TRIAL
Before You Begin
Working Through the Workshop & Your Mind.
Before you begin: let’s take a few deep, grounding breaths. Place one hand on your heart and the other on your stomach, close your eyes, breathe in deep, hold, direct your awareness to your heart, and release. Repeat until you feel centered and relaxed.
Welcome to the RE SELF Mindset workshop. As the first workshop in the Mind series, this workshop will guide you to reclaim your mind as a tool that works for you rather than against you. To help you get comfortable, in the right space (mentally and physically), and get the most out of this experience, here are some tips to make it most impactful:
Be Open
No matter what current mindset you bring to this workshop, the important thing is that you feel inspired to evolve your mindset enough to utilize this experience. Embrace those feelings by remaining open to the process, even when things get difficult or uncomfortable.
Choose a Suitable Environment
Where you do the workshop is equally as important as to how you do the workshop. Pick a physical space that is comfortable, safe, and calming. Make sure you won’t be interrupted, distracted, or disturbed. Maybe this means doing the workshop on your computer instead of your phone, silencing notifications, and placing your phone out of sight so you are not tempted. Set whatever necessary boundaries for yourself, with yourself and others to create an environment for you to center within.
Create Your RE SELF Ritual
This is time for you, with you. Make it a ritual. Your state of mind and environment will help you get into the mode each time you sit down to do a lesson. Add whatever else will help your center and be at ease to support your ritual. Maybe it’s lighting some candles, creating a dim environment, using essential oils, or having plants or crystals around you. All of these elements are intentional actions that have meaning and purpose. Now all you need to do is create consistency to truly make it a ritual. Consistency is key; consistency is medicine.
Increase Impact with Discipline
Discipline empowers your ability to show up for yourself, keep your commitment to yourself, and continually take action in the direction you want to move. Discipline empowers you to do what needs to be done, even when it’s difficult or you lack motivation, which inevitably happens. Discipline empowers balance and freedom.
Whether you consider yourself a planner or spontaneous, creating a schedule will help you keep your commitment to yourself. Maybe you want to do a lesson a day, maybe you want to do one lesson a week to give yourself space and time to digest the lesson and see what you notice in your life - whatever it is, create a schedule. Put it in your calendar and set reminders or alerts.
You may need to adjust your schedule - life happens, be open and flexible. If for some reason you miss your scheduled day, reschedule, make sure you have a plan to keep going. The important thing is that, once you establish a stride, no matter how small, you stick to it. Part of caring for and respecting ourselves is keeping commitments that we make to ourselves. Every lesson is a chance to show up for yourself. Every completed lesson demonstrates to yourself that you can depend on yourself and you are committed to creating and living your life in your own authentic image.
If you have a tough day, pause and consider whether working in the workshop will help you. Sometimes it can be too much, other times, the workshop is a great way to reconnect with the promise of the present and your ability to create change in your life at any given moment. Use this experience to strengthen your ability to hear and honour your inner guidance and needs, while understanding which days call for more discipline and which days call for more rest. If one day you are thinking about not keeping your commitment, ask yourself, “is 30 minutes too much for me to give to myself for my well-being and evolution? Is there really anything more important than that?”
Actively Engage with the Lessons
There are seven lessons in the workshop. Each lesson builds on the last, so do them sequentially and of course, do all that is included in each lesson:
Read the quote. Let it resonate with you. If it speaks to you, write it down.
RE LEARN grounds each lesson in knowledge and wisdom about the topic at hand. Listen to the audio and/or read the material, maybe jot down points you want to remember.
REFLECT personalizes the material to your unique circumstances. Consider and answer the questions honestly and thoroughly.
RE DO integrates each lesson through a different practice to put it into action in real life, outside the platform. Listen to the audio and/or read about the practice in RE/DO and do the practice. Write down the practices you find helpful so that you can utilize them as you see fit.
Write it Down
Writing is an integral part of your work in the workshop. It’s well documented that writing things down by hand versus typing establishes better memory. Using a physical notebook enhances the ritual and integration into your physical being and way of life (as opposed to the digital world). Keep a notebook handy to write down anything that inspires and resonates with you, that you want to dive deeper into and revisit at another time. By writing in a notebook, you can realign to the perspectives and practices that empower your well-being and evolution as needed, outside of and after the workshop. This is a powerful thing. Writing it down, all of it, is a powerful thing.
If you really prefer digital, try recording yourself talking through your REFLECT answers. If that’s not comfortable for you and you prefer to write digital notes, go ahead. It is not recommended to just think through your REFLECT answers. Remember, the more actively you engage with the material and workshop elements, the more ingrained and integrated it is with you and your way of life.
Some of your reflections may bring up heavier things that are difficult to revisit or write down. You may be hesitant to write on these topics and feel as if you are solidifying them by writing them down. When you write about difficult things, you actually get them out of your head and find release. When you give difficult emotions, beliefs, experiences, or patterns of behavior words and get them out of your head and put them on the page, you come face to face with them in a more objective way (not granted by just thinking about or trying to avoid them). What was once entangled inside of you, is disempowered by expressing it outside of you. Seeing the words on the page can empower you to know and choose the way to change instead of carrying the weight of difficult things inside. Challenge yourself to express these heavier things as equally as you do those lighter things. Know that it will benefit you far more than the momentary discomfort of writing it down or the longer pain of it remaining tangled inside. Honour what you need during and after those moments, maybe it’s some extra deep breathing, calling a trusted loved one, or even getting support from a professional. Do what you need to be gentle and loving with yourself and these tender areas. When you write things down you can reference them - the uncomfortable and the empowering - all as teachers. You can see how far you've come, because, with consistency, you will transcend your difficulties only by facing them.
And remember: your work in the workshop is what makes change happen. You can do this! You've done the hardest part - you've begun.
Your Mind // Mindset Workshop Introduction
Our mind is made up of many different elements and influenced by many different functions of our brain. We are constantly interpreting and filtering experiences through our own unique point of view. Our state of mind consists of our emotional and mental state at a particular time. Our mindset consists of our thoughts, beliefs, ideas, established outlook and attitudes we hold about ourselves, life, reality, etc., both conscious and unconscious, that accumulated over the course of time. Our mindset influences not only how we experience our lives, but also how we show up and live our lives; our state of mind and mindset are fundamental to our being, our lives, and our experiences.
Until now, you may have never paused to objectively consider what state your mind is in or what mindset you currently hold. Except, perhaps, you've noticed how your mindset tends to make you feel, negatively and positively, and impacts your life, negatively and positively. Thus, depending on our mindset, it can produce a garden of flowers from our thoughts or it can produce a bed of weeds. Neuroscience research shows that the majority of our thoughts are both repetitive and generated by the subconscious. On average, we have about 12,000 to 60,000 thoughts per day - according to a study, on average, 80% are negative, and 95% are exactly the same repetitive thoughts as the day before. (See footnote 1) In addition, it is estimated that 95% of our decisions are the result of our subconscious. (See footnote 2) The subconscious can consist of habits, memories, learned knowledge, beliefs, patterns of behavior, and past experiences, to name a few. So what does that mean for our mindset?
First, it means that cultivating our mindset begins with consciousness, meaning in this case, awareness. Honing objective awareness of our thoughts, beliefs, and patterns of behavior generates useful information that we can then use to redirect and cultivate our thoughts, beliefs, and patterns of behavior in the direction we want to go, using them to help us get there (rather than keeping us from there). In order to determine whether we are planting flowers or weeds with our thoughts, we have to be aware of what these thoughts, beliefs, etc. are that dominate how we think, speak, and act. We grow aware of our thoughts, watching them, by training ourselves as an observer. Objective observation, as opposed to being caught up in our repetitive thoughts, results from bringing awareness to our thoughts, feelings, decisions, actions, beliefs, and patterns of behavior, allowing us to act from an aware and empowered place. With awareness, we can observe, question, challenge, and shift our mindset by discerning what keeps our mindset open (which we will hold on to and cultivate more of) and what creates a closed mindset (which keeps us stuck and so we will let go of it).
Second, it requires us to be utterly compassionate and honest with ourselves. Compassion and honesty help us to avoid creating a dictator in our minds or misleading ourselves in our quest to better understand ourselves, our actions, and the world around us. Being objective in our observations, helps us refrain from judgment, which gets in our way and causes us to be closed-minded. Accepting ourselves in entirety, all of our experiences, patterns of behaviors, beliefs, positive and negative, relieves us to be more understanding and compassionate and thus, more open, objective, and flexible. We wouldn't be who we are today without all that and who we are today, as we are, is who we want to befriend. By befriending our present self, starting with this essential element - our mind and mindset, we can work with it, rather than against it. In turn, this will shift how we show up and how we treat others more compassionately and kindly because we are being more compassionate, kind, and understanding with ourselves.
Cultivating a practice of awareness, starting with our mindset, will have profound effects on our personal evolution and well-being. Feeding that which opens us up, positively impacts the way we think, speak, act, behave, and, in turn, positively impacts our present moment and future. By making our mindset and state of mind a garden, we befriend ourselves and our mind and inner world becomes a sanctuary, as opposed to a place we may have once feared.
Most of us weren’t taught how to do this or why it’s an important part of our development as beings. As we developed and matured, we accumulated ideas, beliefs, and patterns of behavior that helped us do the best we could with what knowledge we had. But now, we are going to dive into our depths and nurture what is necessary for us to heal and continue to evolve. It is a process; one that has no end because our potential has no end. It is never too late, no matter how fixed or permanent things seem. As we go deeper within, we reach the more subtle levels from which these old perspectives stem from. This is nothing to fear or shy away from because it is through this inquiry that we will bring new understanding and perspectives for our continuing evolution and well-being. At our subtle level, we simply exist, as a whole. To understand and embody our wholeness, we are zooming in on an essential dimension of our whole self - our mind. As we continue zooming in, we direct our attention to our mindset, to assume our active understanding and ownership of this dimension of our wholeness. From here, everything else is malleable, including our perception of ourselves, others, the world, and life. As we align with our depth and awareness, we gain deeper perspective, fulfillment, and meaning that empowers change within and throughout ourselves and our lives. This workshop will guide you through this process, with reflections and practices that support you living and thriving in this state.
We've just touched the surface of how much mindset impacts everything in our entire being and lives. We have the power to build a garden of flowers with our mindset. With this workshop, you’ll be planting flowers and doing some weeding while exploring your mindset in depth with the following lessons:
Thinking: Understand the impact and inner workings behind your thoughts to empower your active role in shaping your mind
Awareness: Reposition yourself in the seat of awareness - the fundamental step to shift your thinking, mindset, and experience
Overthinking: Overthinking, fear, and worry distort your mindset and experience; learn how to overcome these tendencies in your thinking and experiences
Thoughts & Words: The words you speak become the house you live in - learn how to make it beautiful, intentional, and authentic
Open Mind: Openness allows you to flow with and access all of the limitless possibilities of life; it begins in your mind - discover just how open you can be as you cultivate and strengthen your open mind
Optimism: Understand the essential role optimism plays in your mindset and how it can profoundly shift your experience and life
Nurturing the Garden: Learn how to continually nourish your mindset throughout the day to stay on your path, empower your well-being, and evolve
You will learn how to cultivate a balanced, open mindset through consistent reflection and practice. Consistency here is key. You are your greatest asset. Your potential is unlimited. Your thinking is also a limit and obstacle to overcome. This workshop will empower you to overcome your obstacles and embody your unlimited potential at the subtle level of your mind by planting flowers with your thoughts and balancing your mind with your heart, logic with intuition, to work together. Slowly, there will be a melting away of all that keeps you from truly knowing yourself, your wholeness, and life itself. All that antagonizes you in this way can be released; this journey of personal well-being and evolution begins by evolving your mindset. You're on the path. Happy travels!
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Footnotes
1. Antanaityte, Neringa. Mind Matters: How To Effortlessly Have More Positive Thoughts. Tlex Institute. https://tlexinstitute.com/how-to-effortlessly-have-more-positive-thoughts/.
2. From Love to Voting: Who Really Decides, You or Your Brain? CBC News. https://www.cbc.ca/natureofthings/features/my-brain-made-me-do-it-who-decides#:~:text=According%20to%20Eagleman%2C%2095%20per,free%20will%20out%20the%20window.&text=Even%20the%20researchers%20found%20the,strongly%20prepared%20by%20brain%20activity.
To see how your mindset shifts from the workshop, take this quick Pre-Workshop assessment.
Once you access the full workshop and complete it, you will take another assessment and be able to compare the answers.
Lesson 1 // Thinking
Understand the impact and inner workings behind your thoughts to empower your active role in shaping your mind.
RE LEARN
Before you begin: let’s take a few deep, grounding breaths. Place one hand on your heart and the other on your stomach, close your eyes, breathe in deep, hold, direct your awareness to your heart, and release. Repeat until you feel centered and relaxed.
Our conscious and subconscious thoughts are powerful entities. They shape our perception and interpretation of reality that then impact our actions. We are not our thoughts and yet, we so easily get wrapped up in each thought that floats by our awareness (which we’ll dive deeper into in the next lesson), as though the thought is an extension of us. We are the thinker and the observer, aware of the thoughts. So often we identify with the thinker and forget the power of observation, of identifying with our awareness.
The brain develops patterns of thinking based on repetition. These patterns affect our communication, actions, habits, behavior, beliefs, perceptions, attitudes, and emotions. This repetition programs these thought patterns, perceptions, and interpretations that, over time, become a part of our subconscious, that we then act from. As psychiatrist and psychoanalyst Carl Jung once said, "Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate.” When we consider this, it becomes very clear how important our thoughts are.
As we learned in Your Mind, It is estimated that 95% of brain activity is unconscious. This can result in, for example, unconsciously acting from patterns of thought developed since childhood that do not serve us. Along our journey to who we are today, we've picked up ideas, beliefs, behaviors, habits, perceptions, and attitudes that are in our subconscious. We act from them out of default, even if they cause us to suffer or remain stuck. If old subconscious patterns, beliefs, and negative or unproductive thoughts are fired and wired over and over again, then we can easily feel stuck, as if we're going in circles. But the subconscious isn’t all bad. In fact, in many ways, it is our friend. Imagine having to consciously remember to breathe all day long. Consider how much that would detract from the plethora of other ways we could use our brain and energy. Empowered by new knowledge, we can actually use our conscious awareness to “rewire” that which is unhelpful in our subconscious. When we bring our awareness to what we think and consume - and in turn, process subconsciously - we can actively feed and cultivate a mindset that works for us, rather than against us.
Imagine the brain is a field of grass. Our thought patterns are paths in the grass. The more a path is walked, the more worn it becomes, and the easier it is to follow the path. If, for example, I’ve noticed that the peacefulness I’m trying to cultivate is easily thrown off while I’m driving, I can use my awareness to objectively observe what thought patterns occur while this peace is disrupted. From my observations, I can choose to feed peace with my thoughts because my objective observations help me see it is more important to me to be at peace than to continue to feed old thought patterns or beliefs. Once I notice that whenever someone cuts me off, stops short, is driving too slowly in front of me, or tailing me, I think very aggressively or defensively, I can choose to not react from that worn pattern of thinking and instead open up to consciously perceive the situation from a heart-centered, understanding approach. I respond rather than react, and think instead, “Perhaps that person is having a bad day and is late, I feel for them. I’ll arrive at my destination when I get there; there is no rush. My focus and attention is here in this car and I choose to enjoy my drive and feed peace.”
Curiosity allows us to deviate from the worn path. When we use our awareness to notice, and then we get curious about whatever it is, beyond our immediate perception or interpretation, we open ourselves up to the entire endless field of grass rather than the narrow limits of a few worn down paths. Our brains are incredibly adaptive; we can mold and shape our mindset into whatever we wish. This is called neuroplasticity. The brain benefits from learning; it creates new connections and develops new pathways (literally called neuropathways, just like the path of grass)! We can always form a new path, starting with this very moment. Cultivating a new mindset is the result of consistently deciding to walk the new paths time and time again.
Thoughts, from our conscious or subconscious mind, are connected to feelings. How we think affects how we feel and how we feel affects how we think. By bringing awareness to how we think, we bring awareness to how our thoughts connect with how we feel. By actively cultivating a mindset of our choosing, our feelings follow in accordance with that mindset. We can use our awareness of our feelings to determine what thoughts we are having that contribute to those feelings. Conversely, we can notice what feelings are cultivated through positive thought patterns. For example, if I want to feel peaceful, I can use my awareness to notice what does and does not cultivate feelings of peace both in my thoughts and perceptions of my experiences.
It's not always easy. There are experiences that trigger us to act from a pattern of behavior that we may no longer wish to perpetuate. That is where awareness and consistency come in. We can bring awareness to a situation, even if, at first, it is after the fact, through compassionate, non-judgmental reflection. We can recognize the trigger and decide how to show up differently next time. We try again to walk our new path. We continue our practice. We are compassionate, honest, consistent and patient with ourselves. Over time, we will see our awareness permeate into those difficult moments and be able to respond and take the new path in the moment, instead of reacting from an old one.
Playing an active role in shaping our minds is essential. Our active role is what allows us to choose our perception and interpretation of our personal reality. This can make a HUGE difference. Just as we said before, when we shift our mindset, we open ourselves up to the entire endless field of possibilities that permeates throughout every experience and our lives. It starts with our active awareness (as opposed to passiveness) of what we consume, learn, and the paths we feed through thoughts, words, and actions. From our awareness and active role, we choose the paths we cultivate. It is the difference between continually shaping and programming our minds for ourselves in the present moment or having our mind programmed by someone else and past experiences. With our constant and consistent effort, we break free of old patterns and cultivate the mindset of our choosing. As Erica Spiegelman reminds us in The Rewired Life, “by mastering your mind, you master your life.”
REFLECT
Answer the following questions in your notebook, a piece of paper, or record yourself talking through your answers on your phone and read over or listen to your answers when you’re done.
Dig Deep. Be honest. Be compassionate. Be objective. Take responsibility and accountability. It is of no help for us to be judgmental of ourselves or direct blame elsewhere. You got this!
1. What is my current state of mind, my emotional and mental state at this particular time? What is my current mindset - the established set of attitudes I hold? When does my mindset create peace, hope, love, understanding, openness, and kindness; when does my mindset limit me by creating unbalance, fear, hatred, judgment, chaos, and closed-ness?
2. What are some old patterns of behavior, beliefs, ideas, attitudes, and perspectives I can identify that are keeping me stuck?
3. What might I be consuming, feeding, entertaining, or perpetuating that keeps me stuck in old patterns?
4. What ideas, beliefs, thoughts, and behaviors are perpetuated in my mind that are, in fact, not even my own? (For example, if you experience self-doubt, is this doubt coming from you, or from people in the past who doubted you? a.k.a. is this a learned behavior or beliefs?)
5. What is my current level of awareness when it comes to how I am thinking and my mindset? Do I bring my awareness to the present moment to recognize when I am acting or reacting from a subconscious pattern? Do I reflect and recognize the trigger and my reaction? Do I compassionately determine another approach for next time? What might need to change in this regard?
6. How do I want to feel? What do these feelings tell me about the mindset I am going to cultivate and the thought patterns that will contribute to these feelings?
7. Why is it important to me that I bring awareness to, observe, and cultivate my mindset? What is my purpose in doing so? Why am I cultivating my mindset?
8. How can I embrace curiosity more? What am I currently curious about? What can I do to feed those curiosities? How can taking action on my curiosities contribute to my mindset?
9. What role does consistency play for me in this process? What are typical ways I struggle with consistency? What will I do to prevent and recover from those?
RE DO
1. Set a timer for three minutes or play this three minute sound bath when you are ready:
2. Sit quietly in a comfortable position, close your eyes, and draw your focus to your breath. If you are familiar with meditation and breath-work, try focusing on your exhale while allowing your inhale to simply just be. With every breath, try to touch it, be aware of it, follow it in through your nose, down your throat, into your lungs. Feel the space within you expand. Hold. And slowly release and follow the air out of your body, through your throat to your nose.
As you breathe, thoughts will float into your awareness. When they come in, be aware of them, recognize them, and in a compassionate, understanding, friendly, and non-judgmental tone, remind yourself: "thinking." And return your focus to your breath.
Each time a new thought arises say to yourself "thinking," and return your awareness to your breathing. It’s okay if you get lost in thought, when you realize this happened, remind yourself “thinking” and return your awareness once more to your breath.
3. When the three minutes are over, reflect on what you noticed during and after the practice and how you feel. How can you take what you learned in this exercise into your practice of cultivating your mindset?
No need to feel discouraged if this practice was difficult - allow yourself to get the hang of it by trying it a couple of times. As you get acquainted with the practice, feel free to increase the length of your practice. Like weight and repetitions at the gym, we increase our strength and ability by increasing the challenge.
This exercise is a way for us to practice, out of context, what we are doing as we cultivate our mindset. It is a wonderful exercise to do any time you wish to practice and strengthen these abilities and/or you find yourself overwhelmed, out of touch, and stressed.
This practice is adapted from Shamatha-Vipashyana meditation in Pema Chödrön’s The Wisdom of No Escape.
In Your Day-to-Day
Your thoughts are incredibly powerful entities of which you are the observer and master (not the thoughts)
Observe your thoughts to notice the patterns, beliefs, and perceptions that no longer serve you
Be curious and open to expand beyond limiting thinking, judgments, perceptions, and beliefs
Actively choose to feed and cultivate your thoughts, which will positively affect the loop between your thoughts and your feelings
Use the breathing practice from RE/DO to realign, recenter, and empower yourself as the observer first thing in the morning, when you have a few moments during the day, want to recenter, and are feeling overwhelmed by emotions or stress
Lesson 2 // Awareness
Reposition yourself in the seat of awareness - the fundamental step to shift your thinking, mindset, and experience.
RE LEARN
Before you begin: let’s take a few deep, grounding breaths. Place one hand on your heart and the other on your stomach, close your eyes, breathe in deep, hold, direct your awareness to your heart, and release. Repeat until you feel centered and relaxed.
Our thoughts are not "bad." As we pay more attention to our thoughts and mindset, it can be easy to pass judgment on these thoughts and ourselves. “Nothing is good or bad but thinking makes it so.” - William Shakespeare. Our thoughts form judgments that ascribe meaning to the subject of our judgment. Thus suspending judgment begins with the nature of our thoughts. As we discussed in Thinking, we are both the thinker and the observer.
Our thoughts can take us on trips of discovery and inspiration, lead to innovation, creation, and understanding. At the same time, we can get so caught up in our thinking, so singularly focused, that we close ourselves to the vastness of life and the limitless potential of the present moment. When we are caught up in our thoughts like this, we identify with the thoughts as though they are us. When this happens we forget that we play an active role in this process - that it is possible to exercise mastery over our thoughts and minds. We forget that we are the observer, not the thoughts themselves nor the emotions they evoke. We are thinking and feeling; and we are consciousness in the seat of awareness, of observation.
By practicing getting into the seat of the observer - using awareness - we are able to position ourselves with the vantage point of this perspective that is always available for us to access. Utilizing our awareness helps us cultivate our ability to put distance between our thoughts and ourselves; we find our way out when we utilize awareness when we are caught up and feel ourselves closing. The more we sit in the seat of awareness, the more this translates beyond our thoughts and mindset into our everyday, present reality. We open up to witnessing life unfolding with curiosity, peace, and trust, through the ups, downs, and in-betweens.
What Awareness Feels Like
At its core, awareness is a way to experience wholeness within ourselves and throughout the present moment as it all occurs together, our inner and outer experiences, all at once. We are going to do a guided exercise to feel what it is to experience, embody, and expand awareness, to be in the seat of the observer. (You can always walk yourself through this practice whenever you need, with the following steps)
Step 1: Close your eyes and focus your awareness on breathing
Feel your chest rise and fall as you breathe. Maybe you feel your heart beating. Maybe you feel your pulse. Feel the subtle vibration of your living body as it goes about all its processes.
Step 2: Shift your awareness to the space inside of you
Feel the space behind your eyes. Feel the space around your heart. Feel the space that exists within.
Step 3: Expand that space outside of your body
As you are aware of the space within, expand that awareness externally. Feel the boundary between your body and your environment dissolve. Feel yourself as boundaryless.
Step 4: Feel yourself just being
Feel what it is to just be in awareness. You are awareness. Right now, you are experiencing your pure awareness, your existence, purely being.
When we are in our thoughts, as opposed to observing our thoughts, we are engulfed in them; we form judgments, cling to attachments and stories, and close ourselves off. Whether we want to be engulfed in our thoughts or not, we can find ourselves clinging to our thoughts, beliefs, even our ideas of who we are. When we cling, we close. When we resist, we close.
Imagine our thoughts are a river and we are paddling a canoe through them. Sometimes the river is calm and gentle, other times it is chaotic and turbulent. Calm, chaotic, it's really the same thing - just a state that will, like everything, change. That is the experience of life - it is dynamic, never just one thing, always changing, always flowing. When we resist these truths, we become closed off. When we are aware of change, multiplicity, and get to know those truths, we open up. Whether calm or chaotic, we can either cling to the canoe, closed off to all that passes by and miss the full experience or we can let go and flow, going with the river, experiencing the full journey of being in the canoe. When we cling to our thoughts, to the canoe, we are stiff - the ride is unpleasant, dreadful, and anxiety-inducing. When we let go and flow as our thoughts arise, we are relaxed - the ride can be enjoyed because we surrender to the nature of the river in each moment, chaotic or calm, and we are open enough to experience it all. Our clinging to our patterns, beliefs, and perceptions can make the ride miserable, regardless of the river’s nature. Whether our default is to cling or to let go, it makes no difference - we can choose which we actively feed. Practicing awareness is the first step in making this choice of non-resistance. Eventually, the ride will come to an end, the conditions will change; we can always count on this. Our experience will be largely impacted by our mindset during the ride. The quality of the journey, with our thoughts (and our lives), depends on our level of resistance or non-resistance, closedness or openness.
It’s easy to get sucked into our conscious thinking (a.k.a. overthinking, which we will discuss in the next lesson) and stuck in our heads, subconscious patterns, and reacting instead of responding. All of these instances are like our clinging in the canoe. As we strengthen our awareness, in the moment and through reflection afterwards, we can slowly release our clinging, process everything, and be able to enjoy the ride, regardless of whether it’s calm or chaotic.
While we are practicing awareness with our thoughts, it goes beyond thoughts. Whether our thoughts or feelings, day or season of our life are chaotic and turbulent or calm and gentle, we can choose non-resistance - we can be still, fully present, fully aware, acknowledge and experience what's happening. Eventually, the conditions will change; we can always count on this. And it is life, after all, and it's ending one minute at a time. We don’t want to miss anything on this journey; we want to be open and experience it fully. Awareness is a fundamental part of living consciously. Living consciously is to live in that state of awareness that keeps us awake to the entire experience of what it means to be alive and enjoy it!
RE FLECT
Answer the following questions in your notebook, a piece of paper, or record yourself talking through your answers on your phone and read over or listen to your answers when you’re done.
Dig Deep. Be honest. Be compassionate. Be objective. Take responsibility and accountability. It is of no help for us to be judgmental of ourselves or direct blame elsewhere. You got this!
1. When do I tend to cling? When do I tend to flow? When I cling, what am I thinking and telling myself that keeps me clinging?
2. What does my clinging look like - what situations do I tend to get caught up in? How does this make me closed off?
3. How can practicing awareness in these situations help me be open and non-resistant? How would I benefit from remaining open and non-resistant, especially in difficult or unpleasant moments?
4. Bring to mind a recent unpleasant moment or situation.
How did clinging to your story of the situation, thoughts, or beliefs make the situation more unpleasant?
If you brought awareness and non-resistance to the situation, and in turn, remained open to the entire reality of the situation, how might you have shown up or processed the situation differently? How might this make the situation feel different (not pleasant, but not more unpleasant as the result of clinging)?
For example:
A loved one is angered by what, to me seems to be a silly thing to be upset over and, caught up in his anger, our communication is hostile, which makes me feel upset so I get mad at him and yell at him for being enraged.
In my clinging to my story, my limited perception and understanding of the situation, that his anger was only because of what I believed was silly, I was dismissive and didn’t even try to open and understand his experience. When our communication wasn’t what I would’ve liked, his anger feeling directed at me disturbed me - I got upset and so things grew even more unpleasant because I reacted by yelling at him.
If I was using my awareness in the moment, I would process his anger before engaging with him. This would allow me to respond differently, rather than react the way I did. (Note the difference between reacting, unconsciously without awareness, and responding consciously with awareness.) My response would be gentle and open, maybe acknowledging his anger, asking about it, and validating it. In this way, our communication could be connective rather than divisive and I could help him suffer less, even though he is upset.
RE DO
Consider an unproductive, repetitive, or negative thought you’ve been experiencing recently. Take a deep breath. Acknowledge that you are aware of your thoughts and can detach from the thought you are holding onto, just like in the canoe, we can cling and we can release.
By releasing, you can now see the thought clearly - as a thought passing through your conscious awareness. This is your chance to get curious about it - where is it coming from? how is it making you feel? Observe it objectively, rather than the subjective experience of clinging and identifying with it.
Now that you've objectively observed this thought, replace it with two or three positive thoughts or affirmations! Repeat those affirmations over and over, out loud, as you feel and visualize their sentiment becoming your reality. (This may take 10+ repetitions, so be patient, focus, and stick with it!)
If you are looking for examples, you can find some on our Pinterest and more on our Instagram. You can take these examples and adapt them to best fit you and what you are cultivating. We encourage you to write a few down in your notebook to repeat each morning right when you wake up and whenever you feel your thoughts or mindset shifts into a negative place.
It can feel difficult when we've been clinging to limiting beliefs, but by using our awareness, we open ourselves up to the entire reality, which expands beyond those limiting beliefs. You may not believe your affirmations at first, that’s okay. Old thoughts patterns and beliefs have been engrained into your subconscious, so it takes time, your awareness, and continually choosing to no longer give attention to that which no longer serves you. Be patient, stick with it, and continue to feed your affirmations.
For example:
Say I’ve just started to learn to play the guitar. At first it was exciting, but now that it’s gotten more difficult, I feel stuck. I think “I’m no good at guitar. What’s the point of practicing?” In the past, this thought would have justified why I shouldn’t practice and would have kept me from improving, maybe even causing me to quit and give up.
Now, I bring my awareness to this thought. I observe it objectively, realizing it’s simply a reaction to the difficult point I’ve reached in my learning journey. Maybe I recognize a pattern of behavior - giving up when things get too difficult because I think I cannot do it or overcome. I decide I don’t want to let this get in my way, so I withhold my resistance to the difficulties of learning a new skill and improving. I replace the original thought with a more open perspective: “I am learning. It’s not easy to learn a new instrument, but I am up to the challenge. Only by practicing will I improve. I am going to practice today and it will make me better. I don’t give up when things get difficult. I can do anything I set my mind to.”
Notice when you do this how empowered it makes you feel and how this empowerment often leads you to take productive action whether it’s practicing a new skill or hobby, for example, or simply walking away from clinging and resisting.
In Your Day-to-Day
You are consciousness in the seat of awareness
Use the awareness exercise (What Awareness Feels Like) to ground yourself in the seat of awareness, recenter your wholeness - mind, body, and soul - and find calm
Exercise awareness and presence to pause, observe and respond rather than react from thoughts, patterns, beliefs, or perceptions that keep you closed and stuck
Practicing awareness is foundational for cultivating your mindset and living consciously in connection with the vastness of life, the limitless possibilities of the present moment, and your role in shaping your experience
Use your practice of awareness and affirmations, like in RE/DO, to set your mindset for the day and whenever you are feeling stuck or experiencing negative thought patterns
Choose to redirect your attention away from the negative thought or belief after exploring where it might stem from and feed a new one with an affirmation
To continue nurturing your mindset, access the full workshop here →