Review
Congratulations! You've completed the Mindset Workshop!
If you wrote down your answers to the REFLECT sections, this is a great opportunity to go back and highlight/underline what it is you will work on next, themes that are repeated, etc. Perhaps you want to make a list of these few things and prioritize them. From there, think of one action for each area you want to work on that you will do to make positive change. It may be exploring and healing in these areas (which our other workshops can guide you through) or coming up with a converse action, such as, if I noticed reactivity come up a lot, I’m going to pause long enough to respond, instead.
To empower you in this, let's briefly review what we've learned in this workshop...
"Your mind is a garden. Your thoughts are the seeds. You can grow flowers or you can grow weeds.” - Osho. Our conscious and subconscious thoughts are powerful entities. They shape our perception and experience of reality. The brain develops patterns of thinking based on repetition. These patterns affect our communication, actions, habits, behavior, beliefs, perceptions, attitudes, and emotions. Playing an active role in shaping our minds' is essential. From our awareness and active role, we choose the mindset we cultivate. With our constant and consistent effort, we break free of old patterns and beliefs. As Erica Spiegelman reminds us in The Rewired Life, “by mastering your mind, you master your life.”
We can get so caught up in our thinking that we close ourselves to the vastness of life, and the present moment. We forget that we are the observer, not the thoughts themselves nor the emotions they evoke. We are simply the observer, the thinker, the feeler, the experiencer. By practicing awareness, we are able to position ourselves once more as the observer. 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.
Overthinking may give us the illusion of control. By constantly replaying and relaying thoughts or a situation in our head, we actually intensify the discomfort associated with this experience. It fans the flames of our discomfort. With our awareness, we can bring ourselves back from our overthinking and worrying. From there, we can ground ourselves in the present moment, take inventory of our thoughts, our feelings, and sit with the discomfort, rather than fanning it. When we give ourselves the space and compassion to get to know our discomfort, oftentimes we will discover things about this discomfort. Perhaps the story we were telling ourselves was far off from reality or perhaps there's a lesson to be learned (there's always a lesson when we open ourselves to everything as a teacher and fuel for our evolution).
Lao Tzu reminds us, “Watch your thoughts, they become words; watch your words, they become actions; watch your actions, they become habits; watch your habits, they become character; watch your character, it becomes your destiny.” Our destiny begins with our thoughts. What we say becomes what we do. The more we practice awareness, and in practicing, strengthen our awareness, the more our thoughts, words, actions, habits, and character can shift into alignment with openness.
Openness, to life itself, begins with an openness in our mind, with our conscious and subconscious thoughts, beliefs, and patterns. We can approach life with a mindset that accepts the duality of life, the inevitable change and challenges. We can embrace everything as a teacher and an opportunity to learn and evolve. We can sit with discomfort, befriend it as the teacher it is, and curiously explore the lessons and reflection it offers to us. We can reprogram our minds in alignment with openness in the direction of our choosing through our practices we’ve cultivated in this workshop.
Optimism is a willingness to remain open when we feel like closing. Optimism is an attitude that we can call on and nurture because, as we said before, everyone has optimism. Optimism empowers actions taken in the direction of your dreams (be those for yourself, your community, or the world); it is the fuel to making your dreams a reality because it refuses to give up the knowledge that anything is possible.
Nurturing the garden of our minds and the foundation of intention and conscious living is the result of small, daily actions. It is a practice that is strengthened with consistency.
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And let’s review the practices we've picked up to nurture the garden of our minds... (In your notebook, write down the practice that you found useful so you have them readily accessible)
"Thinking": Sit quietly in a comfortable position, close your eyes, and draw your focus to your breath. With every breath, try to touch it, be aware of it, follow it in and out of your body. As you continue to sit and breathe, thoughts will float into your awareness. When they come in, be aware of them, recognize them, and in a compassionate and understanding tone remind yourself, "thinking." Return your focus to your breathing. Each time a new thought arises say to yourself "thinking," and return your awareness to your breath.
When you're experiencing an unproductive, repetitive, or negative thought, pattern, or belief: 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 flow. Explore where that thought originates from compassionately and honestly. Replace it with two or three Positive Affirmations.
Or if you're experiencing an event, situation, fear, or worry: Get curious about it. Explore your discomfort - Ask yourself some questions and be compassionately honest... How am I feeling right now? Why do I feel this way? What might my feelings be communicating to me? How am I thinking about this that is causing me more discomfort? Why am I thinking this way? What are my feelings and thoughts telling me about how I am showing up in this situation that might need to change? Are these thoughts communicating any subconscious ideas, beliefs, or patterns that are perpetuated yet no longer serve me? Where might these have originated from? Why will releasing these help me? What can I do to starve this subconscious thinking? How can I nourish the flowers instead of the weeds in this situation? Now, how am I feeling?
Zero Complaints for 24 Hours! Shift your focus on all that you have to be grateful for. When we use our awareness in situations when we find ourselves complaining, we can acknowledge things that need a productive solution. With our ability to be aware, pause, and take inventory of the entire situation, we can openly, compassionately, and productively move forward for resolution.
When you find yourself stuck in a closed mindset, Align with an Open Mindset: Ask yourself... What are the thoughts and narrative around this that keep me closed and stuck? With my awareness and openness, what else can I see about this situation? Based on my awareness and reflection, what changes with that thinking, narrative, and perspective as it shifts towards openness? How does it feel to bring awareness and openness to this? Take a deep breath. Reread what you wrote down. Now, Take a deep breath. Answer these questions... How can I use openness to release myself from being stuck and stagnant? What do I need to do to act in alignment with this awareness and knowing? How do I need to act differently? Take action.
Defining (checking-in with, redefining) and acting in alignment with the Vision for Your Life: the truest, most beautiful life you can imagine, family, friends, community, and world. Once we get clear about these outlines for our lives, the choice is clear and it's completely up to us. Follow the outline and act in alignment with your visions to make them your reality.
To Nurture Your Garden throughout your day we have 7 practices: morning gratitude, affirmations, awareness, pausing, exploring & opening, movement, and evening gratitude. This is also the result of creating a structured, deliberate morning and evening routine for ourselves based on our own needs, feedback, and internal guidance. Figure out what works and what doesn't, what you need, add to it, detract from it, but be sure to carve out sacred time for yourself in the morning and the evening to nurture your foundation within.
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Depending on where you are in your journey, you may feel as though or find that maintaining this mindset, these perspectives, and these practices is a challenge - almost as if you’re rolling an enormous rock up a hill only to have it roll back down every time it’s almost at the top. There are many reasons we can feel like this. It is a challenge, but one that with consistency we succeed at. The point is that we don’t stop. The other moving piece here is that there is likely a lot more for you to unpack - in your mind and heart. We recommend that you utilize our “Heal” workshop in the Soul series. This workshop will significantly support you in maintaining and evolving your mindset by guiding you through an exploration of your experiences and providing a framework to compassionately understand the ways in which these experiences impacted you, your authenticity, and your patterns of behavior and beliefs that no longer serve you for acceptance, forgiveness, release, and deep healing so you can better know and meet your needs in alignment with your authentic vision for your life.
Thank you for nurturing your garden with this workshop. RE SELF appreciates and honours the privilege of walking with you on your journey. A few things before you go:
To measure the changes in your mindset from the workshop, take this quick Post-Workshop assessment →
To compare the answers between your pre- and post-workshop assessments, you received copies of your responses to the email provided.
We would be grateful if you would complete a short survey on your experience to help future RE SELF users here →
To dive deeper, explore more resources and practices, and stay on the path and keep evolving, listen to As It Goes and check out our resource Library →
Stay update with all things RE SELF by signing up for our Newsletter. You will be notified when the next workshop is available as well as other product releases.
