, allowing yourself time to settle your mind, to breathe, to pay attention to you.

Attention is like a muscle and with regular exercise, a muscle works really well! Breathing meditation is the same – the more often you allow yourself time to do it, the easier it gets as the more skilled you become!