Be important to yourself

Have you ever heard of mindfulness? Or maybe a friend told you that she meditates during yoga classes and feels calmer and more relaxed afterwards? A colleague from work meditates with an app, and a neighbor went away to spend 10 days in silence and meditate in silence?

Mindfulness and meditation are becoming increasingly popular. And that's good! It's an antidote to stress, frayed nerves, aching heads and stomachs. Mindfulness is also a wonderful method that allows you to listen more to yourself, approach your problems and pains with care, and face difficult emotions with acceptance.

What is mindfulness?

It is a state of being focused on the present moment. It is high-quality attention. A presence full of acceptance and openness to everything you feel, see, think. It is a state of heightened awareness. It is being immersed in life.

This state is the opposite of the state of action, when (often automatically and unmindfully) you let life take you over, and your mind keeps taking you on a journey into the future (planning, worrying about it or, which often happens, writing worst-case scenarios) or into the past (when you keep thinking about what you did wrong, how the situation used to be and what you could have done differently). Such contemplations, although sometimes necessary, usually cause us to cut ourselves off from life and from ourselves. We don't listen to our body, we let ourselves be carried away by emotions, the flood of thoughts doesn't let us sleep. It's worth using mindfulness, stopping, being with yourself and listening to your needs.

Mindfulness is a state that we can train in ourselves and then use whenever we need it, in moments of stress or PMS, in moments of sadness and joy, to increase this joy even more. Mindfulness is a wonderful method that can also help in a special way to recognize changes in the body and mood related to the menstrual cycle.

How can you benefit from mindfulness?

1. Increase your body awareness by practicing body mindfulness meditation.

By becoming more mindful of your body, you can more quickly notice the subtle signals your body sends you: those related to stress, your menstrual cycle, or specific people or situations.

How to do it?

Find time every day, preferably about fifteen minutes, to sit or lie down in peace. Then focus on your breath: feel it in your body, in your nose, in your lungs, in your belly. Then try to scan your body as if you had an internal scanner. Stop for a moment at each part (you can start with your feet and end with your head) and notice what you feel there. Observe these sensations for a moment with acceptance and tenderness, and then move on. You can feel heaviness, temperature, dryness or humidity, tension or relaxation, trembling or tickling, and many other sensations. Approach each sensation with acceptance, do not judge. If you feel that you are getting distracted, try to focus on your breath again for a few moments. Finally, take a few breaths and notice how you feel after this exercise.

2. Thought clouds.

If you feel like your head is full of thoughts that you can't handle, look out the window or go outside and look at the sky. Imagine that your thoughts are like clouds in the sky. They come and go, and you can look at them from a distance, without getting sucked into the stories your mind writes.

3. Waves of emotion.

Do this exercise if you're having a bad day or moment and you feel like you're flooded with difficult emotions - maybe you're angry, sad, afraid of something. Sit comfortably and start focusing your attention on your breath. If you feel anxious, you can breathe so that the exhale is twice as long as the inhale. This calms our nervous system.

Close your eyes and imagine that your breath is like waves. Waves of inhalation and exhalation. Then notice what difficult emotion you are experiencing right now, for example you are angry at something or someone. Still focusing on your breath, you can imagine that with each exhalation the anger is leaving, carried by the waves. And with each inhalation you are filled with greater peace. You exhale the anger and other difficult emotions and let in more relaxation, love and acceptance.

Breathe this way for as long as you need. And then do something good for yourself: take a walk, drink some good tea, read your favorite magazine or book. Mindfulness is a wonderful, simple tool that is worth using every day, filling your life with greater acceptance, joy and peace. Try it! If you want to use the power of mindfulness, I invite you to the program "My year of inner peace". It is a year-long program of free exercises and meditations in a group on FB, based on mindfulness and positive psychology.